This weekend, I pressed play on Kurosawa’s High and Low (1963), an epic thriller following the extortion of a shoe company executive for his fortune. The well-tailored suits, the scene placement were aesthetic perfection. Impressive as it was, I was distracted by the irony of the opening scene. The translated subtitles lamented the proposal of defective shoes with “cardboard bases” and “no stitching” to maximise profits made. The sixty-three year old film had captured a thought that’s been plaguing me for a while. Where’s the quality in our shoes? In fact, where’s the quality anywhere?

This issue has been captured by a number of well documented studies of fast fashion, of which I’m sure Cantabs know the verbiage. Late-stage capitalism, overconsumerism, sweatshop usage, etcetera. However, none could be more succinct and precise than Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year: slop. Slopsellers were especially common in the 18th and 19th century, with “slop” having been shorthand for cheap ready-made clothing. The use of the word “slop” as a cultural diagnosis arose out of a common understanding of a gruel-like food, made en masse to sustain a vast group of people for as little cost as possible. The phonetic itself familiarises you with that Dickensian sense of dread. Walking into a shopping centre evokes the same feeling. The craft of shoe-making has long been on the decline, with Cambridgeshire Live reporting on the closing of a 77-year-old family-run cobbling business closing in 2022. How many people have been to a cobbler in the past year? Would their plastic leathered shoes be worth it?

“None could be more succinct and precise than Merriam-Webster’s 2025 word of the year: slop”

The silk dress is plagued with this same issue. In preparation for May Balls, it has proved a near impossible task to find a genuine silk dress, bias cut made within the last ten years. You look for silk, and get a polyester-viscose blend. But the business executives know that’s an unattractive way of putting it, so you search for silk and you get satin instead. I find it impossible to not seek comfort in the soft refuge of vintage clothing, where clothes regain their character, and will also biodegrade within the next hundred years.

Blame can be placed on a number of things: the perverted profit incentive, the unfortunate cultural dominance of the trainer, the convergence of individual style to an uninspired uniform of the masses. I believe that the decline of this artisanal craft and the scarcity of natural fibres is symptomatic of the phenomenon of “slop capitalism”. “Slop capitalism” has been defined by Aidan Walker, internet historian and Columbia alumnus, as “an economic and cultural system in which the primary product is slop and the primary activity is the destruction of value rather than its creation”.

“The AI-generated media then readies itself to clog the exhausted pores of the internet in the midst of its degeneration”

It’s clear that the issue is not just clothing. The issue is the shows being made, (most) contemporary fiction being published that are stocking the shelves of bookstores near you. It is the videos on your phone and the movies that skip theatres and go straight to streaming. The AI-generated media then readies itself to clog the exhausted pores of the internet in the midst of its degeneration. Slop is the advertisements you get on your streaming services, the excess of apps on your phone, the cheap goods conglomerates have every interest in selling you with the knowledge that they will fall apart in half a year. Online goods help with this too, you are insulated from the people who can help you understand the value of labour. Broader society, then, fails to understand the cost of work and the importance of proper compensation for the people making their clothes. Is this the theory of alienation at work?

There are solutions. In person shopping or going completely second-hand are two that I enjoy. But these are personal, with negligible impacts on the environment or the market. I suppose I am proposing an individual system of consumption that preserves your moral fibre, that keeps it alive in a world that has irretrievably lost its way. The climate crisis is knocking on our doorstep, and the fast fashion craze has polluted countless countries in the global south who are paying for sins they did not commit. It hurts to think about, can clothes survive as an art form in a world like this? And as this cycle shortens and worsens, is it any surprise why cobblers and tailors are closing down? Thinking about the world in these terms has convinced me that we are in a sort of end times. But in the advent of the new year, maybe that could change? I hope it does.