The Devil Wears Primark

The irrepressible rise of Fairtrade and organic produce has now spread to fashion.

I REMEMBER one of my flatmates, among other things, for his intense dislike of high-street fashion retailers and what has come to be known as "fast" fashion. When queried as to why he would not shop in the likes of Topman and River Island he replied that anything he bought was bound to be already worn by about ten-million other people at the same time. His ideal for clothing was uniqueness, personality, high craftsmanship and long-lasting durability and I could not argue with that. Thinking back, while my friend was not specifically thinking in "ethical" terms, he did inadvertently draw attention to a key issue. 

A visit to Primark at Piccadilly on a Saturday afternoon will raise your awareness of the extent of Britain’s consumerist nature. In a market saturated with alternatives and choice, we have become more willing to part with our money than ever before. According to Dr. Frances Corner from the London College of Fashion, we are buying one-third more clothes than we were only a decade ago. The result, or perhaps even the cause, has been the huge upsurge in the level of mass-produced, short-term, "throw-away" clothing offered by retailers such as Primark. The case is not simply that we are buying more clothes, but that we are being encouraged to buy more clothes than necessary, for very little money. 
It is estimated that our combined clothes purchasing habits each year amount to two million tonnes. What is more alarming is that 1.5 million tonnes of it is eventually disposed of and sent to numerous landfill sites. What is baffling about these figures is their incompatibility with the newly heightened consciousness of the need to recycle. Several high-street retailers are finally beginning to make changes, such as Marks & Spencers who are now recycling clothes in conjunction with Oxfam. However, there is still a great gap to fill in public awareness of the detrimental effect the fashion industry and its customers are having on the environment.

On the other hand, it is not just a case of what we do with our fashion, but what actually goes into producing it that is becoming a major concern. The award-winning Body Shop and Lush became the idol for animal rights activists everywhere when they revolutionised the cosmetics industry through consistent campaigns against animal-tested ingredients. This success has encouraged companies to seize on the market potential for organic and ethical materials.

Cotton remains the single most important commodity to the fashion industry today and constitutes 38 percent of the fabrics market, despite declining sales in favour of synthetic petrochemical-based materials such as Acrylic. Two thirds of the world's cotton outputs are exported from China, the USA, India and Pakistan. As well as being a completely natural fabric, the growing demand for organic cotton promises to make it the most environmentally-friendly one as well. This ensures that the cotton seeds will be raised without the aid of pesticides or insecticides and therefore will cause no unnecessary damage to the environment, local ecosystems or the labourers who work on the cotton farms.
This may sound wonderful and you may even wonder why this is only a very recent phenomenon. Yet consider this scenario: you are able to purchase a single pair of Y-fronts proudly disclaiming their 100 percent organic cotton content, as I have done lately, but then discover that it is priced at an excessive £19.99. Your immediate reaction may be to question what makes one pair of underwear, even ethical ones, so expensive. At the moment, the organic market may highlight that some retailers, like some consumers, have a very limited view of sustainable fashion. Retailers are often eager to support the organic market and to push profit margins way up in the name of being "ethical". These same retailers, however, are often ignorant of the working conditions in which their products are produced.

The reality much of high street fashion is that processing and production is generally performed oversees in developing countries to take advantage of the cheaper labour. In some cases foreign investment can be of real benefit to impoverished communities, but all too often labourers have no choice but to work in unacceptable and sometimes dangerous conditions. Although producers from African countries such as Senegal and Mali are beginning to benefit from the exportation of cotton under Fair Trade standards, many workers and their families throughout the world are trapped in a poverty cycle by low wages.

War on Want (WOW) last year exposed retailers such as Tesco, Primark and Asda for supplying fast fashion through exploitive means in Bangladesh. It was reported that employees of Bangladeshi sweatshops worked around 80 hours a week for as little as five pence an hour. Amazingly, these figures were the result of a 50 percent pay rise after several union strikes, meaning that the average worker is paid roughly the equivalent of £12 a month. That is compared to the country's average salary of £22 per month.

In another campaign called ‘Labour Behind the Label’, WOW also attacked Sir Philip Green’s Arcadia Group, which includes Topshop, Burton and Miss Selfridge, for similar exploitation of impoverished countries. WOW estimated that, "A worker…in Mauritius would need to toil for almost 4,000 years to gain the £3 million Kate Moss earned for her Topshop clothing range" and that "The £2.3 million in salary and bonuses for M&S chief executive Stuart Rose would pay the annual wages of almost 12,000 Sri Lankan garment workers."

The fashion industry certainly has a lot to answer for. Praise was heaped upon Edun, the ethical fashion line owned by Ali Hewson, the wife of U2's Bono, and yet according to their website there are only four existing chains in the entire United Kingdom. Sustainable and Fairtrade fashion is certainly available but accessibility is severely limited by the aggressive competition of high-street retailers. The future may bring changes within the industry and this will ultimately mean higher costs for both retailers and consumers. This, however, appears to be a necessary and welcome progression. Many enthusiasts are calling for government legislation on these sidelined issues that will secure the rights of workers and protection of the environment. If these issues are dealt with fairly, clothes shopping need never again be a guilty pleasure.