The below post prompted me to start a thread that I thought might be an interesting discussion and knowledge sharing exercise for the Community - ethics in clothing.
Some questions that come to mind are:
Do you consider ethical implications when purchasing clothing, or do you purchase clothes based on price alone?
Is recycling a consideration, and if so, in what form?
Is there a difference between the type of fibres used to create textiles, or a difference in the supply chain?
Do you preference one retailer over another due to ethical considerations?
Yes, I used to try and buy only Australian made clothing, but it is near impossible or outside our price bracket to do so today.
For clothes, price is only one consideration and I would say it is more value for money than price. Value for money means that it is of reasonable quality and will get good wear out of it. We have bought very cheap clothes in the past, but have found these generally have a short life and don’t pay off in the long run.
I should also say that we are not fashion shopper, that being buying something to follow the latest fashion trend. We prefer to buy things which will last a number of seasons without dramatically going our of fashion. If if something does go out of fashion, our thoughts are "who really cares anyway, and if someone else does, then they are the one with the problem’.
Not recycling but long term impact the environment.
No clothing (natural or synthetic) is impact free but we try and reduce the amount of plastics we use and as a result, tend towards buying natural fibres (predominately cotton, silk and wool) where possible.
We do recycle clothing at end of their life such as:
children’s clothing either sold (such as modern cloth nappies), handed down to friends or given to charities
adults clothing we wear until they are unwearable (lost shape, has holes etc). then we use them around the house as cleaning rags, for home maintenance activities (e.g. painting) or torn into strips as ties for plants. Any excess are donated to companies which want rags or sell workshop rags.
We also find natural fibres are cooler to wear, especially on hot and humid environments…I tend to sweat profusely in synthetics, even the ones claiming to be cool fabrics.
We have had challenges finding natural fibre clothing. A more recent example were travel/hiking pants. We visited about half a dozen speciality stores to try and find a 100% natural fibre and could only find one which was a bout 95% cotton (the other 5% was elastane). Shop assistants were pushing the ‘hi-tech’, ‘breathing’ etc synthetics and one said to us that no-one buys natural fibres any more. I replied, well not everyone and so after walked out.
I find that there seems to be trends in one sort of clothing where one type of fabric is used almost universally across the industry. Examples include sports clothing which traditionally were heavy cotton for winter sports and light coloured light cotton for summer sports. Most team sport clothing, especially shirts and some shorts, are synthetic. This may be due to colours potentially being retained better in the synthetic fibre and maybe the marketing pitch for the alleged cooler hi-tech fabrics.
Yes. we used to buy the odd clothing from Aldi which makes many of its clothes in Bangladesh…however, after finding out its business practices and they way it treats its supplies in Bangladesh and other developing countries,we have boycotted buying their clothing products (note: we do have kids China made snow gear from Aldi which was handed down to us and we use…but we wouldn’t have necessarily made the same purchase ourselves).
We also avoid where possible other clothing brands made in Bangladesh and India where we know that the retailer/brand has not treated its suppliers/employees well or child labour is/has been endemic.
As we have lived in China, we are happy to buy Chinese but the quality can be mixed, and is very much dependent on the price point of the product. We are also comfortable with buying European clothing (such as Romania) or that produced in the Pacific Islands.
It is a shame that most of Australia’s clothing manufacturing industry has been replaced with foreign imports, as most Australian clothing was second to none. I still have shirts which were made in Australia in the 1980s and still good to wear…unfortunately the paisley print isn’t though…but will come back into vogue again.
I prefer clothing that is biodegradable eg cotton to other fabrics. While cotton is also not very friendly to grow or produce re water usage, fertilizer and so on wise it is at least able to be broken down and leaves no micro plastics to linger. I would and do where possible and suitable for the item buy other organic based fabric such as wool, hemp, sisal, jute and similar. The difficulty has been that much of the fabric we do use has at least some amount of man manufactured fibre present such as polyester and elastane incorporated.
If I cannot obtain the item in natural fibres then I buy a cotton blend. Price on a pension does have bearing but layby and budgeting in a timely manner are also helpful tools to avoid rushed and thus environmentally incompatible items. All our children also know of my preferences if they wish to buy me clothing for presents/gifts.
Buying wholly Australian product is extremely hard to do nowadays with most clothing manufacture now done overseas.
We recycle through Op Shops all un-needed or worn out clothing unless we know someone who has a need for the item/s.
