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the £5 dress epitomises a fast fashion industry that pumps hundreds of new collections on to the market in short time at pocket money prices, with social media celebrity endorsement to boost high consumer demand. On average, such dresses and other products are discarded by consumers after five weeks.

But behind the price tag there is an environmental and social cost not contained on the label of such products. “The hidden price tag is the cost people in the supply chain and the environment itself pays,” said Sass Brown, a lecturer at the Manchester Fashion Institute. “The price is just too good to be true.

nvironmental degradation, the textile industry creates 1.2bn tonnes of CO2 a year, more than international aviation and shipping combined, consumes lake-sized volumes of water, and creates chemical and plastic pollution – as much as 35% of microplastics found in the ocean come from synthetic clothing.

Fashion shoppers spent about £3.5bn on Christmas party clothing this year – but 8 million of those sparkly items will be on their way to landfill after just one wear.

Now, however, some fashion experts believe the party could be coming to an end for such disposable clothing and a backlash could be brewing, just as it has against takeaway coffee cups, plastic packaging and meat. Overall, the fashion industry as a whole is contributing more to climate change than the aeronautical and shipping industries combined. If trends continue, the industry could account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050.

In 2015, greenhouse gas emissions from textiles production globally totalled 1.2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent, according to a report by the industry-led Circular Fibres Initiative. This is more than the emissions of all international flights and maritime shipping combined.

Fashion operates on desire. How we dress feeds off cravings to be different as well as part of a tribe; to be en vogue but ahead of the pack. The message from the high street is that such wishes can be fulfilled, and fast fashion plays on the idea that hunger can be sated immediately. But to overcome such urges we need to reflect on the fragility of our planet. This means accepting that there is a better way to keep the pleasures of fashion open to all parts of society than promoting disposable clothes as desirable. This is not just about the high cost of the £4 dress; luxury retailers such as Louis Vuitton have offered small collections every two weeks.

Fashion shouldn’t cost the earth. But the industry has for too long promoted overconsumption as a good thing. About a fifth of mass-produced clothing does not even sell and ends up being buried, shredded or burned. Garments now account for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Synthetic fibres are being found in Arctic sea ice and in fish.

New research shows that 51% of Britons are opting to purchase expensive but longer-lasting clothes rather than cheaper throwaway items, up from 33% a year ago.

if you must go to the store, what’s the best way to navigate the aisles and crowds? Information and guidance about the virus is changing quickly, so we asked the experts.

Try to minimize visits to the store. “The biggest risk factor is really being around other people,”

If you must go, maintain a buffer around yourself and try to go at off-hours. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a 6-foot buffer

In 2008, Americans owned an average of 92 items of clothing, not counting underwear, bras and pajamas, according to Cotton Inc.'s Lifestyle Monitor survey, which includes consumers, age 13 to 70. The typical wardrobe contained, among other garments, 16 T-shirts, 12 casual shirts, seven dress shirts, seven pairs of jeans, five pairs of casual slacks, four pairs of dress pants, and two suits

By contrast, consider a middle-class worker's wardrobe during the Great Depression. Instead of roughly 90 items, it contained fewer than 15. For the typical white-collar clerk in the San Francisco Bay Area, those garments included three suits, eight shirts (of all types), and one extra pair of pants. A unionized streetcar operator would own a uniform, a suit, six shirts, an extra pair of pants, and a set of overalls. Their wives and children had similarly spare wardrobes. Based on how rarely items were replaced, a 1933 study concluded that this "clothing must have been worn until it was fairly shabby."

Thanks to our bulging closets, over the past couple of decades, clothing has become a much more discretionary good. New purchases are as easy to go without as restaurant meals or entertainment

The history of an era often seems defined by a particular commodity.

The 18th century certainly belonged to sugar. The race to cultivate it in the West Indies was, in the words of the French Enlightenment writer Guillaume-Thomas de Raynal, “the principal cause of the rapid movement which stirs the Universe.”

