You’ve found the perfect dress. You’ve tried it on before and you know it looks great. Now it’s on sale, a discount so large the store is practically giving it away. Should you buy it?
For some of us it’s a no-brainer. For others it’s an ethical dilemma whenever we shop for clothes. What matters more? How the item was made or how much it costs? Is the most important information on the label or the price tag?
Of the world’s industries that profit from worker exploitation, the fashion industry is notorious, in part because of the sharp contrast between how fashion is made and how it is marketed.
There are more people working in exploitative conditions than ever before. Globally, the garment industry employs millions of people, with 65 million garment sector workers in Asia alone. The Clean Clothes Campaign estimates less than 1% of what you pay for a typical garment goes to the workers who made it.
Some work in conditions so exploitative they meet the definition of being modern slaves – trapped in situations they can’t leave due to coercion and threats.
But their plight is hidden by the distance between the worker and the buyer. Global supply chains have helped such exploitation to hide and thrive.
Do we really care, and what can we do?
We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 women who buy “fast fashion” – “on-trend” clothing made and sold at very low cost – to find out how much they think about the conditions of the workers who make their clothes, and and what effort they take to avoid slave-free clothing. Well-known fast-fashion brands include H&M, Zara and Uniqlo.
What they told us highlights the inadequacy of seeking to eradicate exploitation in the fashion industry by relying on consumers to do the heavy lifting. Struggling to seek reliable information on ethical practices, consumers are overwhelmed when trying to navigate ethical consumerism.
Out of sight, out of mind
The 21 participants in our research were women aged 18 to 55, from diverse backgrounds across Australia. We selected participants who were aware of exploitation in the fashion industry but had still bought fast fashion in the previous six months. This was not a survey but qualitative research involving in-depth interviews to understand the disconnect between awareness and action.
Our key finding is that clothing consumers’ physical and cultural distance from those who make the clothes makes it difficult to relate to their experience. Even if we’ve seen images of sweatshops, it’s still hard to comprehend what the working conditions are truly like.
As Fiona*, a woman in her late 30s, put it: “I don’t think people care [but] it’s not in a nasty way. It’s like an out of sight, out of mind situation.”
This problem of geographic and cultural distance between garment workers and fashion shoppers highlights the paucity of solutions premised on driving change in the industry through consumer activism.
