'Urban Renewal' my guide...

Urban Renewal

This is the tag that is still (much to the annoyance of most of my friends,)on my new handbag. My new handbag is not a hand bag at all actually, it is a rucksack. A gorgeous dark brown leather rucksack which doesn't clash with my girlie dresses! I have wanted a rucksack for ages so that my back wouldn't get so sore carrying around my heavy handbags, so I had pretty much resigned myself to back ache until, whilst looking for a replacement primary handbag I found this.It  I adore my new bag. On my new bag was the above tag and I feel like the marketing team for Urban Outfitters have, once again, got it spot on. Although I must admit whilst doing my research for this blog I have discovered that Urban Outfitters may have a very talented marketing team however they have "have no policies in place to prevent abuses by suppliers"  making me feel conflicted in my choice to, on this one occasion shop there. 

http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/Mediainfo/pressreleases/clothesshops.aspx#ethicalspecialists

I try and buy all of my clothes second hand. This is partially because vintage and charity shop bought items tend to be cheaper than new clothes. This is also partly because I feel that the culture of Fast Fashion that we have today is completely unethical. It is unethical because it is creating huge amounts of poor quality, mass produced items which are designed to wear out or break before the next season so that their owner(s) are forced to buy more fast fashion items to replace those that have fallen at the wayside. The clothes are cheaply made and retail at prices cheaper than their high-street-chain competitors, so customers buy into the fast fashion concept as the believe it to be saving them money. As the economic climate has got bleaker these type of stores have boomed. The trends in these stores also turn around so fast (hence the name) that people who follow "fashion" are encouraged to buy a new wardrobe each season anyway, (this, the inexpensive cost of the item and the ludicrously long cues to customer services, the only part of the store you can return things, mean that most customers wont bother returning their poor quality, faulty items and with by more instead.) 

These rejected, surplus clothes more often than not end up in land fill sights. As most of these clothes are made as cheaply as possible they are often made using synthetic materials which cannot decompose easily, creating more waste than our planet can handle.

Think twice about how you dispose of your clothes

The other way the huge multinational companies keep the cost of manufacturing down is by using "slave labour" or paying way below the recommended minimum wage in their factories. Most of these factories are located across less economically developed parts of Asia and other countries lacking the infrastructure to protect its citizens against such corporate greed-fuelled evil.

The ugly truth of the global fashion industry

Now I am not going to pretend that I have never been guilty of shopping in Primark or any other equally disgusting consumerist cesspit I try my very best now to avoid it all costs. 

Vintage shopping in Brighton's North Lanes = LOVE

I LOVE charity shops, you can pick up the most beautiful vintage, quality, classic items for the cost of a sandwich or less. Some charity shops have become more expensive in the last few years, which I don't entirely approve of; (because I feel that charity shops provide a service the community not only through the money they raise for their charities but for the poor people with the community who shop their, but I am getting of topic!) However most items that you find second hand and weren't originally from afore mentions vile fast fashion establishments are still less expensive than you would find them new. I also adore the entire experience of rummaging through the old clothes, like a treasure hunt, to come out with a rare gem. It feels like a prize and like you earned it! Also there is also that feeling of well being knowing that by buying this gem, this prize you are giving to a worthy cause and not some greedy global fat cat. I'd say about half of my favourite items of clothing are charity shop bargains, and the fact they were bargains makes me cherish them all the more! The other half are from Vintage shops.

http://www.leftover.co.uk/boutique/boutique.htm

I adore vintage shopping! As you may have gathered from the left side of my blog backdrop I have a bit of thing for the fifties... and the sixties, some of the seventies, a small amount of the eighties and most of the forties! I love old clothes and accessories, I love the concept of reusing the fashions long passed. Fifties fashion is probably my favourite and I do have a bit of a fifties housewife fantasy that I some times play out in my head, but of course being a modern woman with some feminist ideals a fantasy is about as far as it gets in terms of the way I lead my life. 

