Book Review: "Less" by Patrick Grant

It's mid-May 2025 and it hasn't rained in my country for a while - and for England that is quite something. It's been hot and I'm probably going to spend some time outside though I don't know where I'm going to go just yet. At this exact moment I am drinking a cup of coffee, it's about quarter past six in the morning and it's already quite warm. I don't know how I feel about this weather because I get weirded out when it doesn't rain for a long time. But I came here to talk about this book, I don't know why I'm discussing the weather. Here's Less by Patrick Grant.

I do have to say I did enjoy the historical main body in comparison to the introduction and I very almost thought I wasn't going to make it past the introduction because it was so preachy. Let's start there before we get on to the good stuff so we can get it out of the way. The introduction might be tranquil and idyllic for some people but if you read closer it is actually a long advert for personal branding alongside trying to tell poor people how they should spend their money. Thanks to this, I'm thinking of writing another cultural article and you will all be subjected to it. You're welcome.

Now that's out of the way

Less by Patrick Grant not only goes through the way in which fast fashion has developed but makes some pretty bold claims about the way in which it is bought. This is another thing I had a gripe with a bit: he doesn't seem to understand that these 'haul' videos and these masses and masses that are being bought from the websites are more than often bought by the middle class. It is the working class that has been aggressively advertised to in order to get them to spend their hard earned money on the websites. But regardless, I think he makes some important points about how people are now buying so many clothes that they would not be able to wear them all in one lifetime.

I think he probably makes some important points about how shopping has developed over time but he does seem to gloss over the fact that shopping was never really available to the masses and that's what happened in the late 20th century. He does cover the fact that initially, feeling the fabrics of new clothes was a day out experience for the middle class family, whereas nowadays we can get whatever we want whenever we want and we don't have to go anywhere. He doesn't however discuss the time differentiation. We now work and school more hours than any time in human history and there are far more people who qualify for 'working class' doing the majority of the least paying but most difficult jobs. It definitely impacts our buying power as a species if this is the case. It is not really discussed in the book.

I did enjoy how he spoke about the way in which brands like Amazon, Shein and Temu grew from practically nowhere to become some of the biggest brands on the internet (though I don't like the way he thinks ASOS standing for 'As Seen on Screen' is some sort of secret, I think most people have probably figured it out). However, the analysis is pretty good, he looks at the way in which no matter how many bad reviews Temu gets, it stills has many many shoppers buying tons of stuff because they sell cheaper than anywhere else and you cannot escape the adverts even if you don't want to buy anything.

I have never bought anything from Temu and perhaps never will, but it is quite funny how aggressively they market I do have to say that.

However there is a point I have no gripes at all with: the fact that he has identified the fact that many of these internet shops sell us things we don't need and capitalise on humanity's collective misery. He states that we have more things than we could ever need (not just clothes) and yet, we are more depressed, disconnected and report a lower quality of life than we did only some decades ago. He identifies that people in the 1970s only had around 25 pieces of clothing on average and even though we have more today, we have to admit that they perhaps dressed better than we do. I know from my own research that it was even more reduced before that, for the 1950s saw people have a maximum of ten outfits. I myself perhaps have about 10 outfits in total myself with only two pairs of shoes. Counting my own clothing, I only own about 30 items of clothing and regularly wear even less. It has always baffled me why people feel the need to have so many pieces of clothing. How are you going to wear it all?

I'm sorry but I'm going to go through another issue I had with this book, entitled Why Do So Few of us Make Things For a Living and well, after his analysis of how they used to teach sewing to girl's at school seems to be a given. Mate, the answer in Britain at least is Margaret Thatcher. I have a bit of a problem with this because it becomes another tone deaf analysis where it seems okay for the middle class to be able to shop with the time to do it and the eye for quality, but it's also okay for the working class British to make the stuff for them. I think this is probably connected to the fact that Patrick has probably never been around working class people for any length of time in order to understand their issues properly. But it was a wishy-washy argument at best.

All in all, I would definitely tell people to read this book and see what they thing. Does Patrick Grant make a good argument to return to form? Or does he misunderstand it completely given the fact that he barely ever mentions the main point of why we shop online: we have less time than ever before in history to physically shop. Is it purposefully ignorant or is he simply unaware? I tilt towards the fact it may be the second one.