“Of the price we pay in the store, only two percent goes to the people who make the products.”
A T-shirt for three euros and home decor items for less than two euros: How is that possible? Carl Tillessen knows the answer—and it has little to do with factories in the Far East and a lot to do with us. Why do we so quickly shake off the guilty conscience we actually feel when we reach for a cheap product?
“In my book, I put forward the thesis that our consumption has taken on addictive characteristics.”
Carl Tillessen, a trend researcher and managing director of the German Fashion Institute (DMI), has ruthlessly dissected his own industry in his book “Consumption: Why We Buy What We Don’t Need,” he has ruthlessly dissected his own industry. In a conversation with Georgiy Michailov, he explains why our brains completely shut off the “pain of paying” when it comes to one-euro items, how the lockdown has changed our relationship to possessions, and why the more effective lever for more sustainable consumption is not price, but social pressure.
*Video only in German
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