Where to buy ethical and reasonably priced clothes from?

[coveredinsnot]

I need to wean myself off the cheap sweatshop clobber I clothe myself in.

But desperately need some affordable suggestions of more ethical brands. I'm not loaded, but I do work full time. Have tried charity shops in the past but with little luck. Also don't have time to do that any more!

So I'm not looking at high end organic woven by gleeful cherubs kind of clothes, just ones where workers have decent working conditions and fair pay.

Thanks!

People Tree has great sales.

I did think H&M were one of the more ethical companies at the cheap end of the High Street but then read that they are implicated in the Cambodian sweat shop horrors (along with Gap & M&S). The Inditex Group - Zara & Massimo Dutti, Mango & Primark used workers at Rana Plaza _ although Primark were quick to pay into the compensation fund. Add in the environmental cost of cheap cotton & the health problems suffered by workers using pesticides without adequate protection etc & maybe we should all be wearing expensively made polyester. I agree with Stripy on People Tree, but if you want to be ethical & save money then Ebay is probably the best option - clothes recycling. Alternatively, buy better, buy less, wear each garment more often & pay more.

Lindex? www.lindex.com/uk/

(I know, new one on me too!)

Thanks! I'd forgotten about people Tree. EBay is a logical idea but I've tried and I just have about a 50% success rate - half absolute crap and unwearable. Plus the time it takes to bid etc. Not for me!

I couldn't navigate the lindex website on my phone but will have a look on pc when I get a chance. Thanks!

Depends how expensive is too expensive, and also I guess what sort of clothes you like. I love Finisterre clothing - I've bought a few things from them, and every single one I've worn and worn. (They don't have a massive range, but it changes quite fast, so colours etc vary from month to month.)

I also like them because their clothes come up small and thus actually fit me (5' 1" and skinny . . .)

I'm more of the short and fat type unfortunately . Too expensive would be People Tree's full prices. Their sale prices are doable though!

I always find with People tree that they're expensive and I just don't find their clothes that exciting. Howies are a mixed bag IMO but sometimes have nice casual clothes in their sales. My nicest Howies things have come from clothes swaps and been free, though.

Come to that, clothes swaps are a good thing for new outfits - obviously involves time and effort to organise, but then it's an excuse for a get together & have a few beers and you all end up with some new stuff. (Having said that a few theoretically nice but actually unwearable items do circulate round here and you see them on one person after another for a few weeks!)

www.nomadsclothing.com and www.komodo.co.uk are also reasonably rated ethical companies - beware - komodo website is rather slow. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has any hemp clothes - sounds like a hairshirt but presumably doesn't feel that way. Do they feel ok & last well?

Ethical superstore has a range of brands, and pretty decent flash sales on occasion. Nancy dee is a new find there - their stuff is lovely.

I had a lovely hemp skirt, Djangor - sadly it also came from a clothes swap and was much, much too big for me, so it got passed on. But it was beautifully soft.

Yes I got a few bits and bobs from howies a while ago. Not as feminine as I'd have liked but good and sturdy stuff! Love the other websites, thanks. Keep em coming!

Never tried anything in hemp but have some bamboo clothes that have lasted well.

And are there any high Street shops that aren't horribly unethical?

I've had a couple of dresse from Braintree clothing that I really like.

Ethical consumer did a rating of clothes stores a whiile back. Zara came out the best overall, though still only a 10.5 out of 20 score, after them H&M organic range.

I reckon that's not too bad, though - EC did a report on the sector we trade in, I know all the companies scoring 14/15 plus quite well, and I'd say all are pretty damn sound in ethical terms.

They also have an list of non highstreet ethical options.

Oh no! asda George used to have a high rating

I have to say, I'm the hippiest hippy out there (housing co-ops, intentional communities, off-grid-living, you name it I've probably done it), but I still find many of the ethical fashion labels a bit . . . 1970s-ethnic-in-a-bad-way . . .

I think also in most cases you have to be at least 5 foot 6 to want to be ethically sound!

Oh dear I'd been clinging to this belief that H&M were one of the best of an admittedly rotten bunch. I should have known better.

Approaching it another way, there are shops I don’t use any more, topped by Benetton after the way they had to be publicly shamed into paying compensation for Rana Plaza. Also for dragging their feet or paying laughable amounts: Mango, Matalan and Inditex (Zara, Massimo Dutti). (Feel free to correct me if the list is incomplete.)

Asos are next: I've met a few people who've worked for their distribution centre and let's just they give arseholes a bad name.

Also I don't buy cheap cashmere any more after reading about the environmental impact.

But it's a very random list and a dismally low ethical bar

I have got some decent bits from www.bambooclothing.co.uk
They claim that bamboo is ecofriendly and have an FAQ on their website about their employment practices in Turkey.
The t-shirt in particular are really soft and gorgeous. The socks go a bit bobbly tbh.

Thank you mrslebon, you have just made my day! :) I love index for kids and would buy whenever I am in a country that sells. Now I can shop from home....dangerous....

American Apparel is all made in USA/sweatshop free (dodgy sexually harassing CEO was a distinct black spot, but he was fired last year)

Takver do you know if he took his dodgy advertisting campaigns with him?

Good question - I think they were banned in the UK anyway, so I don't know whether they've stopped doing them since he went . . .