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.

Attempts at sustainability or just eco-marketing?

Everywhere you look at the moment the big companies are trying to do their bit for the environment. For example, Ariel have been doing their ‘turn to 30’ campaign for a while now, with reportedly excellent success. They have also tried to address the issue of clean water with their campaign where they give 10 litres of drinking water for every special pack they sell. Volvic are also doing a similar campaign with their ‘1 litre for 10 litre’ promotion. But are these attempts at eco-marketing enough? If volvic went all out for sustainability, switched their plastic bottles for biodegradable corn bottles like Belu then I’d commend them. It just seems like some of these efforts are rather half hearted. Arial are kind of missing the point with their water campaign as to dilute the chemicals in one load of laundry to a safe level requires up to 12000 litres of water (as reported in ecologist magazine). Which makes the 10 litres of clean water seem rather insignificant. But I suppose any efforts from a major multinational are a step in the right direction.

Guilt free shopping in the credit crunch? You'll be lucky

The main problem I had with going to Africa was that I needed to buy stuff like a sleeping bag, mosquito net and insect repellent which of course you can’t really get in your local Oxfam. So, I’m ashamed to say, I went to a high street camping shop and spent far too much money on these travel ‘essentials’, most of which I didn’t even use. The other problem I had was that my chemical free lifestyle had to go on hold. I took biodegradable soap of course, but taking anti-malarial medication, taking anti-histamines and using DEET don’t go hand in hand with my paraben free shampoo and organic veg. But I didn’t commit the usual sin of holiday clothes shopping and buying a load of new clothes – well, I did buy new clothes but they were all from charity shops and I’ll wear them next summer too.

Since being back I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I have this urge to buy new stuff. You would think that seeing people who live on next to nothing would make me feel privileged but walking round the shops, I just want to buy things. I could easily spend hundreds on new clothes and shoes in the high street if I wasn’t the sensible, restrained person with great self control that I am. And in this time of ‘financial crisis’, ‘credit crunch’ and start of a recession it’s really inappropriate. I must admit, I did by a t-shirt in Next but it was organic. Apart from that I’ve been good, and again I have been saved by charity shops. I found a long jumper (just like the ones I was pining over in the high street the other day) in Oxfam for £4 and some lovely brown boots in another charity shop. Even though I still feel guilty about spending the money, as I am overdrawn and should be saving for a rainy day, I feel better knowing that my money has gone to a good cause. It’s not quite guilt free shopping, but the closest I’m going to get to it for a while!

Getting to the root of the need for cash

As you might have noticed, I’ve been away for a bit. I’ve been away, doing a lot of thinking somewhere very different from credit crunch England where people have rather different attitudes to money. I have been in Africa, met the Masai in Kenya and spent some time talking to the inhabitants of a poor village on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Here, ethical shopping isn’t an issue. Both the Masai and the villages have very little money. They are mostly self sufficient, living off the land and making do with what they have. It really brought home to me that we in the west have a bizarre attitude to money. We work all day to make money which we then spend on ‘stuff’ to cheer us up and entertain us because we’re so exhausted from working all week. Whereas the people I spoke to worked hard to eat. They just got on with living, and they were some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met. Of course they would like more money but then so would almost everyone that I know. I think the different is, that they have their way of life and it’s been that way for generations and that’s how everyone else in the village lives. Here in the west we see rich people with their big houses, fancies clothes and posh cars and want to be like them. There is a line in a song ‘if I hadn’t seen such riches I could live with being poor’. Perhaps we need to stop aspiring to be someone we’re not and learn to accept who we are and live within our means. During the current financial problems we’re experiencing in the west, its probably best that we focus more on being content with what we have, spending less and just enjoying the simple things in life. Well, when you put it like that it sounds rather idyllic!

