The Price is Right?
Conscious clothes are rarely budget-friendly. So what is an ethical yet frugal maximalist to do?
While browsing sustainable fashion sites, I often find myself wondering how the products can manage to look so cheap while being so expensive. We’re talking shapeless, formless, drab, solid garments without a speck of character or individuality boasting triple or quadruple-digit price tags. The average dress, for instance, from any number of ethical/eco-friendly brands will cost at least $200. This might be acceptable if you’re looking to purchase one or two dresses, and you’re not on a particularly stringent clothing budget. But if you’re building an entire wardrobe and wish to wear things other than your one boring dress every day, you may be in trouble.
Let me tell you what the solution is NOT: reverting back to fast fashion, where you could conceivably buy 47 dresses for the price of a single “sustainable” dress. Quantity absolutely doesn’t equal quality in this case. The entire point of fast fashion is to overproduce cheaply-made garments that stress the ecosystem and exploit workers to move large volumes of product, with the understanding and expectation that the vast majority of these low-quality garments will end up in a landfill. There’s a reason why those Shein dresses are so cheap: the materials used to manufacture them are cheap, synthetic, nonbiodegradable garbage, and the garment workers who made them aren’t being paid a living wage. You may be saving several hundred bucks of your own money by purchasing from Shein instead of Stella McCartney, but you’re not doing the planet or impoverished men, women, and children in developing countries much good.
So, you have to ask yourself: do I need 47 garbage dresses, or do I need a few ethically produced, high-quality dresses? I once believed that I needed 47 dresses to be the extra fashion queen that I am. This is obviously not the correct answer, though—not for the environment, animals, the garment workers, or for my own personal style. Still, forking over hundreds of dollars every time you want to purchase a new wardrobe item is impractical for some and literally impossible for most. The lofty ideals of conscious fashion are useless if they apply only to the wealthiest among us. Addressing the climate crisis is all of our collective responsibility, and changing our relationship with fashion is one way that every individual should be capable of making a tangible difference.
Here is how you can avoid breaking the bank in your effort to build an ethical wardrobe.
SHOP SECOND-HAND. This is the most obvious and most helpful approach, because it allows you to break the cycle of rampant consumerism that powers the machine of capitalism that is ultimately destroying the planet and human society as we know it. The price point for most of the consignment stores linked above is outstanding. Plus, this is your way out of buying those shapeless, drab, flimsy-looking, beige sacks that many of those eco-friendly brands sell. You can find so many fabulous, funky, interesting, unique items by shopping second-hand, and you won’t have to sell an organ to do it.
Take inventory. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bought a pair of shoes in a fit of enthusiasm, only to notice after the fact that my new purchase was almost identical to something I already had. Take a look at what you have before buying something new. Organizing your closet so you can easily see your wardrobe without having to dig through a pile on the floor may be necessary. If you already have a black turtleneck, don’t buy another. (This is me addressing myself.)
Wait 30 minutes before hitting “check out”. For all my online shoppers out there, this one is essential, as brands will try to pressure you into buying fast and forking over your moolah before you can change your mind. That little timer at the top of the screen, counting down until the items are removed from your shopping cart forever, is there to manipulate you. Don’t allow it. I love to add things to my cart, make a cup of coffee, check some emails, and then circle back 30 minutes later to see if I really, really, really want the things. Nine times out of ten, I realize that I don’t, and I empty the cart.
Remember why sustainable fashion is more expensive, and don’t try to cut corners. I’m no economic expert, but I can easily deduce that a product is going to cost more if it requires human resources and high-quality materials to produce. In order for the actual human beings involved in making your clothes to enjoy a living wage and safe working conditions, the clothes have to cost money. There’s also a cost to repurposing deadstock fabrics and recycled water bottles and pineapple to make vegan leather and all the other innovative ways that sustainable brands use materials other than plastic and polyester to make clothes. This is the world that we live in: goods and services cost money. High-quality goods and ethically-compensated services cost more money than garbage.
To summarize: buy less, buy second-hand, and don’t buy garbage.
