Sol Garcia | THE RIDER
When you are 5 years old, you ask for a shiny, new toy. You do not care about the price or any of its history. You want it.
When you are 15 years old, you ask for a shiny, new phone. You do not care that it is overpriced or almost the exact same as your current phone. You want it.
When you are 19, you have already started to pay out of pocket for many items. Sometimes, for every new item. You start to reconsider every purchase.
However, at what age, do we start to reconsider our purchases because of the capitalist history behind them?
When the pandemic began, many clothing websites started to gain popularity. They promised the trendiest clothes at the most affordable prices. Tube tops for less than $1o, fluttery dresses for under $20 and even elegant room decor for only $25. Like many of my peers, I was sold. I started filling up my virtual shopping cart.
Right before I entered my payment information, I started wondering how those low prices could be explained. I turned to Google. You may already know Google’s answer: fast fashion.
Fast fashion is the manufacturing of trendy clothes, where fast and cheap production is more valuable than quality. This type of unsustainable practice thrives on exploiting laborers, demanding unreasonable work while paying little wages. In other countries, workers are treated so badly that fast fashion has become synonymous with “slave labor.” To make matters worse, children have been historically taken advantage of by this practice.
After learning that information, I quickly exited the clothing websites. I could never partake in that. Now that I knew how those clothes were made, I never wanted to see them. No matter how stylish they may be.
Of course, it is not that simple.
Once you start learning about fast fashion, you realize how many other stores are classified as such. One of my favorite stores has relied on worker exploitation. Many of my backpacks, which I cherish so much, were made this way. It is everywhere in my closet, and it might be in yours, too.
I typed into my search engine, “How to avoid fast fashion.”
“Try thrifting,” the internet said back to me.
I rarely leave home because of COVID-19, though. As much as I want to shop guilt-free, thrifting in person was not and still is not an option right now.
Virtual thrifting was, though.
I started purchasing from Depop, a popular selling app. There are thousands of clothes available on it, a lot of it second-hand. Again, I started filling up my cart, and this time, I went through with the purchases.
When my packages arrived, I was ecstatic to open them. I was still getting cute clothes, but this time, I would not be feeding the capitalist system. Not really.
For a time, I remained content. Until I learned how thrifting often leads to gentrification.
Gentrification usually refers to improving poorer areas to sell to higher-class people, and it usually ends with the lower-class people who had previously lived there needing to find another home. However, since thrifting for fun has become so popular, thrifting now contributes to gentrification.
When people thrift for fun, yes, they are helping the environment at a low-cost, but thrift stores start to boost up prices from the popularity. This harms the people who actually need inexpensive clothing. It is the cycle of gentrification. The cycle of capitalism.
Depop sellers are no exception. The app gained momentum on social media, especially last summer, and sellers started to sell plain tank tops for over $30. What made the tank top special? It was “vintage,” because vintage obviously refers to 2003.
My budget does not match Depop sellers’ prices, and I had to temporarily delete the app. I could not keep up with the inflating prices, and neither could many of my friends. It had become the center for ripoffs.
As much as I wish I could provide a solution, I cannot. I am not sure if there is one.
You may have heard the saying, “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism.”
I am starting to believe that.
Maybe you disagree, though. If so, let me know where to ethically and affordably shop without contributing to worker exploitation or gentrification.
At 18, I started considering my purchases. My wallet demanded it.
At 19, I started reconsidering my purchases. My conscience demanded it.
While we may live in a cash-hungry world, we must always consider the ethics involved, and that includes in our clothing purchases. Awareness is always the first step.
To the workers I have harmed with my consumption, I am deeply sorry. To the people I have harmed with my unnecessary thrifting, I am deeply sorry.
