dirt cheap fashion coming to an end as global cotton prices and labour costs go up

[POFAKKEDDthechair]

So Philip Green and Primark and all those who have made a killing out of exploiting labour in developing countries will hopefully feel the pinch. Or at least have to ditch a helicopter or two.

I hate cheap disposable clothes. I don't have much money for clothes for the children but would rather buy something decent a bit big and make it last for two or three years. I know some people are on even tighter budgets but this industry depends on exploiting women and children in developing countries and interestingly now a change may have to be forced, regardless of the morals involved.

sorry link here

Good. Also one of my pet hates. I have never bought an item of clothing in Primark, Asda or Tesco. Most of my childrens' clothes are second-hand, although we have the sort of household income that could afford new, just because I hate waste so much!

I admit I'm a bit hazy on the issues here.

If the price of cotton goes up and thus the prices of clothes, how does this help people who work in factories overseas producing the clothes?

Won't they just lose work? I'm taking it as read that if they had a better option ie education or better paid work available to them, they wouldn't be working in those factories to begin with.

It doesn't help them much if it takes them out of the factory and onto the rubbish dump, or into the sex industry.

It means that Primark etc have to put prices up on the shop floor. It doesn't mean that the people who produce the cotton, dye it and make it into clothes will earn more. In fact they will probably earn less as the bastards in charge of the cheap clothing brands will put the squeeze on them even more.

I can't understand people who happily buy a t-shirt, wear it once and chuck it away. How unbelieveable thoughtless and selfish on so many levels.

I thought as labour costs were going up that might be the case. But maybe not. It is revolting, and just an inevitable by product of the increasing global power of capitalism.

I feel strongly about people being exploited in this way but I think even if you buy expensive things it doesnt mean it hasnt been produced in a sweat shop. Expensive clothes in Gap, Nike and H and M have often been made in sweat shop conditions as well.

I think sometimes the shops just take a bigger cut of the profits and it still doesnt trickle down to the workers who made the clothes. I do buy from primark as I havent really got much money but think it is important to support ebay, carboots and gifts from others to limit landfill and because I think we are very wasteful now.

Due to capitalism and the media it means people who dont always have new and up to date fashions are going against the grain so that pressure has contributed to our throw away culture.

I don't know about this - it seems to me that food costs are going up and clothing will get more costly and basically we are just going to exacerbate the gap between rich and poor.

The sweat shop workers will still be sweat shop workers, and people will lose interest in fair trade when it becomes too expensive so in general terms working practices will get worse.

It doesn't mean people won't buy a tshirt and then throw it away, because if the shirt rips after one buy because it's made badly, it will still be bin fodder. But it may be all people can afford.

Search for primrk landfill Riven. There are a lot of articles there on it. A large proportion of Primark clothes are in landfill within 12 months.

This is extracted from an article:

'The ?Primark effect? means one million tonnes of clothes are sent to landfill every year. Although the proportion of total waste dumped in landfill has decreased by nearly 1/4 in recent years, textile waste has risen to more than one million tonnes in the same period, driven by the tendency to discard low cost clothes quickly.'

It is because of how fast we are consuming clothes which puts pressure on workers to make them quicker and is also wasteful.

I thought Gap had cleaned up their act but I can't be sure. Why isn't there a list somewhere of ethical clothes chains?

I agree pofakkedthechair I think that every place should be made to say exactly where things are made but chains get round it. Did you see that program a while ago about Primark clothing? It showed that because they were under so much pressue with more and more clothes needed that the people who ran the sweat shops were outsourcing it to peoples houses and saw little children doing it.

Even though it costs more I think that big companies should run the overseas factories and it be more regulated but unfortunately at the monent when teh regulation people go out they cover it up and no one sees the people who are forced to make clothes in their own homes. They must know it goes on though but I think they just pretend they dont notice.

A thing that stuck with me from the program was how the young kids/teens said it was very difficult to do the lots of sequins type of garments as they are so time consuming and hard to do. It must be awful to have to sew all of those on so for that reason I dont buy clothes for my DD with sequins on.

I often think of the disparity between the little girl sewing on the sequins and the little girl wearing the finished garment.

yes that's very true about the sequins. I read about a little boy in Bihar who'd been sold to a pimp clothes manufacturer and had to work 12 hours a day sticking sequins onto dinner rings. For a UK pound shop.

I just can't bring myself to buy stuff if I think it was made by small children in a sweat shop, especially if it is for DD.

There are some ethical companies out there that are affordable. Next is pretty good and so is M&S. Also Seasalt and Natural Collection are fantastic. Fairly pricey, but keep an eye out for the sales as the mark downs are good. I won't buy Gap after the various slave labour scandals (I don't particularly like their clothes anyway). I have only been into a Primark once - the stench of cheap dye made me walk straight back out again.

I do try to buy fairtrade clothing for us. It causes DD some frustration that I won't just buy her some cheap shit poorly made clothes like her friends have. I don't want her to look like a worthy lentil weaver, but I don't want to be exploiting children of her age. I have started to make her a couple of dresses, predictably she decided half way through that she didn't like them. She will wear them once I've got the zips in.