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Made for Reuse
Ethical shopping for clothes never looked better
Cheap new clothes are flooding the high streets. Shirts for one euro or a pound and trousers for unbelievable prices are no longer just rare picks or bargains - they are becoming a part of a casual shopping experience. To secure such cheap prices, working conditions for those producing clothes or even selling them are far from wishful. Child labour, sweatshops, and maquilladoras with long working hours and hardly any rights for employees secure the overflow of cheap clothes to the markets.
Simultaneously, there is a growing awareness of the dark side of the clothes manufacturing business. The slow clothes market, in which clothes can directly be bought from the producer or designer, and fair trade clothes – also known as fairWare – are now available. Considerate clothing, do-it-yourself couture, or the mending and alteration of clothes no longer used in their original form, so-called wardrobe surgery, are gaining in popularity.
Upcycling is hitting the nail of the times. The possibility to shop for clothes in alternative settings is also becoming ever more fashionable not only among the poor and in times of recession, but the good old charity shop, second hand markets, and vintage shops are becoming ever more fashionable for the growing group of ethical consumers.
Ethical shopping for clothes primarily involves a preference of quality before quantity. Instead of hitting the high street to hunt for a cheap bargain, buying less and thinking before purchasing is the motto. It involves some brainstorming before going to the shops. Questions of what is really needed, what is wanted, and what are the required conditions and quality are asked beforehand.
A concept which has become popular amongst those concerned with the ever more growing piles of used clothes is clothes swapping. Used items of clothes, shoes, or accessories are exchanged. It allows for the possibility to renew a whole wardrobe - for free. Swapping, sometimes also called swishing, is the new way of getting new clothes or shopping for some. It has a touch of sustainability and greenness to it and is a guilt free pleasure for the fashion conscious. Internet portals – like Swishing.com and Swapstyle – have been created to help organise swap events or make changes directly online.
Though there is a growing awareness of sustainable ways of shopping for clothes and more ways to do so, there still remain an awful lot of unwanted clothes and fashion items. The world could be surrounded an estimated seven times by unused clothing – a striking dimension. Giving clothes to charities is considered a win-win option by many. While getting rid of unwanted and not needed clothes that would otherwise be sent to a landfill, charities can raise funds and vintage shop holders can make a living. In the UK alone about 300,000 million tonnes of unwanted clothes are donated each year and only 50% of these are sold back to consumers. The rest of the lot is sold to textile recyclers and warehouses end up with tonnes of clothes, which are mostly sorted by women. The textiles and unused clothes are then traded around the world.
Many of the items, however, are slashed so they cannot be sold for reuse in developing countries. In a further step the yarn is recovered and the material sorted by colour and eventually remade or rewoven into a variety of secondary products, most often blankets. Bright colours are amongst the most valued. On occasion, these large warehouses are burgled and bags of clothes given to them by individuals are then sold commercially on the open market as textile materials.
The shoddy industry - a term for the lowest grade of recovered material - has its origins in the nineteenth century in Northern England, but now lives on in mostly India or Bangladesh. It has long been an adjective for badly made or defective goods and is used to refer to cheap blankets, including aid blankets.
At present there are already many options to buy sweatshop free, ethical clothes. Sustainable textiles with little or no harm to producers and the environment are a more and more diversified option for consumers. Meanwhile, clothes swap parties are entertaining and a preferred option to the shopping mall for hipsters and some of the fashion conscious. It offers more unique options than the high street and is a guilt free pleasure. Yet despite recent developments, there are still too many clothing items on the market and there are ever more clothes discarded and fit for landfill. Cheap clothing is still more tempting then carefully considering purchases including what is behind the label or the quality.
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