Primark: Fast fashion or guilty pleasure?

So, another year gone and the news is as bleak as ever. I was planning to report that despite a shameful blip at Christmas my ethical shopping is still on track; the staff in my local charity shop are starting to recognise me as I’m in there around three times a week! Christmas is a hard time for ethical spending, especially with the credit crunch coupled with a shortage of time. I’m afraid a couple of high street stores did benefit from my hard earned cash. Oh and there was the guilty pleasure of collecting a few bargains from Woollies. Onto the more important news: the BBC have reported that budget retailer Primark have been using ‘slave labour’ to produce their cut price crap. Well, we kind of all knew that anyway; the actual shocking part is that these garments were made in sweatshops in the UK. With consumer spending slowing as more people feel the effects of the economic downturn, I doubt this news will even dent Primark’s profits. As redundancies continue, food prices remain high and living costs stretch most peoples pay cheques, Primark’s discount products will seem more appealing despite the bad press. It’s a shame really; it wasn’t that long ago that I was hopeful that ethical shopping was a growing trend with organic, free range and fair-trade on the increase. Now it seems that the old phrase is right: when you’re poor you can’t afford morals. Pity.