@BrendanMays perhaps a poll on those points you noted could also be conducted to get some simple numbers as well. I think a multichoice eg 1 (not at all) to say 6 (always or extremely likely)
Some ideas for some of the poll content:
Ethical Choice
Price
Ability to Recycle
Do you prefer Biodegradable fibres
Do you prefer synthetic fibres
How likely are you to recycle clothing
(Voluntary) If they don’t recycle why not (written answers eg no recycling choices close enough)
(Voluntary) Other considerations (this one would be written answers)
Australian product
How often do you replace your clothing (eg fashion season)
We buy a lot of clothing from op shops so recycling is definitely an strong consideration. If we buy from the mainstream stores low price is the guide, but we avoid buying poor quality garments even if cheap. As you know, price is not the determiner of quality.
Unfortunately, considerations of the ethics of the supply chain are beyond our finances as the stores we can afford tend to only carry products made in countries with poor labour practices. We certainly can’t afford to shop in the big name brand stores that may have better labour practices. Some years ago, I used to know someone who did piece work for the garment industry in Australia. From what I was told, the rates of pay here were in my opinion appaling, and not much better than they got overseas.
I believe the garment industry will always look for the cheapest labour. As economies change, and another country is cheaper, they will move production there. So, I think that the ethical considerations are nice in theory, but if you aren’t well off financially, it’s either buy or avoid. And if you want clothes, eventually you have to buy whether you agree with the ethics or not.
In April 2013 an eight-storey commercial building called Rana Plaza, in Bangladesh, collapsed.
The building had visible structural problems, and just a day earlier businesses on the ground floor had been closed.
But the exporting garment factories upstairs made their workers keep on working.
The death toll was over a thousand, and thousands more were badly injured, some could only be freed by amputating limbs.
This tragic industrial accident brought to light, in a shocking way, the plight of garment workers, gave impulse to action to improve working conditions, and to stop exploitation of men, women, and children, especially in countries like Bangladesh and China.
The term Ethical Fashion was born.
Maybe it doesn’t seem appropriate to present fashion as a social question, but it is the most polluting industry after the petroleum one, it consumes non-renewable sources of energy, and uses polluting fertilisers, pesticides, and herbicides.
It has a big social impact: workers are exploited, receive low wages, work long hours, have no job security.
As shoppers what can we do?
We can make more ethical shopping decisions by looking into how the various brands are performing on an ethical scale: there are many guides to be found on the web. I was surprised to see that Kmart is graded B+ while Myer is a B- !
Also, on the sustainability aspect:
we can change our attitude to fashion: for example, make our clothes last longer by washing and ironing as per care label, and repair as needed. Buy basic classic pieces like a well made pair of trousers or a nice skirt, a blazer to match, and a crisp white shirt, items that will stay in fashion for a long time without looking outdated but can look fresh by just adding a scarf, a belt, or a nice top.
Our shopping choices can make a difference!
One could spend some effort finding brands and products that do not exploit workers or destroy the environment as much as others do. However, adding that requirement on to availability, fit, comfort and durability is making a long list of constraints.
Or just forget about the fashion cycle. Does it really make sense to replace your clothes because skirt lengths are up (or down) this year or if you don’t have this season’s colour or tight trousers are out and loose ones are in?
My ethical approach is to wear clothes until they fall apart. You will not see me in artfully ripped jeans either as I prefer to have pants that are whole - at least to start with. Clothing starts out being worn in public and to social events when it is new(ish). As it shows signs of wear it is relegated to round the house only. As the wear gets worse it drops down to gardening and painting attire. It ends it life as cleaning rags.
The result of this method is to save much money and to avoid over consuming. Less fibre needs to be grown or manufactured, less water, fertiliser and petroleum need to be used. If some supply chains treat people or the environment worse then I have supported them less by buying less.
I prefer cotton but rarely can afford 100%. I tried synthetic and I just last week cleared my shelves of all the synthetic clothing i cannot wear which is still practically new (some still is, I usually buy more than one of whatever I like)… that will all be going to Vinnies or the Salvos. Most of my clothing is between 2 and 20 years old. I am not driven by whats fashionable.
This community topic may be old, but the topic itself is far from dead and buried
Action is certainly needed!
Every year, 1.42bn items of clothing arrive in Australia and approximately two-thirds are thrown away. Just 7,000 tonnes of textiles are downcycled, whereby products are broken down, into insulation, pellets or board.
