Can we call ourselves feminists if we buy fast fashion?

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

I went to a food festival today and got speaking to someone handing out leaflets about fast fashion.

80% of the people who work in the garment industry in places like India, Bangladesh, Cambodia etc., are women aged 18-35.

They are working extreme hours with poor pay, terrible conditions (little ventilation, exposure to harmful chemicals, lack of water, poor sanitation) and many are experiencing malnutrition and cases of collapse are seen in most factories daily.

I didn’t get to speak to the woman for long as my DC were desperate for the loo and she was gone when we got back but she asked me this:

“Can we call ourselves feminists if we buy fast fashion?”

I think she has a point and there are ethical clothing companies. Part of the problem I have is it's hard to find clothes for my body shape so if I find something that fits and looks nice I buy it. And I tend to stick to the companies that I know work for me. I don't buy a great deal of clothes and don't buy what I'd consider fast fashion and definitely not the very cheap buy for one or two wears fashion which I imagine is the worst as costs must be very tightly controlled.

This is something that has bothered me for years. Modern day slavery is out of control. Most people just ignore it.

Personally, I only ever buy from charity shops/ EBay. The only things I buy new are underwear and pajamas. It's not much, I know. But I feel that we need to vote with our wallets on this issue.

I also buy from charity shops.
This issue is so complicated and seems unsolvable. Women and girls are often desperate for jobs in these horrible factories, because the alternative is not having any job at all.

I buy second hand clothes as often as I can in a bid to avoid the whole wear it once and Chuck it mentality. I try to avoid shops like primark - but to be honest I can't afford to buy from shops that don't take advantage of cheap labour. The clothes are simply more affordable and I have to be pragmatic. I don't feel great about it.

I don't think we can blame women for using their money in the best way they can for their families. Surviving on low wages, being lone parents, being targeted by the benefit system and being abandoned by the father's of our children all put us in positions where money is tight. That is a feminist issue and clothing our children (and ourselves) with so-called fast fashion is a necessity rather than a choice.

Having a more sensible attitude to clothing, buying second hand, choosing the best possible quality and buying less often all might help to support the women working in modern day sweat shops - but it just isn't always possible.

Plus what about the argument that the women may not have employment without these industries? maybe pushing for better conditions would be better than not buying the clothes in the first place.

There are a lot of arguments on both sides of this debate.

I buy from charity shops when I can but I have had to resort to Primark sometimes.... I just dont have the money or time to buy more ethical clothing... if its a case of my son needing shoes and it being the end of the month then I will buy some from Primark... it would effect our ability to eat properly if I didnt.
I do care about these things and I do join in campaigns about them but the thing is the burden has to fall on governments and people who can actually do something... to place the blame on people who are on very low incomes just trying to buy essentials as cheaply as possible is not beneficial.... so yes you can still be a feminist and have to shop in these places

It's a really tricky one. Like others I am on a budget. I'm not terribly interested in "fashion" - I know what I like and I enjoy wearing stuff that makes me feel good, but I have no interest in following current styles for the sake of remaining up-to-date.

The issue that bothers me is that even spending additional money above Primark-type prices - so Monsoon, Jigsaw etc. - doesn't guarantee you clothing from a supply chain which involves poorly paid workers.

I've started making my own clothes again, buying fabric from seconds shops or buying something from a charity shop and altering it or turning it into something else.

Another second hand clothes person here. Mind you, I'm not a fashionista and generally look as though I've been pulled through a hedge backwards, so I'm probably not the right woman to ask!

(I used to stress over buying football shirts for the DSs for this reason, however.)

I have changed and consider this now.

Fast fashion is a necessity for many working people.

The fact that you attended a food festival would suggest to me that you and I live in very different worlds. The Tories have Decimated the working classes. I would like to buy a few key items from designers such as Vivien Westwood but I literally cannot afford this - as I know many women (especially those with growing famalies) would be unable to buy.

Most people I know buy from charity shops quite a lot - out of necessity as much as anything.

If anybody with purchasing power wants to use their money to encourage ethical fashion please do. Unfortunately it is not going to have much of an impact because the majority of people do not have the luxury of making ethical decisions about things like food and clothes.

Unfortunately income inequality in the UK is an issue in this country is a mico-cosm of global power inequalities.

To suggest that only those able to afford to buy ethical products can call themselves feminists seems incredibly classist to me...

I love clothes and I'm also very interested in the history of fashion. I think it can tell us more about women's social history than any textbook. But I do struggle with the ethics of fast fashion - and that extends to some high end and even designer brands too.

I buy second hand as much as I can and this year I've probably managed it about 80% of the time. But it's not a perfect solution and I'm in no position to criticise women with young families who don't have as much time as I do to prance around charity shops.

I’m not sure about the situation elsewhere but women account for 85% of purchasing decisions in the USA so surely this is a problem well within the ken of women as a class to solve?

Feminists often cause harm to women, sometimes on purpose. From what I can see anyone can call themselves a feminist.

I’m torn on this one. I dont really buy fast fashion anyway, I sew a lot and I’m happy to buy less but spend more.

