by Sophia Wright
When shopping for clothes, makeup, skincare or even food, it is important to know about where your products are coming from. Many of us will see an ad online for cheap, trendy clothes and jump straight into visiting the website – without thinking about why these clothes are being sold for such a low price.
Consequently, after waiting excitedly for our order to arrive in the post, we often find that the clothes aren’t what they seemed to be. Most of the time the quality of the fabric is low, the stitching is coming loose and perhaps it doesn’t fit quite right.
Nevertheless, we throw it to the pile of “clothes I am only going to wear a few times before I get bored of it”, and save the new piece for a rainy day. Within our busy work and school lives we forget to think about how those clothes were definitely made unethically, and the large company has most likely been exploiting workers for low pay to rapidly make our garments in factories.
That’s where small businesses come into play. Small brand owners who sell handmade clothes and accessories are becoming the new wave of trendy shopping. And we are seeing more and more influencers promoting or wearing items from small brands, which makes us feel more inclined to buy from them.
Better than fast fashion
A small business on Etsy called Alice Acreman Silks is a handmade clothing brand. Owner Alice Acreman, from London, creates handmade silk items ranging from eye masks and pillows to dresses and kimonos.
Alice sells her best-selling kimonos for £220 each, as she says “they are quite time consuming to make and require a lot of work and high quality fabric”. She is adamant that the products she makes are “ethical, sustainable and way better quality than big fast fashion brands”.
The benefits of buying from a small business is that “they are usually the ones doing it all themselves. There is nobody being exploited in tough conditions to make a cheap piece of clothing for a low cost to the consumer,” Alice says. Moreover, she adds, “it also means that you are putting your money into someone genuine who works hard and not a huge corporate company”.
Alice says that while the price is quite high when buying from an independent business, “the longevity of the piece you are buying is much better than something from Boohoo or ASOS”.
Islington residents are divided when it comes to where they shop. Leah Kaur, a 19-year-old student, explained that she “will support their small business because sometimes there are unique items you can’t find in high street shops”. She added: “People love trends, and the brands that put out trendy items quickly are fast fashion ones.”
There is a large element of truth to Leah’s words, as many big high street brands such as H&M use fast fashion as a marketing tool. According to Insider, H&M will cycle through clothes quickly, as “It is for immediate consumption. It is to capture the look of the moment. It is not to linger in the wardrobe.”
This results in consumers being attracted to the ever-changing trends and no longer valuing a handful of pieces in their wardrobe for long wear.
Nevertheless, there seems to be many people who don’t know what exactly fast fashion is and have no idea about online small businesses. Gill Peters, aged 61, explained that she doesn’t shop frequently for clothing and accessories.
“I don’t quite know what fast fashion is, only that the younger generation talk about it a lot, but I don’t feel I need to worry too much as I don’t purchase clothes often,” she said.
When being informed that brands that contributed to unethical production were considered fast fashion, such as high street clothing chains, Gill suggested that “business owners should open more independent boutiques on the high street”, as she used to shop a lot from independent clothing stores when she was younger.
An anonymous questionnaire on Instagram turned up interesting answers about why people choose to buy from small brands. One answer in particular stuck out: “I love to support smaller companies as I know that they are super grateful for helping expand their business.” Another user said: “It feels good to shop ethically and I don’t want to give big companies my money because it’s not going to something good.”
A poll was also put out to ask how often people shop for clothes. Out of 55 participants, 7.1% answered “once a week”, 21.4% answered “once a month”, 57.1% answered “once every few months” and 14.3% answered “twice a year”.
According to panaprium.com, “Buying fewer clothes and higher quality is one of the best ways to be more sustainable with clothes. It’s a lot better for the planet, your closet, and your budget.”
Furthermore, the article, says: “The average high-street garment is only worn 7 times when its life expectancy would be more than 2 years under normal wear and tear.”
This ties into the point of spending more money on staple pieces and accent pieces that you can use for a long time and the small independent brands are there giving us exactly what we need – a unique piece of clothing that has longevity and is ethically and sustainably made.
Plus, it gives a fantastic platform for small creators to put their designs out there and flourish.
So next time you are looking for some new clothes, consider where you are going to get the best quality and wear out of them because it could very well be a better option to buy from a small business who’s advertising their work on social media or sites such as Etsy.
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