How far can the subscription model go?
Fashion brands that use VIP membership are encouraging mindless overconsumption.
For anyone who has suffered the torturous frustration of checking your bank account to see £40 going to something you signed up to on a trial subscription and have forgotten to cancel, I feel your pain.
I’ve been there too many times. The worst was £600 for LinkedIn premium which, somehow, I said I wanted to pay annually for? I don’t remember that. Forgotten to cancel your Amazon Prime trial? Now you’re with me. Although maybe now you’re willing to pay for it if you’re isolating or social distancing.
I think the most tedious thing about these mistakes is that they are self-inflicted. I pressed yes, somehow they’ve got my bank details, and I’ve done this to myself.
This is the irritating part of dark design patterns (tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn’t mean to); they are hidden in plain sight. You know what you are doing as you’re doing it. Or do you?
Aren’t we all just subconsciously scrolling all the time, three clicks away from purchasing anything on the internet? Instagram seems to be less about pictures of friends and more about online shopping.
I would like to shine a spotlight on a new form of subscription used by some fashion brands, called VIP membership. Rihanna’s Savage X Fenty uses this, as does Kate Hudson’s Fabletics (part of JustFab).
The idea is that you get the items much cheaper if you pay for VIP membership costing around £50 per month, every month.
You have first access to the new clothes released on the first of the month, and then five days to skip the charge, otherwise, you pay £49 (Fabletics) or £49.95 (SavagexFenty) each month. The money you pay in can then be used on purchasing any of the items.
The ethics of this are questionable. Firstly, for consumers, the five-day gap to avoid the charge seems like a very short time frame and a lot more trouble than it is worth. Is this not subscription overkill?
Secondly, the pricing strategy is encouraging overshopping and excess consumption. The photo below shows 1 pair of Fabletics leggings for £54, or with VIP membership you can get 2 for £24. With this pricing, one pair of leggings now costs just £12 with VIP.
Does anyone need to spend £50 per month, or £600 a year, on sports leggings or underwear? Even if you skip a few months, £300? This type of business behaviour does not support the UN Sustainable Development Goal number 12 — Responsible Consumption and Production.
“In the last 15 years clothing production has approximately doubled. In the same time, the number of times a garment is worn has decreased by 36%.”
The Fashion Revolution and Extinction Rebellion have helped to highlight how we are turning too many blind eyes to fast fashion. We cannot continue to purchase clothing without thinking about where it was made and by who.
“Fast fashion is not free. Someone somewhere is paying.”
— Lucy Siegle
Neither Fabletics or Savage x Fenty mentions how or where the items are made, which materials are used or by who the items are made. Good on You ranked Fabletics as “not good enough”, the equivalent of 2/5, based on their research on the brand’s policies on the environment and people.
If you are in the market for sports clothes, I would redirect you to Girlfriend Collective, where upcycled water bottles and discarded fishing nets are used to create garments. While these materials have been criticised for adding microplastics to the ocean, at least the company is acknowledging the problem and trying to provide some sort of solution — see their microfibre filter for washing machines.
See Fashion Revolution for more information about the impact of fast fashion and beware of the VIP membership model, the impact is not just bad for your bank account.
