Costs Between Sweatshop Clothing and Ethical Clothing
While many people would much rather buy clothing made in working conditions and a livable wage, the price is much higher. For example, a pair of Tom’s heeled shoes is almost sixty dollars more than Wal-Mart wedges.
According to Ann Paulins and
Julie L. Hilary’s book Ethics in the Fashion Industry, consumers choose their purchases
based on cost and their perceived quality. Affordable fashion is great for the
consumer who can buy many clothes for less, but somewhere along the supply
chain of materials, clothing, and money, someone is paying for these low
prices.
The incident in Bangladesh is one of
many cases workers have been exploited to produce cheap, fast clothing for
consumers. Elizabeth Cline, journalist for The Nation, wrote of her experience
in Dhaka, India, visiting garment and textile factories. Many companies are unaware
of the factories that produce the cloth, thread, and sometimes garments of clothing.
Elizabeth calls the factories “unregulated and haphazard”.
Unfortunately,
the higher priced clothing most ethical brands have cannot be reduced in order
to keep working conditions decent in cities like Dhaka, but perhaps a higher
price for clothing isn't all that bad. According to Ethical Fashion
Forum, the idea of fast fashion at a lower price picked up in the nineties.
Many stores, especially high fashion stores, changed from a spring and fall
collection of clothing to between-season clothing to meet consumer demands.
Maybe
there isn’t a big problem with more expensive clothing. Perhaps people would
waste less old clothing if fewer clothes were bought. Maybe we’d realize that
purchasing ethical, quality clothing is more important than a large quantity of
cheap clothing.
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