The Impetus / What's wrong with the fashion industry

As I mentioned in my introduction post, I have personally made a commitment to make all of my toddler’s clothing from now until she starts sneaking clothes from the mall in her backpack and changing at school. She’s now 20 months old, and I am on a roll. I have designed and discovered some great patterns, and I love that my daughter looks just as cute, or cuter than all the baby Gap kids, but her clothes weren’t made by under- (or un-)paid people in unsafe conditions in Bangladesh. This post is an explanation of why we should all make informed choices when buying clothes for ourselves and our chidren.

When I see a fancy embroidered or beaded shirt in the store, I always think, how is that only $25 (or less if it’s Forever 21 or Wet Seal)? It had to take someone forever to put all of those beads on there! Well, it really does take forever, but they can charge so little because companies who do this sort of thing pay people very little or nothing at all for their labor. We’ve all heard about the Gap scandals. As someone who is contemplating breaking in to the “fashion market,” I am curious about how this practice has persisted, despite the numerous human rights and safety violations the suppliers to major fashion brands are committing. Perhaps it is because people aren’t thinking about that when they buy clothes. They’re thinking about how they can look good with the amount of money they have to spend, which is often not that much. The average American spends very little on clothing, despite our obsession with current trends in fashion. It’s because these huge companies, like H&M and Old Navy (coincidentally the guy in charge of Old Navy used to be in a high up position at H&M), have strong armed to get the cheapest manufacturers, and they use all of the loopholes they can. So, when we buy something at the mall, we are perpetuating an industry in which people use poor people in developing countries to sell cheap clothes to you while still somehow making a humongous profit themselves.

And we’re Americans. We fought hard and long for fair labor laws in the U.S. Why are we all so comfortable disregarding the same rights of people in other countries?

This is not intended to make you feel bad if you shop at the Gap…wait, yes it is. If we all, as a unit, boycotted the Gap for one month, they would be on their knees, making all kinds of promises to customers about ethical sourcing. If we boycotted them for one year, other companies would quickly spring up (many already exist) offering socially responsible alternatives, some fraudulent and some not. It might even bring manufacturing jobs back to small towns in the U.S., like Brandi Temple has done with her little girls clothes (http://www.lollywollydoodle.com/pages/what-a-journey).

I want people to think more about shopping at places like H&M or Old Navy. When my older daughter was little, I used to say I couldn’t live without Old Navy. You could get basics for cheap, and just tune out the onslaught of mini-me gross girl clothes.  Basics are the only thing that really should be cheap(er). If a garment has lots of pockets and beltloops (little babies don’t need pockets or beltloops, by the way), and it’s cheap, that means someone was paid very, very little to make that garment. So that your baby can wear cute little cargo pants when he’s three months old, someone (probably with very small hands) had to sew each one of those little pockets on (I’ve sewed cargo pockets before, it isn’t the hardest thing but certainly isn’t a piece of cake). These are pockets that your baby will never even know existed, much less use for storing cargo. How ridiculous must that feel to the person stuck in a dilapidated factory 12 hours a day making them? Someone who can barely afford to feed and clothe their own children, much less buy them cargo pants or a shirt that says “Future Genius” (see this post for my rant on words on clothes). If I were them I would curse Americans with every stitch, while my employer expects me to be happy to have a job at all. I mean, it could be worse, right? …I have a lot more to say about that later.

So next time you’re thinking about hitting the mall or gap.com, think again. Do you really need that shirt? Can you find it locally made, or at least fair trade? Their prices are generally more expensive than the sale racks or Forever 21, but usually not much more than full price at the Gap or Banana Republic. If you’re in Minnesota, check out my growing list of local clothiers, and if you’re from somewhere else and you know of a great place in your area, let me know and I’ll add it to my list.