Slow Trends: Slower Is Better…

This is one of the new cultural trends that, like so many other times, comes from the hand of young people. Not long ago, everyone’s goal was to get things done faster. And while that brought great benefits, it also left many human beings on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

The tendencies to exalt slowness have been gaining strength. People realized that it is great to be able to go from one country to another in a couple of hours. But they also discovered that making love in two minutes, or eating lunch in three, was not a good idea.

Living experiences at high speed is often equivalent to not living them. In addition, the attachment to speed increases stress, anxiety and gives way to tons of anguish. Ultimately, the goal of living longer is not met, but quite the opposite: life is also shortened when it is guided by a frantic pace.

Slow trends bet on slowness in several crucial aspects of life. They are like this: in the plural. They do not come from a sect, nor from a particular group. They have had different origins and also different emphases. What is common in them is the rejection of this unlimited acceleration of the current world.

Slow trends in food

The first field that gave way to slow trends was food. It started when McDonald’s arrived in Rome in 1986. The cooks in the area were outraged. One of the regions with the greatest gastronomic tradition in the world could not, suddenly, be faced with a fast food competition.

Italians, like other peoples with great culinary development, do not have meals characterized by speed or ease. Quite the opposite. A good cheese or a good wine has time as a great ally. And the best preparations usually take several hours or even days.

In 1989 the best chefs in the world signed the Slow Food manifesto in Paris. It was an agreement that was based on the rejection of fast food and called for the protection of traditions and good food. Thus the first of the slow trends was consolidated.

Slow fashion trends

Fashion was the second territory conquered by slow trends. It sounds somewhat contradictory, since fashion itself is a concept associated with the ephemeral. Even so, a movement that tends to establish a vision of fashion as something that must be environmentally responsible and socially sustainable has been gaining strength .

This trend gained momentum after a tragic accident at a Bangladeshi textile factory in 2013. There it was revealed that much of the fashion industry was supported by starvation wages for workers. And that the practices he used were risky for the environment.

The Slow Fashion looking for people to stop the habit of buying lots of cheap clothes. This usually does not last more than six months. And the cycle begins again. What is proposed is to buy clothes a little more expensive, but of better quality. As can be seen, the tendencies towards the slow are also a rejection of the world of the disposable.

From fashion and food to the inner world

The slow trends were taken first in the field of food and fashion. Then they spread to other fields such as construction and travel. The idea of ​​”slow cities” has finally been gaining strength. From this area, we dream of cities that do not have more than 50 thousand inhabitants and where the infrastructure is adapted to travel on foot or by bicycle.

Slow Education also appeared , a perspective that advocates a school in which the learning rhythms of students are respected. Make the times in which children and young people must stay in school more flexible. The purpose is to adapt everything to the life cycle: that motivation and interest guide the training and not the impositions.

All of these trends are a revolutionary way of looking at the future. It has become more and more evident that we are not pieces in the machinery of production, but human beings in search of meaning for ourselves and for everyone. The slow, without a doubt, is a concept that will gain strength and that will mark a light at the end of the tunnel.