Discount clothes no worse on ethics

[thekumquat]

When it comes to fashion, you could be forgiven for assuming the higher the cost of clothing the better the working conditions for those people making the clothes.

Paying £150 for a pair of designer jeans may help shrink your bank balance, but we found nothing to suggest that price and principle go hand in hand.

Comments

[friend_of_tofu]

Primark are actually surprisingly good too, at least as far as their workers in this country are concerned. We checked them out on the EthiScore website.

Yet more weight added to my belief that paying more for clothes doesn't necessarily equal getting better quality. Personally, I think New Look have been pretty good this last couple of years, style-wise.

[barakta]

That's useful to know, as Primark seem to be the only place which is doing women's clothes which aren't frilly, stupid, ugly and have the added bonus of fitting me reasonably well. I saw equivalents of the clothes I bought in Primark for job interviews in M&S and noticed that the quality was actually poorer for 10 times the price!

[aster13]

That is pretty interesting. I knew that there wouldn't be a *direct* correlation between retail price and ethics - but i thought that there would be more of a one than it seems there is. Buying very cheap clothes does tend to give one the vague feeling of guilt. I buy really quite ethically in most other areas of my life - food, cosmetics/bodycare, cleaning and washing products etc, and i am conscious of the fact that clothing is a bit of an area of weakness. Although, i do sometimes buy organic/fairtrade cotton clothing from the likes of these people, i can't afford to just buy from them, nor do they have the range of clothes to suit all my needs/wants.

http://www.gossypium.co.uk/
http://www.ptree.co.uk/
http://www.getethical.com/getethical_shop.php?id=16&cat=Shoes%20and%20Trainers