Whilst at Living Water, Jenny Skivington really challenged me about fair trade clothes.
I struggle with fair trade food on a uni budget, and most of the stuff that is fair trade I don't eat anyway!
Clothes are different though. It's just a matter of choosing to not just buy clothes because their cheap.
Whilst I was at Momentum I was challenged by this further with the 'Ethical Bedroom' in the market place run by Tearfund. They provided me with a directory of where I can buy fair trade stuff online.
I've still got a lot of thoughts around this. At the moment, it appears I can only buy fairly traded clothes online. There is one shop in York, but the clothes are not great. (but is that really a good enough excuse?). Other ponderings include the issue of is it still fair trade if it's in a sale? Tearfund gave me a free tshirt at Momentum. I challenged this and they said that the workers had been paid it was them that were choosing to give it for free. But surely if they can afford to give it for free - they can afford to charge less for the clothes normally? Puzzled.
Another thought is the whole, if we all stop buying clothes from places that aren't fair trade then the workers that get barely anything will end up with nothing... hmm...
In my brief investigating today I also discovered the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), I don't have enough knowledge or time to go into it now, but there is more here.
So that suggests a number of shops that are better to shop in - I don't think they're fair trade, but perhaps they're second best? What do people think?
7 comments:
It's still fairtrade if it's in a sale, because they won't have paid the maker any less, I think.
and as for ETI, it's a start!
as far as i know, Marks and Spencer now do a line of jeans and t-shirts that are ethically traded. There was an article in the guardian about 3 weeks ago, you can read it here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/outlook/story/0,,1856608,00.html
Also, blackspot shoes are pretty good, although a bit on the pricey side. Have a look at http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotshoes/
Hope that helps. ;-)
Peopletree.com have some brill stuff.
yeah, although it always looks a little too old for me...
I thought after your email I should have a look at your blog and see if you mentioned it.
In terms of unpaid workers if we stop shopping in some shops, I think that only applies to a boycott. If we transfer our purchases to another brand we are still paying the same number of workers, just they are employed by a different company. The more people who buy fairtrade, the bigger the company and the more workers they can employ...Clothes companies are competative, if they see they are losing a market share they'll soon change their practices.
Iwould say something deep, but Ill just say, I got some gorgeous fairtrade jeans at Passion! They don't fir properly, but thats an aside ;-)
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