No such thing as a cheap outfit.

Quite some time ago I watched an English TV series called 'Blood, Sweat and T-shirts'.

It basically saw 6 English kids all in interested in the fashion industry in one way or another, go over to India where they worked in various sweatshops, from the so called 'good' to the downright hideous. The wages they earned was all they had to live and survive off, they learned quite early on that this was not easy.

They saw children as young as 7 I believe, making garments that would eventually hit the English high street (the best high street in the world in my opinion) in shops such as New Look, MK One and of course the infamous Primark (a shop I just cannot make myself like but that is loved by millions!) Don't get me wrong, not every shop on the high street use these awful factories but please be aware it's out there.

If you can get your hands on the series it's seriously worth the watch, it will hopefully change the way that you think about what you're are buying and ideally influence where you start/stop shopping for you 'cheap clothes' because the thing is, there's no such thing as cheap clothes, everything comes at a cost whether it's the money, or general ethics. Confused? Read on!

So these sweatshop workers are working in the most disgusting conditions, sat on the filthy wet floors with rats scuttling about around their feet, at night they would sleep underneath their sewing machine for a few hours and repeat the same thing day after day, year after year and for what? About $1 a week or something insane. The thing is without this job they would have nothing at all. These people are actually heros, everything they are doing is so that their family (who they may rarely see as they work far away from home) can eat and sleep under some form of roof, albeit not a very good one.. and we complain about our jobs!! puts it into perspective a bit doesn't it?!

So here's my dilemma..

Do we allow the Primarks, Cotton Ons and Supres to stay in business by continuing to shop there? This will certainly result in the working conditions to remain as bad as they are if not get worse, we can't have that can we?

So that means we need to shut them down and begin to create a world of ethical treatment and working conditions...

...Not only is this (very unfortunately) never going to happen it also means that all these thousands and thousands of people will have no job and no money, they will therefore starve and die very young. Harsh I know but it's just a very sad fact. The workers have these jobs because they can't do anything else. Our high streets allow these people a small amount of money to live on and while it's utterly horrendous, we are stuck in this catch 22 and what we can do about it?

Put the prices in shops up so the workers pay will increase too? No. Most of the factory owners are dishonest, money hungry, unethical, illegal.. dare I say it.. Bastards, who will not pay their workers the extra money coming in.

I have honestly spent many an hour brainstorming a solution and all I have come up with is what I call the "Jamie Oliver approach" all the amazing stuff he did with school dinners I'm sure can be adapted for this situation.

So what do you think? Do we try our best to only buy from our country of residence and shut the factories down? Or do we make sure these poor people at least have some kind of income so that they can feed their family?

I'd love to hear your thoughts, this is a subject that I really believe needs discussing at length. Please leave me a comment below (remember that you can comment even if you aren't a follower.)

P.S I'm going to start researching shops on the high street that use ethical working conditions and I'll post them on here so that if I have scared you into being worried about where to shop you'll know where is safe!

If anyone wants me to check any particular store for them leave me a comment on here or shoot me an email at stevieweevie87@hotmail.com and I will be happy to find out for you.