Overshopping (Written in 2015)

A dress can't cost $16.99 and make a profit unless someone's getting screwed: probably the Bangladeshi child who sewed on the sequins till her fingers bled. 

But who can remember the workers while being flirted with by a rack of fashion crack at Forever21? Hey, you can always offload them on Depop. 

No. You can't. The cheap stuff doesn't sell. It's Goodwill fodder (85% of that doesn't sell), or landfill. At our current shopping rate the textiles we discard could reach the sun in 15 months.

Mass brands sell greenwash. Eg the H&M buyback program merely enables the buying of more stuff. From H&M*. Here are some old figures, which have got only worse >

Note how the H&M Persson family owns more than the kingdom of Jordan generates in a year. Zara owner Amancio Ortega's $70 Billion is more than Sri Lanka earned in 2015. Why do we keep giving these men all our money for their badly sewn blouses? Does it make us happy? 

 

We have flooded resale with bad brands: We have created the end of vintage: Nothing new will last for 25 years.


 

Here are the 7 magic shopping questions that stop you even wanting bad clothes (& save $$$)


* It must be said H&M is the best of the mega brands in approaching sustainability. But the concepts "mega brand" and "sustainability" simply cannot coexist.

For more on fashion industry, ethics and stuff 

Here is a good concise article

Here's another

Or read this book

Read about Kate

Read about Refashioner