Sustainable Shopping: Does it exploit the working class?

By Lowri Crossman

What comes to mind when you think of a new trend once deemed unpopular and unheard of? For me it’s shopping second hand. I remember when it was embarrassing to be seen inside of a charity shop in case you were seen as ‘poor’. But now it’s the best way to shop for clothes sustainably without contributing to global warming, and exploitation of underpaid workers. Myself, like many others, have decided to take on second hand shopping as doing their part for society because, how could it possibly be harmful?

I’m sure many of you have downloaded apps such as depop or vinted as an easily accessible way to shop second hand, with 15 million registered users on depop as of 2020. These sites display the most modern and trendy second hand clothing on the market, for a reasonable price. However, I for one have come across a few items that look a lot cheaper than what it is going for, in fact, more than a few. This seems to portray the idea that shopping second hand is not an affordable option for a lot of people and therefore have to resort to fast fashion. So why didn’t this happen before?

Approximately 14 million people are in poverty in the UK, that means 1 in 5 people live in poverty. Therefore, many people rely heavily on charity shops to find their basic essential clothing as fast fashion can be too pricey. However, if you have visited a charity shop recently, you may see that the prices have increased significantly to what they used to be (Note that this is not the case in all shops) due to the high demand of clothing currently, but why should high demand mean increased prices?

Across social media, many depop users have been called out for reselling clothes for a higher selling price. Surely that’s how profit works though, what’s so wrong with that? Well, it seems that middle class teens have been going to poorer areas to visit their charity shops. Once they have found the clothing they need, they resell them for an astronomical profit even though they were second hand to begin with. Why is this harmful to working class children? Because they cannot keep up with the new price demands in the charity shops, and certainly cannot keep up with the ‘vintage’ resellers. It seems their only option is cheap, poor quality fast fashion items.

Now that my rant is over, I would like to shed some light. There are still accessible charity shops for the working class who luckily have not let the extreme demand affect their pricing. For example, the British Red Cross. And there are also amazing depop and other second hand site users who do not exploit the working class in order to make a little profit. Shopping sustainably is the best thing you can do to help combat the fast fashion global crisis and I would absolutely recommend doing so. And more than anything, be compassionate.

Sources:

https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/depop-facts-statistics/

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/07/uk-live-poverty-charity-joseph-rowntree-foun dation