"When Harry Met Sally" is a popular rom-com best known for Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan's stunning performances and the seminal line "when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."
Something else that might come to mind when you think of the film is Harry's iconic chunky white sweater.
A TikToker recently used this sweater as an example of the degradation of fashion over the years. Creator heygranty (@heygranty) referenced a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in which actor and comedian Ben Schwartz attempts to recreate Billy Crystal's classic look. However, the modern-day sweater looks cheap and uncomfortable in comparison to the film version.
@heygranty Has the quality of clothes gone down over the past few decades? . . . . . #fastfashion #plannedobsolescence #fashionindustry #oldmoneyaesthetic #oldmoney #fashionweek ♬ original sound - heygranty
The referenced tweet says, "the quality of sweaters has declined so greatly in the last twenty years that I think it genuinely necessitates a national conversation."
In heygranty's video, the TikToker said "it made me think of planned obsolescence," which, according to Iberdrola, is the practice of designing items to quickly break down or "become obsolete in the short to mid-term." The video creator references electronics and appliances but also wonders if the "conspiracy" could apply to clothing.
"With the essential non-ending, continuous cycle of fast fashion revolving," heygranty says, "why is there a need to make quality clothing anymore?"
Fast fashion refers to the mass creation of cheap and trendy clothing, and it's created an environment of rapid production and subsequent waste in the fashion industry.
According to Earth.org, the apparel industry produces over 100 billion garments per year, and over 101 million tons of garments end up in landfills. As the website points out, this means that the equivalent of a garbage truck full of clothes ends up in a landfill every single second — where they will contribute to the production of planet-warming pollution.Â
That's due in large part to the fact that fast-fashion clothes are discarded after a short time — perhaps contributing to the degradation of quality in our beloved rom-com-style sweaters, and to this TikToker's musings about planned obsolescence.
Other TikTokers took to the comments section to contribute their own opinions and ideas.
"Not conspiracy, facts," one user said. "The decline of quality in almost EVERYTHING is staggering."
"Capitalism breeds innovation," another commented, "including the innovation of planned obsolescence."
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