50s Fantasy made reality

For me vintage shops are like treasure troves, filled to the brim with treasures long forgotten, ready to rediscovered, to tell you their story and to start a new one with you. The vintage back pack I began this little rant about it a perfect example. After I had been using it for the best part of a day I found something unfamiliar in one of the side pockets. Upon removing it I unfolded a 1997 map of San Francisco Zoo. You can imagine my joy! There was piece of some one else's story in my new bag, a glimpse into the story of the bag, clearly the last time it had been used by anyone was fourteen years ago in San Francisco and some how, all these years later it ended up the the "Urban Renewal" section of Urban Outfitters on Oxford Street. Urban Outfitters in not a shop I frequently go into any more, in fact that was probably the first I had been in there in several years, because, as I have mentioned I strive to buy almost entirely second hand clothes, as avoid the high street chains like the plague! There for I almost felt like I was meant to find it, it was meant to me mine. And now this bag is inheriting a new story, my story, to continue on from its adventures in San Francisco. I hope it has lots of exciting adventures with me too. 

http://www.tarastarlet.com/shop.php

Another great thing about buying second hand clothes from Vintage or charity shops is that most of the time they are not in fashion. I know we are socially conditioned to want to follow fashion and to feel that we are in some way inadequate if we do not fit in with the current trend; I personally don't like sitting on a carriage of the underground, at a bus stop or in a busy coffee shop only to look around and realise I am a carbon copy of everyone around me! Of course my style is influenced by current fashions but I would not say that it is dictated by them. 

Outfit of entirely second hand clothes...
apart from the belt o.O

I know that this has become an epic rant, but I would just like to make one last point, an appeal if you will. Please can people look into the ethics of their favourite high-street brands, do some research into where there clothes are made, under what conditions and who by. Look into if the owners of your company pay corporation tax, which our country is desperate for in the this difficult financial climate when valuable services are being axed to enable these fat cats to continue thriving off the ignorance and consumerism of people like you and me. It is still possible to look stylish and fashionable without shopping in such evil corporations. If you are not a fan of wearing clothes that have already have a story, an imprint if you will of some one else's life, fine. Try and shop in individual stand alone stores, yes they are harder to find, and most of them are more expensive that Primark. But your shopping experience will be more pleasant (as most of you will have experienced, shopping in Primark is retail HELL!) The clothes you buy will, on the whole be of better quality, and if not they do turn out to be  faulty you tend to have a much more sympathetic returns policy, you wont have to cue for 3 hours and you are far more likely to be returning your item to the same person you bought it off. Don't be a slave to Fast Fashion. Oscar Wild once said"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."  

Oscar Wild's insightful quote on a fashionable
 T-shirt, what delicious irony.

FAST fashion is an even more grotesque form of ugliness so intolerable they have to change it even more frequently. Try to find clothes that are classic to your individual style not a trend that you feel you must conform to. That way you will spend less money, your wardrobe will be full of less things that never wear any more and you will have a nice concise collection of outfits you cherish and adore. The latest trends are often built around one body type (emaciated super model mostly) so if you care about how you look, (call it superficial) find out what body type you are and some classic cuts and styles that will good good on you. That is of the reasons I love fifties frocks, they are a very flattering cut for me. 

Or maybe it began here, in my spectacular
 year 5 production of Grease

So to conclude if you believe in recycling your waste to save the planet why not give recycling fashion a go? Try hitting some of your local charity shops, venture into a vintage shop. Vintage is all the rage at the moment so more and more are popping up all over the place. If you need you clothes to be new, or your looking for something specific in a specific size then stop ethically there is a wealth of information out there on how to do this. Live local, buy local. Support your small local businesses or they will die out. If you think TopShop is a great British institution Google UKUncut, it will open your eyes to the Arcadia group and many other popular high favourites (Boots). Being an anti-consumerist does not mean you are are anti nice things. I like nice things, I studies textiles at school, I like the artistic element of designer clothes and can appreciate them as peices of art one can wear, but for the most part I find the status symbol and inherrant excessive cost of designer clothing deplorable. However if you invest in expensive designer clothing it is normally very well made and will last you a very long time, and (hopelly) help put an end to the huge surpluss waste from the fashion-conscious consumerist culture of the west ending up in landfills, often in the same countries that were already raped for the resources to produce these items in the first place. Think about where the things you buy come from, look at the label and find out which country it was manufactured, this will give you an initial indication of the conditions in which it was manufactured if you have done some background reading on slave labour and the globalisation of the fashion industry which EVERYONE SHOULD.

If once you have learnt about the ugly truths and
you still don't care, then this blog is not for you.
But at least you are making an informed decision.

Here are some useful links to information that might help you make a more informed and hopefully ethical decision about where you shop.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3516158/Primark-effect-lead-to-throwaway-fashion-turning-up-in-landfill.html

http://ihscslnews.org/



http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/


http://www.anti-marketing.com/anti-globalization.html

Okay rant over.