By Mahil Kanini
Everyone loves a bargain but the true cost of that latest wardrobe addition is pitiful wages for garment workers. The truth is, cheap clothing has a real cost. It is not fair that anybody should sit 12 hours sewing and sewing until they collapse of dehydration and hunger. And that we are rich because they are poor. We are rich because it costs us 10 Euro to buy a T-shirt at H&M, but somebody has to starve for you to be able to buy it.
A large gap exist between what garment workers are paid as a legal minimum, and what they need for a decent standard of living. Minimum wages paid to garment workers are an average of 42 percent and 55 percent, the amount of an actual living wage.
The cost of fast-fashion really is the bodies of black and brown women who power this industry around the world, who are placed in risky situations, but also kept in a cycle of poverty and oppression through the wages they make.
Clothes are essentially part of the economy and the second largest consumed sector, after food. The overlooked part of it however, is that labor is a huge part of the cost of garment production. Fashion is a labor-intensive industry, not technology-intense.
It may seem obvious that clothes are handmade, but that simple fact has a profound effect on the prices we pay for our clothes. The wages paid to garment factories enormously affect the prices we pay for fashion. To make cheap clothes, you really need cheap labor.
When we can recognize how clothing is put together, what it is made of and can visualize the long journey it makes to our closets, it becomes harder to buy cheap clothes and to view clothes as worthless or disposable.
The winning point is, consumers have the power to change this narrative and help to eradicate poverty for garment workers.
As consumers, we vote with our money and tell the brands what we want and at what price we are willing to pay for it. This is an empowering position. When we decide what our limits, boundaries and ideals are and then collectively communicate them through our buying habits, we impact change. And with that action we begin to realize the words of Ghandi: "Be the change you want to see in the word."
Together, we can eradicate poverty among the garment workers by changing our way of fashion shopping.
Mahil Kanini is a fashion enthusiast and staff writer at the Eco-Mindset.