The truth about your online shopping habit

The anti-fast-fashion movement is transforming the clothing industry, but how committed are consumers to the cause?

Last week, my son got married. It was a big event, full of love, joy and... economic subversion.

See, instead of handing our wallets over to the industrial wedding complex, my wife and I decided to host the whole thing ourselves.

That marquee you rent for a backyard circus party? $250. But the same one in 'wedding white'? $700. We could buy it for $900, so we did.

Apply that logic across catering, flowers, lighting; suddenly, we'd hacked the entire wedding tax. What was meant to extract money incentivised a shift in behaviour.

That got me thinking: if a market-induced tax could spark such a change, what might a government tax do to our behaviour?

More specifically - what's really going on with France's shiny new fast fashion tax proposed earlier this year - a €5 penalty per garment that increases with scale?

The big question for me was, is the fast fashion tax about saving the planet... or saving face?

On paper, it appears to be a noble attempt to curb environmental damage and promote sustainable choices.

But if you've ever clicked 'Buy Now' at 11:47pm with a glass of red in hand and a vague sense of existential dread, you'll know that humans don't always behave rationally with money. Or clothes. Or the planet.

Emotional or financial?

This isn't just about economics. It's about dopamine, identity and the stories we tell ourselves to sleep at night.

The truth is that fast fashion is crack cocaine for the modern consumer.

It's engineered to hit your brain's reward centre with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. New arrivals every week. Flash sales with countdown timers. Influencers whispering sweet nothings about how you need this dress to find yourself.

We're not just buying clothing - we're self-medicating. The purchase becomes the fix. The packaging, the promise.

The dopamine surge? Immediate. The landfill consequences? Invisible.

A €5 tax on a €12 top? That's not a deterrent. That's an inconvenience. Behavioural economists call this the 'peanuts effect' - when the cost is so low it feels trivial.

If shame was an effective deterrent, we'd all floss, skip dessert, and make it to the gym before work.

But instead, we let marketing rewrite our guilt. Slap on an 'eco' label, add a leaf-shaped logo, and boom: moral absolution for your $9 jumpsuit made in a carbon-belching sweatshop.

Welcome to greenwashing, where your values are sold back to you with a 10% discount.

And the worst part? It works. Not because we're stupid, but because we're busy. Decision fatigue, conflicting information and social pressure leave us defaulting to convenience wrapped in conscience.

More than just clothing

The big mistake is to think fashion, or at least the business of fashion, has anything to do with utility. It's all about identity. We don't wear clothes just to cover our bits.

We wear them to say: this is who I am. Especially for Gen Z and digital natives, fashion is identity. It's tribe. Ask these consumers to buy less, and you're not just threatening their wardrobe, you're threatening their sense of self.

But here's the kicker: if we can signal status through sustainability - if 'slow' fashion becomes aspirational then the nudge becomes natural. Scarcity can be sexy when it's framed as taste, not sacrifice.

Now layer on the guilt-laced checklist of modern life: recycle, compost, switch banks, offset your flights, and now: don't buy that $8 shirt. It's too much.

This is classic choice paralysis. When overwhelmed, we don't change, we shut down. The brain defaults to easy, habitual pathways. Fast fashion wins by being the path of least resistance.

Will France's fast fashion tax work? 

It might nudge a few brands to rethink their price points. It might make some consumers hesitate before buying their eighth novelty tee.

But if we're honest, it's like trying to put out a house fire with a hand towel. Because when it comes to behavioural change, taxation without transformation is like dieting with the fridge door open.

If we really want to shift behaviour, here's what the science suggests:

• Make slow fashion the default. Highlight sustainable options first, hide fast fashion in the digital back room.
• Reward consistency, not perfection. Loyalty points for wearing the same outfit twice? Yes, please.
• Use influencers for good. The same social dynamics that fuel trends can make sustainability cool, if we frame it that way.
• Limit choice, increase clarity. Curated collections beat endless scrolling every time.

Fast fashion isn't just an economic glitch, it's a behavioural design masterpiece.

If we want to compete, we need better design, not just better morals. So yes, tax T-shirts, but don't stop there.

Rebuild the system, change the defaults and tell a better story because in the end, fashion isn't about fabric.

It's about identity, and identity is shaped not by rules, but by rewards, rituals and the narratives we buy into - one dopamine hit at a time.

Get stories like this in our newsletters.