A new report says women should stop buying cheap clothes at Primark and make do and mend instead. Thrifty common sense - or patronising nonsense?
Yesterday a damning Lords report by the Science and Technology Committee strongly criticised the wastefulness of cut-price High Street fashion. The report declared that the growing popularity of stores such as Primark was 'costly and socially unacceptable' since the clothes are now so cheap there was no incentive to repair or recycle them.
Is the report fair, or are the Lords hopelessly out of touch with today's shoppers? We asked two leading figures in the fashion industry for their views...
Boycott: Liz Jones
BOYCOTT
The Mail's style expert Liz Jones, says:
I don't know whether you have ever visited the slums that fringe Dhaka in Bangladesh, home to 2.5million garment workers, 75 per cent of whom are women and children. But, I have, and it is a living hell.
Women raise children beneath canopies of plastic carrier bags. They work in factories, sewing clothes for the biggest, best-known brands in the world, for a wage of just ?3 for a six-day week.
Many of the big brands have confirmed to me that they pay the 'minimum wage' in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka as if this were somehow acceptable. What about paying, instead, a 'living' wage - which, to provide sufficient calories and a decent place to live, would be four times that sum?
Even more shockingly, many of the big brands admit they employ children under the age of 16. Even M&S told me they think it is acceptable to employ 15-year-olds.
Unfortunately, the big brands are so afraid of putting up their prices, they refuse to improve the conditions of these far-flung workers (only 1 per cent of M&S garment manufacturing is done in the UK).
The governments and unions in these developing countries try not to rock the boat in case the big brands take their custom elsewhere.
All of these workers slave away (literally) so that women in the West can shop at Primark and Asda and their ilk and stagger home laden (it's so easy to spend more than you planned when faced with rock-bottom prices) with armfuls of cheap, disposable, high fashion clothes.
The problem is that ever-cheaper fashion - ten years ago a pair of jeans by George at Asda cost ?17.99; today they cost ?3 - is like cheap food: it means people's lives and the environment are being violated.
Cheap fashion, like cheap, factory-farmed salmon and chicken, has stripped away any notion we had of something being luxurious or in any way special (?8 cashmere sweater, anyone?). It has devalued all our lives, making us ever more dissatisfied, always wanting more.
The problem, and it's a big one, is that women (it is particularly women who have fed this trend for ever-cheaper clothes) now think very low-cost but fashionable designs are their 'right' because they are 'worth it'.
It has become not only acceptable but deeply cool to buy clothes as cheaply as possible.
In these recession-bound times, it is seen as commendable to buy loads of rubbish rather than to save up for just one, wonderful, well-made designer piece that you will wear and wear, and that you can pass on to your ungrateful children.
And the thing is, anyone who champions something expensive and beautifully made is pilloried for having more money than sense and being out of touch with what 'real women want'.
For a moment, cast aside what the Lords said, and the issues of low-paid workers and the environment. Far too many women - vain, capricious creatures that we are - don't care about such matters.
(Women with children care even less. In Primark not long ago, when I asked one mother why she wanted three identical pairs of ?1.50 jeans she said: 'I need one in the wash, one to air and a pair to wear.')
No, the only argument that will persuade women to wean themselves off the disposable is that in the long run cheap tat works out more expensive (I've never worn the ?40 pencil skirt by Madonna I snapped up at H&M because, though seductive on the rail, it was thin and badly cut). And, let's face it, it never looks or feels great.
But what is the alternative? I suppose you think I am going to tell you to buy all your clothes at Prada. Well, there is a middle ground.
It would be a start to buy British wherever possible. The once thriving garment industry in the Yorkshire Dales and the Borders is on its knees, with one of the last family-owned mills about to close its doors.
This is because we now all wear wool and cashmere from Mongolia and Australia (oh dear, I could tell you some horror stories about the Australian sheep industry).
Wool from endangered British breeds like the Wensleydale and the Shetland is the best in the world: it lasts for generations (in contrast, ever noticed how that Tu at Sainsbury's sweater goes all bobbly and sprouts holes?) and feels as soft as silk.
The small, ethical Yorkshire fashion company Izzy Lane has just announced it will produce a range of British wool sweaters, each bearing the name of the granny who knitted it in her own home (this was the idea of model Lily Cole; she didn't gain a place at Cambridge for nothing).
Or, if that doesn't appeal, buy second-hand and Fairtrade wherever possible. As Safia Minney, who set up Fairtrade fashion company People Tree, said: 'I didn't want children sewing my children's clothes.'
And neither should you.
Buy: Alexandra Shulman
BUY
Alexandra Shulman, editor of Vogue, says:
The Lords' attack on fast, cheap fashion on the grounds that it encourages 'wasteful consumption' comes as no surprise.
Fashion is used to being dumped in the village stocks and pelted with blame for all kinds of society's ills, from encouraging drug abuse and eating disorders, to the slaughter of animals and the use of cheap labour. Now, it seems, fashion is responsible for overfilling our wheelie bins, too.
And it is all because it's possible to go out and buy a cute outfit for Saturday night's party for under ?20.
That means, in theory, that it is cheap enough to get rid of if the red wine stains are so bad that it won't recover, and, anyway, the dry cleaning might well end up costing about as much as the dress did in the first place.
But which planet do those particular peers inhabit, I wonder? Have they spent any time with the kind of young women who actually shop in the High Street stores?
I've just returned from a holiday in the company of a group of 18-year-old girls whose wardrobes (actually, clothes piles) almost entirely comprised of Primark, Topshop and Miss Selfridge purchases.
They bought these clothes because they got a thrill from them first of all and, of course, because they were affordable. They shared each other's flimsy shorts, ra-ra skirts and bikinis; collected by them over a number of summers.
Although they had in their repertoire the odd designer label vest, generously bought by a parent, why on earth shouldn't they be allowed to enjoy the bliss of owning a stash of cheap minidresses?
Cheap clothes are one of the great treats of modern life: they provide an instant pick-me-up without breaking the bank. And, frankly, at the moment, when all our living expenses are rising so horrendously in a way that none of us can control, the ability to find something gorgeous that makes you feel good (even if it is only temporary) has never been more appreciated.
Throwaway fashion: a dress from Primark
The UK is one of the most expensive countries in which to live, and London, for example, is almost impossible for young people to afford; rents are astronomical and a cinema ticket, cab fare and pizza for two can easily knock you back ?50.
Where do the Lords think women can find the cash to buy more ' hard-wearing' clothes? What kind of allowances are they paying their university-age children, or are they in favour of the ?17,000 overdraft most young students are now landed with before they start work?
The report is based on the notion that cheap clothes are throwaway clothes, but this is complete nonsense. Speaking from experience, I know that my High Street buys stay in my wardrobe just as long as many of my more expensive purchases.
True, a cheap tailored jacket will not last a lifetime while a Chanel one will, and nobody could argue that cheap clothes are as well-cut, or made from such good fabrics. But since many people can't afford the obviously more desirable expensive buys, why should they be deprived of owning a cheaper version?
And why should they necessarily see the rubbish bin as being its natural home after a few outings?
The important thing is not how expensive or cheap the clothes are that you buy, but that you love them and take care of them - I've got a pale green Gap T-shirt that's been on holiday with me for the past 12 years and it's still going strong. And some of my favourite vintage pieces have been from the High Street chains of the Seventies.
Thirty years of cheap fashion. Now that's something to celebrate.