I think supply chain monitoring is vital. There are places where workers are horribly exploited and where conditions are dangerous (Rana Plaza fire disaster for example.) that sort of thing needs rooting out wherever it’s found.

However there are also places where I think it CAN be a feminist choice to buy clothes made abroad/low paid workshops. In some countries this is the way women are entering the workforce - they are able to earn and that gives them status and independence. So I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as ‘all low paid countries employing women in garment production = bad.’

What’s needed is a clear commitment on the part of retailers to abide by good supply chain management and Make sure that their workers are treated fairly, working safely and paid fairly. This adds pennies onto a product.

Most shops now will have a ‘modern slavery’ report on the company webpage. That should set out their stance.

I’ll also say that I’m sure there’s been a thread on this before and it actually wasn’t the case that cheaper retailer = worse conditions. I think H and M came out as one of he more moral ones.

Paying more on the high street is no guarantee that the people making the stuff have been paid.

I could talk about this for hours. 😂
The cost of so much clothing to the planet, the working conditions, the materialism. But...
People need to eat, whether that’s by growing their food or earning money to buy food. Those women and girls won’t be in school or sahm or even doing fulfilling jobs wohm.
I’d rather work towards a sustainable industry with great working practices, factories funding schools, not employing under a certain age.
I certainly challenge every example where we’re encouraged to ‘buy carelessly’ eg: impractical compulsory school uniform (white logged shirts 🤔) christmas jumper days, wear spots or colours for ‘awareness’.

There are threads about this on Style and Beauty fairly regularly. As I understand it, the main problem is that supply chains are so long and change so often that a lot of high street stores probably couldn't tell you where their clothes are made. H&M tend to come out of these surveys fairly well but I sometimes think they've just got better lawyers on the case - you still see them caught out using children every so often.

What I will say for Primark is that they held up their hands straight away after Rana Plaza while other brands were still trying to avoid paying compensation two years later.

to place the blame on people who are on very low incomes just trying to buy essentials as cheaply as possible is not beneficial.... so yes you can still be a feminist and have to shop in these places

The OP is asking for a debate not placing blame. A lof of food festivals are free btw so I wouldn't go assuming her financial status. I don't think it's right to basically say "well, I'm skint so it's OK".

However skint any of us are (and I am) we're not slave labour assembling shitty clothes in a sweat shop, so we do need to think about it. We also need to think about the ecological damage being done, and how again it tends to hurt poor people and poorer countries worst. I've always prefered cotton but I only just found out that synthetic fibres were actually terrible for the environment anyway. I buy from charity shops as I can't afford nice shops and try to avoid the crap quality and rampant consumerism of Primark etc. The options aren't Primark or Vivviane Westwood. There's a middle ground and people who spend a fortune aren't absolved as sweat shops aren't just used by cheap shops.

There is no one definition of feminist so I don't you can say "You aren't a feminist if you do X Y or Z" but I think it can be argued that "fast fashion is a feminist choice.

www.thegoodshoppingguide.com/fashion-retailers/

Like I say, I rarely buy new clothes so I have no idea how affordable any of these brands are or whether anybody would like what they sell, but there is a good table in the above page, so you can look and see overall scores plus individual scores on human rights/sweating, environmental impact, etc.

Best high street fashion retailers according to overall ranking are:

People Tree
Fundamentals
Whistles
Fat Face
Seasalt
ASOS
Debenhams
H&M
New Look

Worst:

George at ASDA
Matalan
GAP
Primark
F&F at Tesco
Warehouse
Wallis
Top Shop

Women on JSA or Universal Credit cant afford the more ethical companies. Its called the cycle of poverty for a reason. There seems to be a real blind spot from some of the middle classes towards the poorer ppl in THIS country (the UK) That guy at the festival would have got a lecture from me on the cycle of poverty and asked why it was ok to blame working class women in the UK.

Im not saying you cant care about poverty in other countries but there seems to be a wilfullness from certain quarters to ignore the problems in the UK. I guess its more "Grazia" more trendy to only care about elsewhere.

I guess i would have called this thread "is it feminist to blame working class women for not buying ethical fashion?!"

Another point................several years ago Stella McCartney designed a lovely bra for women to wear post mastectomy. Fab you would think . But the price was around £90+ So a woman who has undergone a mastectomy who is claiming ESA can forget it.

There seems to be a wilfullness from many further up the economic scale to ignore the elephant in the room.

YY DJ Lippy

I learnt about this a couple of years ago and now buy 90% of stuff secondhand. For environmental reasons too. I think Hugh's War On Waste had a section on how many good items if clothing we throw away on a yearly basis and it's an obscene amount.

@LangCleg thanks for that list - brill! New look is my fave - turns out I'm ethical after all!

I don't buy fast fashion. I check the labels on where clothes are made. The vast majority of my clothes are made in the EU, mainly the Netherlands , the UK and France.

There are only 2 shops I buy shoes from- they might be lying but they say their factories are in Spain. In the case of one of these the manager at my local branch has been to the Spanish factory. I have some shoes bought in Italy which say they are made in Italy.

I don't buy jeans, t- shirts or trainers which are probably the worst offenders for sweat shop labour.

The same thing happens with food. Healthy food is EXPENSIVE.