I'm not trying to be an arsehole, but it sounds like you need a bit more than a well-worn Gucci belt, babe. And if you're 'conscious of sticking to a budget' too, then it doesn't sound like you have the cash to be frittering on personal stylists, either... unless you're seriously loaded, get yourself down to Primark and get yourself a whole new wardrobe for £250, and once you have some actual clothes to wear, then worry about things being 'ultra ethical'.
This whole, sneery, 'your clothes are made in sweatshops' shit annoys me. Don't let rich journalists guilt you into believing you have to live in second-hand rags and a trip to Primark is akin to murdering small babies. It's rubbish.
Unless you're rich AF, you can't really avoid fast fashion. Yeah sure, you can buy 'pre-loved' from places like Vinted, Depop, Ebay, charity shops, but after you've been stung a few times by unethical individual sellers who've sent you their ultra-skanky clothes that smell of pee, or sweat, or you've received the 'adihash fakes', or once you've realised those 'Boyish' jeans and 'People Tree' trousers are just too pricey to wear for scrubbing baking trays or wiping up old lady poop in your minimum wage job, you start looking again at Primarni basics and there is nothing to be ashamed of in that.
Primark, actually, ain't that bad. In fact, if we can believe what they say on their website about ethics and sustainability (and with the amount of citizen journalist justice warriors in the world we'd sure know about it if they were blatantly lying), they're trying really hard to make sure there's less ugliness in their supply chain after the Rana Plaza disaster.
There's nothing 'more' wrong with Primark, George at Asda, or TU at Sainsburys than, say, COS, or Free People, or Anthropologie, or Monsoon. Most clothes are industrially made in massive factories, usually in countries where people get paid less than their UK counterparts, even 'high fashion' luxe brands like your Gucci's, Prada's, and Louis Vuitton. Louis Vuitton was in Rana Plaza, too. Just like Matalan and Primark. Even Parisian Couture is dodgy AF, with garments often 'hand finished' by immigrant labour being paid under the table in back-street Paris sweatshops. I know that happens in Paris, as I researched it all when I was writing a novel about, funnily enough, Paris couture.
So, unless you're rich AF, you can't really avoid fast fashion. And even then, you can't quite be sure.
I went and had a look at various current lists of ethical suppliers that ship to the UK. (listed in 'Cosmopolitan', 'The Guardian', and various 'ethical blogs').There's lots of them, sure, but wow, how 'expensive' it is to be so righteous.
£350 for a 'recycled polyester skirt'. £150 for a pair of 'jogging bottoms' made from, yep, polyester. £50 for a basic cotton jersey bra and knicker set. £220 for a pair of 'ethically produced' screen printed poly-cotton palazzo pants.
Can ordinary people afford that?
An ordinary waitress, or a low-paid care assistant, or a student nurse, or a single mother in a part-time job?
Nope.
Even if you were a... manager of a local supermarket on 34K? Or a police officer earning 26K a year? I doubt it. Not when you think about the mortgage, utility bills, car, phone, internet, vets bills, food bills, all the other bills people have to pay? Nah.
I reckon most of the shoppers on MN shop at places listed on this list...
www.curiouslyconscious.com/2020/07/fast-fashion-brands-uk.html/
Mark and Spencer score well, apparently. Even though every time I buy something from M&S (via Ebay, of course), it says it's made in Sri Lanka, or Cambodia or Vietnam. The H&M 'conscious' collection scores okay, according to 'curiously conscious', but H&M don't publish ALL their info, and so how can we really tell? Does H&M tell the truth? Does Primark lie? Are they all liars? I don't know about you, but I just want a decent set of loungewear...
Amongst the 'fast' fashion suppliers, Primark, at least, on the face of it, are trying. See this...
www.primark.com/en/primark-cares/code-of-conduct
You can also do a 360 degree tour of a factory. If you bother, you'll see... clean, modern looking factories. They're not slums, with hungry people hunched over dangerous looking machinery. I've personally worked in shittier conditions. There's Working Time directives, freedom to join a union, fair pay, no child labour, Modern slavery legislation in line with the EU rights systems, gender based violence training schemes, etc, etc: Primark ain't as bad as some people make them out to be, I reckon so... fill your brown bag and be happy. Just don't do it too often, yeah?