The Garment Industry

Conscious shopper

Cute trendy outfits and girl clothes styles don't have to come with an expensive price tag. Clothing styles for girls can be cute and bought within budget if you shop with a different state of mind. New outfits can be purchased at very low cost if you shop smart. The trick to shopping smart is to shop not like you are the customer but shop as if you were in the production of the clothes you are purchasing. Shopping this way will give you a new insight to never shop the old way again.

First, a little bit about the material. Clothing comes from fiber plants like cotton and hemp, plastic polyester and hair of wool or animal skins. Clothes can be made from hand with intensive labor of cutting, stitching, sewing buttons, basting pants, shaping pockets, measurements, sewing machines, etc. This is all done by garment workers bare hands and garment workers who earn pennies, compared to the Designers earnings and the many Americans who spend a weeks pay for them on one outfit. Clothes, which is made usually in the garment industry, often called sweatshops, is a big trillion dollar business yet, the designers of these clothes aren't spending near the amount they are making from the clothes they are selling.

WORLDWIDE SWEATSHOPS

Working conditions of sweatshops are horrific and sometimes even, inhumane. There has been stories that some plants will lock doors so workers won't get out if the production isn't adequate and many third world sweatshops involve child labor. One should be disgusted to know that when you spend $15-$50 dollars on one piece of garment, you are supporting this industry of forced child labor. Sweatshop working conditions usually have maximum micromanagement creating an intense and uncomfortable work environment and some may withhold bathroom breaks and/or lunches until the amount needed is fulfilled. Some designers and retail stores accused of having sweatshops are Forever 21, DKNY, Dickies, Nikes, Chanel, Gap, Polo, Walmart, Liz Clairborne, Levis, Apple and maybe just about all these filthy rich white designers who live a lavish lifestyle over the labor of the brown people.

The Garment Industry

Sustainability in the fashion industry is due to the labor workers in these sweatshops. When you spend, splurge and think its cute to spend a lot of money on clothes, you are only supporting this vengeance that the poor people of color endure. Most people who work in sweatshops for fashion and fashion industry segments are mainly people of color in Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Fashion is a trend but at what expense? The fashion industry economy is only a blooming one because of the maker of the clothing. Fashion editor and fashion central are the outcome of the work done by those in the background who really set the forefront to the designers and models who walk the runways in fashion shows and in print catalogs, etc.

Become a better person by having better shopping habits. This will create an overall better shopping experience. Clothes are cute, yes, but knowing who makes your clothes and where they come from should play an important part too, for the amount you spend.

Tips when going shopping

• Shop Sale or Clearance Items. 

 Cute clothes are on the sale or clearance rack! When you shop, you want to spend as close to what the garment workers are getting paid. You want to give to the one who is putting the clothes on your back, not the ones who are coming up with the designs of it.

•      Shop Seasonal. 

When you go shopping, buy your summer clothes in the winter and your winter clothes in the fall. This guarantees less expensive, yet, still, cute clothing. (Ain't nobody going to know that that cute oversize sweater was last years trend in the winter). Trends, styles and patterns always make their rounds again, every season for the rest of the seasons to come.

Shoes bought at a Resale shop

•  Shop at Resale Shops. 

Places like Plato's Closet or Buffalo Exchange,  Jet Rag, RagoRama. These places sometimes have new items with tags that will cost about half the fraction you would pay on a new department store top or bottom.

• Shop at Thrift shops and other second hand stores like Salvation Army. 

Second hand stores always have special color or tag days where you can get stuff 50% off or at a certain percentage off.

• Shop Online

When you shop online, you will usually find a tab for sale items and/or other special price mark downs. Retail stores may have that very same thing at the store but only selling it at full price. Check online to see if you can get it at a lesser cost. 

• Shop with a conscious budget. 

If you ideally only want to spend $20. Spend only $20! If you like a shirt that cost $15, don't get it. Challenge yourself to find a full outfit, top and bottom or shoes and a top for that amount.

Leather skirt

• If you have to splurge....

We always just gotta have something right?! I am guilty of this too. If there is an item that is a must (like this leather high waste skirt I had to splurge $10 on) get it! Don't deprive yourself, but limit yourself to only this one thing for x amount of time. Don't always buy something because you are telling yourself its a must. Discipline yourself to look cute but shop smart.

You may not know this but by doing this, you are doing far more greater good all while still looking cute.