We as humans have become so unbearably impatient that we’ve managed to make everything ‘fast.’ It all started with fast food in the 1960s when quick-service restaurants with cheaper – yet widely unhealthier – options started to gain popularity over full-service restaurants.
Before we knew it, a McDonald’s chain was opening on almost every block in every city, and they’ve found a way to make over-processed meals with unknown ingredients an irresistible delicacy. Soon after, the fashion industry got the same speedy treatment, with brands like Zara and H&M releasing runway knock-offs that were too affordable to ignore. With the digital revolution and e-commerce strategy developing in the 1980s, almost everything and anything became fast.
From groceries to electronics, online retailers like Amazon and Alibaba have made it too easy to shop almost anything within a few clicks and a few working days.
But the latest industry that I’ve noticed is slowly but surely morphing itself into a faster version, is homeware.
My father is a civil engineer in Riyadh, and he often would take on larger-than-life projects for the Saudi royal family. Every year he would travel to Italy in March for Milan Design Week, where some of the highest quality and expensive interior homeware brands would showcase their furniture, and my father would attend to order homeware products for his clients.
I remember going with him and being staggered at the ridiculously expensive couches, vases, lamps and carpets. I wondered if I’d ever be able to afford my very own home sponsored by Milan Design Week one day. Now, even if I ever *fingers crossed* to make a salary where I could afford those Fornasetti plates and Cristofle silver flatware, I don’t think I’d ever follow through with the purchase. The reason? I could probably find a compellingly cheaper homeware knock-off at Zara Home.
Fast homeware possibly started with Ikea, where even if you had one item on your shopping list, you just knew you would be leaving with x15 more items. Shopping at IKEA is like a jungle filled with items you probably don’t even need, but because of their ridiculously low price points, they’re now sitting in your pantry.
What makes these fast-fashion retailers – whether Ikea, Zara or McDonald’s – so successful, is their ability to find the perfect sweet spot that ticks all the right boxes for consumers. We want affordability, we want convenience, we want style, and we want it now.
There’s no denying that fast-fashion retailers have perfected the art of delivering on all these fronts. And since high-street brands Zara and H&M have already honed their sales strategy, it’s no wonder they found the gap in a different market and created subsidiary brands to fill it with Zara Home and H&M Home.
The largest consumers of fast homeware are undeniably millennials and Gen Z. For two generations that are so plastered and dependant on social media, they’ve become obsessed with making their entire lives ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ Isn’t this the main reason we’re obsessed with fast fashion as well? We want our Instagram feeds to look just as chic as that influencer’s, even if the reality of our wardrobes and homes aren’t nearly close to what it is portrayed as online.
Take that squiggly mirror by Ettore Sottsass as an example: there’s no denying there was a time when every influencer you knew was posting an ‘aesthetically pleasing’ photo in front of that ‘aesthetically pleasing’ mirror. With the original retailing at almost Dhs40,000, you can now find knock-offs and almost identical replicas from homeware retailers like Etsy and Ali Express for as little as Dhs590. And this idea of striving to make our Instagram feeds – and our lives – aesthetically pleasing has made me contemplate what the criteria for it really are.
Once upon a time, the archetypal model-esque body figure was aesthetically pleasing, enter: extreme diets. Then – thanks to Kim K – the extreme hourglass figure took over, enter: Spanx. Soon after, a lavish jet-setting lifestyle, thanks to influencers globe-trotting, from one Michelin star restaurant to the next, became ‘aesthetically pleasing.’ So we started Gramming our pretty dishes and renting affordable Airbnbs just to try and taste that opulent life. Now, everything from outfits, to even coffee table books on a marble table – has become aesthetically pleasing. And I’m not denying that I am a victim myself, to the temptations of what I see on my feed every day.
I too, unproudly have to admit, that I want my home, my wardrobe and my IG feed to look as pretty as an influencer’s. So, I have my collection of affordable candlestick holders and vases from H&M Home, right next to my Assouline coffee-table book. I have my inexpensive candles from Bath & Body Works, right next to my one-of-a-kind chess set that’s hand-stitched with Tatreez, from an antique shop in Jordan.
It’s become clear to me that everything in my life is becoming faster, but why can’t I take a second to slow down?