New money for old rope: recycling at its best

After a couple of recent blips in my almost untarnished record of ethical shopping (actually, that’s an exaggeration – its just that I’m very good at justifying my unethical spends as essentials!) I have been rather good again. One of my unethical spends (which I was feeling guilty about) was a new pair of jeans which I have recently found out is likely to be one of my most environmentally friendly spends. Apparently, as jeans are so hard wearing compared to most other clothes you are more likely to keep a pair of jeans for years and years than anything else. Which is totally believable as I’ve still got jeans from 10 years ago and they were from a charity shop in the first place! A couple of my other unethical spends were totally justifiable too. I bought a throw with will give my old (second hand sofa) a new lease of life and will protect it from the chocolate that I have a tendency to drop on it! I also bought a coffee table but it was made from reclaimed wood and it looks lovely and old too – I just wish they would have told me what it used to have been! I will soon be tightening the purse strings again and going back to the charity shops. As Christmas is rapidly returning, way too soon, I’m going to need to save every penny I have!

Modern life is rubbish and other tales of woe

It’s been nearly ten months since I started trying to shop ethically, with mixed success. In the last couple of months I have been really struggling. I think it’s a reflection of modern living and how much stuff we need. If I lived in a little house in the middle of nowhere on a large plot with some animals and veggie patch, living the good life, aiming for self sufficiency then I’m sure I wouldn’t want for much. But when you’re doing nine-five to pay the mortgage, need clothes to go to the office and ‘stuff’ like films and good food to help you unwind at the end of the day, its not easy. Now I’m not some fashion victim who needs the latest look all the time but wearing scruffy old jeans to the office really doesn’t project a professional image. I know I’m making excuses for my failings but I have tried, really tried but I can’t manage to shop ethically 100% of the time. In a way I need to make peace with a compromise – if I can shop ethically most of the time, then that’s good, it’s not perfect, but it’s better. I’m still buying fair-trade and organic food where I can, still mostly buying from charities and independent stores but I have been to the high street a couple of times. The most upsetting part of my high street shame though, isn’t that I’ve bought things; it’s that the top I bought is now in the sale for half what I paid for it. Karma? Perhaps. A lesson in patience? Definitely. A sign that I should be more careful about what I spend my money on? Absolutely.

High fashion on the high street? Give me a charity shop and a fiver instead

If you have been following my blog, then you may have noticed that I’ve been rather off topic recently. I’ve been discussing broader environmental issues rather than just ethical shopping issues. The reason for this is that I’ve been doing so well – I’ve been sticking to my pledge and only buying from charity shops, charities and ethical outlets. I recently splashed out on this recycled t-shirt from earth huggers, a great website full of recycled goodies that may well have become my new favourite shop.

But, unfortunately, I’ve had a bit of a lapse. You see, I was invited to an event at a rather swanky club in Mayfair and my modest wardrobe really didn’t rise to the occasion. So I had to buy something to wear. By the usual persons standards, it wasn’t overly indulgent, just a top and jeans, but for me it’s a rather shameless lapse of my morals. But the strange this is, I actually really enjoyed buying things again which is something I didn’t expect. I still hate the high street, I hate the way that fashion is so fickle and most of it is so tasteless that shopping is just a bore, I hate the way that finding jeans to fit takes all day and I hate the way that it costs so much just to get just a top. But I discovered that I love the smell of new clothes, I love the way that some shops wrap the clothes in tissue paper like their delicate fragile things, I love the way that the clothes are actually new and aren’t bobbly or grubby from the previous owners dirt. Despite these things, I’m not giving up. Yes I feel bad about giving £50 of my hard earned cash to two high street shops but it was a one off and I do repent. I’ll find some way of making it up by volunteering for a charity or something. But I’ve been reading recently that some companies are actually really green but they just don’t advertise the fact – you never know, some high street stores might not actually be that bad! Look at me trying to justify myself. It shouldn’t matter to me if a high street store has converted to using only organic cotton or the like, the fact remains that the share holders will be raking it in and that’s what I really object to: fat cats getting fatter. So, it’s back to the charity shops for me. I still love charity shops, but then who doesn’t: discovering a bargain whilst listening to the mellow tunes of radio two – how could anyone not love that combination.