In the 20th century and beyond, the commodity has been oil: determining events from the Allied partitioning of the Middle East after World War I to Hitler’s drive for Balkan and Caspian wells to the forging of our own fateful ties to the regimes of the Persian Gulf.

stereotypical ideals have long been found not just in advertising, but in commerce at large: For most of American consumer history, makeup brands made few dark shades, and most clothing brands didn’t make any adjustments in their designs for different body sizes, gender presentations, or disabilities, among other things. Hemmed in by limited mall options, women had little choice but to make their best effort to work within whatever physical standards brands set, and brands were free to be as strict with their expectations as they wanted to be.

The internet, and particularly social media, has changed that. Suddenly, the hierarchy of who speaks and to whom in the brand-consumer relationship has shifted beneath the feet of corporate behemoths such as L Brands, and now frustrated women can launch negative mainstream press cycles on their own. For generations, clothing and personal-care marketing could dictate how American women should look without any pretense of kindness. Now, faced with the unfiltered reactions of their customers for the first time, most of those same brands have decided to make nice. Where they could once profit by making women feel worse, the money now is in promising them a way to feel better.

Victoria’s Secret took the old strategy to its logical extreme. It made superstars out of an army of wing-clad Angels, all perfectly thin, busty, and long-legged in the same impossible way. For years, Victoria’s Secret has been the brand equivalent of the stereotypical cool-girls’ table in a high-school cafeteria: hot, unfriendly, and definitely not interested in bolstering your self-worth. And as in a teen movie, the less popular brands took as many cues as possible from the queen bee.

Forever 21 has been among the quickest and dirtiest participants in the quick and dirty “fast fashion” business that has come to dominate the American apparel market.

Fast fashion is what it sounds like: Global behemoths such as Zara and H&M have built massive, highly efficient supply chains in which low-wage garment workers turn cheap textiles into of-the-moment clothing that’s distributed around the world as quickly as possible and sold for next to nothing.

At Forever 21, a tank top costs as little as $2.90. The brand’s average store has grown to nearly 40,000 square feet—more than 30 percent bigger than the average Best Buy. That’s a lot of cheap tank tops.

A researcher at a Swedish university says that Viking burial clothes bear the word “Allah”

Inspecting the woman’s silk burial clothes, Larsson noticed small geometric designs. She compared them to similar designs on a silk band found in a 10th-century Viking grave, this one in Birka, Sweden. It was then that she came to the conclusion that the designs were actually Arabic characters—and that they spelled out the name of God in mirror-image.

tendency of white supremacists to appropriate the symbols of Vikings, whom they claim constituted a pure-bred white race; in Charlottesville, for example, neo-Nazis were seen toting banners with Viking runes. The idea that Vikings were influenced by Muslims would likely be anathema to them. “The Vikings are every white supremacist’s favorite white guy.”

Which kind of face mask will best protect you against coronavirus?

Does it matter what sort of mask you wear? Yes. Different types of mask offer different levels of protection. Surgical grade N95 respirators offer the highest level of protection against Covid-19 infection, followed by surgical grade masks. However, these masks are costly, in limited supply, contribute to landfill waste and are uncomfortable to wear for long periods. So even countries that have required the public to wear face masks have generally suggested such masks should be reserved for health workers or those at particularly high risk.

but still suggests that face masks can contribute to reducing transmission of Covid-19. Analysis by the Royal Society said this included homemade cloth face masks.

the tech ethos has escaped the bounds of hardware and software. Tech is turning into a culture and a style, one that has spread into new foods and clothing, and all other kinds of nonelectronic goods. Tech has become a lifestyle brand.

Because it draws a critical mass of tech-conversant people to a small space, SXSW has also made a reputation as a catalyst for new social networking ideas.

there is a sense of ennui in the world of tech conferences. What is the purpose of a conference in an age of instant online collaboration?

The term “cultural appropriation,” which emerged from academia but has been applied more broadly — say, to refer to Washington Redskins fans wearing feather headdresses or white people in cornrows — has drawn ire from opponents of political correctness. But supporters say it captures a truth: that the melding of cultures is often about which group has the power to take symbols, styles or language from another.

