I’m a self-confessed shopaholic. I don’t just have a wardrobe overflowing with clothes; I have three. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hoarder so don’t expect that any of what’s in my cupboard to no longer fit me or suit my taste because they all do. In fact every year, I do a clear out of “old” new clothes that I no longer wear. I just have so many because I just love dressing up and much like the old saying about hats and roles, dressed in the right clothes for the right occasion helps put me in the ‘zone.’
I’m not blind to see that my fanaticism for clothes is not without a price. While I may not have put myself in debt, I realize that if I’m not more responsible with my choice of clothing, I don’t just hurt the environment, I end up hurting a lot of lives.
We’re all aware of how important it is to source clothes that are eco-friendly – where the entire process of their make from raw material up to delivery to the shelves of stores has the least impact on nature. But we often get lost in that forgetting about how it’s equally important for our clothes to also be from a fair trade source!
Ever so, we’re more than pleased with ourselves when we find a real bargain. Beautiful garments that say organic cotton and cost us at a fantastic markdown price of a meager $5 or even $10 give us a high, but logically you’ve got to ask yourself how is it possible for them to sell it at such a low price? Apparently, they aren’t selling it at a lost, so if they can plummet the prices to such a low price, someone out there in the supply chain must be taking the cut.
It takes so much effort to grow organics and nothing less to painstakingly put it all together by hand to make your perfect embroidered dress or t-shirt. You’ll find that many are exploited by large corporations to enable the sale of a $10 t-shirt one with a hefty profit margin. I won’t go into the details of which company is involved in the exploitation and which are the poor laborers of the trade being abused, but I must insist you read this article that can tell you all that.
Sustainable living is about a lifestyle that harms the least lives. It’s not all just about buying green; it’s also about buying fair trade green.