Why is sustainable fashion so expensive in the first place?
Quality
The fabric in sustainable garments is made to last. This means that much effort (and money) is put into creating them, unlike synthetic materials made quickly and cheaply. These fabrics are then often expertly sewn together to give the garments added longevity. Paying these experts is not cheap (and so it should be; they do amazing work), driving the costs up further.
'As a consumer, the power to change this industry for good rests with you’
Transparency
Finding the best suppliers in a niche market is not a straightforward process. When you do find a supplier with perfect transparency their costs are usually much higher than average due to the service they offer.
For example, a wool supplier who videos her sheep, takes care of them more, and gives them better medicines is going to charge more than a farmer who puts as little time, effort, and money into their sheep as possible to simply boost their own profits.
Ethics
The fashion industry appears to have a history – at least after the industrial revolution – of cutting costs at the detriment of the planet and human welfare to maximise profits. This can be those ‘insightful’ ideas such as outsourcing work to underpaid and poorly treated foreign workers, dumping waste in landfills and the ocean, and buying cotton from un-reputable farms that use too much water and treat their workers appallingly. Those harmful cost cutting tactics will be thrown away when fashion businesses go ethical. So naturally, production costs go back up to levels they were at before these cost cutting tactics where discovered.
Mark-ups
Price mark-ups are the norm in fashion. Retail stores usually mark-up the garments they purchase from brands by around 2 to 3 times the wholesale price. So obviously a similar arrangement will also take place with sustainable garments – and because their production costs are higher, the mark-ups are amplified. For instance, a £10 difference in base costs can result in a £30 difference with mark-ups.
Lack of competition
Sustainable fashion is still a niche industry. Typically, the more demand there is for products, the more it attracts new businesses to the scene: creating competition. When there is more competition, prices are driven down in order for businesses to compete with one another. Businesses will also compete by producing increasingly higher volumes: driving costs down father. In niche markets, especially sustainable fashion, businesses must produce in lower quantities, contributing to higher production costs per garment.
All of these reasons contribute to a slow-fashion process that can be fairly costly, so it may be a difficult task to get these prices down – and it’s not going to happen overnight.
How do we make it more affordable?
1. Invest more in sustainable fashion: So how do we solve the problem of demand in the sustainable space? With most positive societal change, there needs to be a shift in consumer mindset – and that simply boils down to what we do as individual consumers. As you might have already guessed, that means that to heighten demand and lower costs, the more sustainable fashion you buy the better. This was proven to work when there was an increase in demand for organic food. From 2014 to 2018, consumers saw price drops of around 1.5%, which is not bad considering the already high costs of organic produce (1). This can happen for sustainable fashion, too. Alongside this, your hard earned money given to sustainable brands can be put to good use in developing new and cheaper production methods.
2. Talk about sustainable fashion more: This is something that can expand demand further if done wisely. Talk to your friends, family, and colleagues about your favourite sustainable fashion brands. Talk about how it positively impacts the environment and workers’ rights. Talk about how to care for your clothes properly. But, whatever you do, don’t nag your friends to buy sustainable fashion because they won’t be friends with you for much longer. And that's not good for business. This can’t be just another ‘trend’. It’s up to you to make it mainstream.
3. Buy from direct to consumer brands: How do you lower those retail costs? Cut them out completely by going directly to the brands. Usually this means going to their websites which will inquire postage costs. But rest assured, postage will be a lot less than added retail costs. But there’s more: Ecommerce sites waste around 30% less energy than a conventional retail store (2). So for the planet and your pocket, it’s best you go direct to the brand.
4. Buy less: Sounds self-explanatory right? And it's weird that we, as people who sell clothes, would tell you to buy less clothes. The truth is... quality sustainable clothing doesn’t actually cost more than fast fashion. Think about it. How long does your fast fashion items last? How often do you buy new ones? Fast fashion might seem cheap in the short term but it seriously adds up when you’re buying new pieces every week because your old clothes have either worn out or gone out of fashion. So it’s easy to say that if you buy one high-quality and timeless trouser that could last you for years you’d actually be saving a lot of money in the long run despite its higher price tag initially.
5. Don’t throw out your clothes: Why would this help? Well, firstly, if you’re not throwing out your clothes for silly reasons such as ‘going out of fashion’ (which I know you’re not because you're smart) you aren’t going to be buying as much new clothes to replace them. If you do have to throw some out, why not donate the fabric to sustainable fashion brands for them to re-purpose into new garments or even donate them to charity shops.
6. Stop purchasing fast fashion: The more influence you give to fast fashion brands (I won’t name any names but you probably know who I’m talking about) the more tools you give them to undercut sustainable fashion. Don't give in to fast fashion ‘sustainability gimmicks’. Doing this supplants fast fashion as the default way we do things in the fashion industry and that might mean goodbye planet. Lots of these gimmicks are like: ‘10% recycled plastic’. This sounds great on the surface but practically does nothing for the environment while they still use horrific processes for the other 90% of the garment. Even that 10% recycled plastic might have been handled by under-paid, badly treated workers in a less-developed country.
So we can see that the power to change this industry for good really does lie with the consumer (you). Before reading this, you might have felt powerless to bring the cost of sustainable fashion down. But now you're fully equipped to go out into the world and make your fashion something you can be proud of.
References
1: MarketWatch (2019) Good news if you buy organic food – it's getting cheaper. https://on.mktw.net/3qpvCQ1
2: Bertram, R.F. and Chi, T. (2017) A study of companies’ business responses to fashion e-commerce’s environmental impact, International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 11 (2). https://bit.ly/30c2oJB