The video issued by the University of Washington shows students from various ethnic groups and of various sexual orientations saying that almost any portrayal of them can cause a wound: For example, dressing in drag can denigrate the struggles of gay and transgender people.

At Duke University, the Center for Multicultural Affairs has filled its Facebook page with images of young people holding up pictures of offensive stereotypes, including white people in blackface and a man dressed as a suicide bomber, with the hashtag #OurCulturesAreNotCostumes.

How will we remember the last 10 years? Above all, as a time of crises. During the 2010s, there have been crises of democracy and the economy; of the climate and poverty; of international relations and national identity; of privacy and technology

The world of the 2000s, she concluded, “has been swept away”. In place of centrist politicians and steady economic growth, the 2010s have brought shocks, revolts and extremists. Hung parliaments; rightwing populists in power; physical attacks on politicians; Russian influence on western elections; elderly leftists galvanising young Britons and Americans; rich, rightwing leaders in both countries captivating working-class voters – scenarios close to unimaginable a decade ago have become familiar, almost expected.

In the 2010s, it has often felt as if everything is up for grabs – from the future of capitalism to the future of the planet – and yet nothing has been decided. Between the decade’s sense of stasis and sense of possibility, an enormous tension has built up

One of the most important realizations she made was that Abercrombie needed to graduate from high school and target a new consumer — the young millennial. Horowitz wanted Abercrombie to be the place to shop for everything you’d throw in a carry-on for an ideal four days away. (You may notice A&F is not selling anything to wear to the office.)

Horowitz also prioritized the unsexy but critical work of just making the clothes nicer. The company invested in better fabrics, zippers and buttons. They expanded sizing; women’s denim now comes in sizes 23-37, extra-short to long.

And when it came to jeans — one of the products Abercrombie was best known for back in the day, and the item that can turn a doubter into a devotee — they went into research and development mode with a focus on fit. For Curve Love, the goal was twofold: eliminate the waist gap in jeans that are snug in the hips, and come up with a fabric with enough stretch to flatter without sacrificing the “design character” that makes jeans feel like denim and not leggings.

It's a 21st century Gatsby, set in the 1920s, which, paradoxically, ups its connection to the decadent period it depicts. If you want historically accurate costumes, you'll be better served by PBS. If you want to understand the social and cultural meaning of clothes in the 1920s, then this movie delivers.

Self-appointed protectors of the novel and your "history buff" neighbor will swear Luhrmann gets it wrong, but there is no "wrong" in an interpretation, old sport. And I know that Luhrmann's camp cared about the historical details, because as an academic who writes about Fitzgerald-era fashion, I sat in a room with production designer Catherine Martin. She asked me pointed questions about period clothing.

Businessmen go out for sushi and drive home in plush Audis. Now, hoping to keep up, the government is erecting something special for its own: a housing development called Project Granma, featuring hundreds of comfortable apartments in a gated complex set to have its own movie theater and schools.

Cuba is in transition. The economic overhauls of the past few years have rattled the established order of class and status, enabling Cubans with small businesses or access to foreign capital to rise above many dutiful Communists. As these new paths to prestige expand, challenging the old system of rewards for obedience, President Raúl Castro is redoubling efforts to elevate the faithful and maintain their loyalty — now and after the Castros are gone.

Project Granma and similar “military cities” around the country are Caribbean-color edifices of reassurance, set aside for the most ardent defenders of Cuba’s 1959 revolution: families tied to the military and the Interior Ministry.

Long considered the dusty uniform of an older, more conservative generation, the erstwhile dress of the Alpine regions of Bavaria and Austria has become a wildly popular symbol of the good times and good life of Germany’s most prosperous region.

“Ten years ago, nobody was wearing dirndl and lederhosen to Oktoberfest,” said Thomas Andersch, a Munich native who recently wore his knee-length leather trousers and a traditional shirt to the office so he would be ready to attend a pre-Oktoberfest festival after work. “Now it looks strange if you show up in jeans.”

the revived popularity of the dirndl among young people as a reflection of the confidence of a new generation of Germans who are turning to tradition to define themselves in the face of the encroachments of globalization.