After all, we have little reason to keep wearing and repairing the clothes we already own when styles change so fast and it’s cheaper to just buy more.īut what are we doing with all these cheap clothes? And more important, what are they doing to us, our society, our environment, and our economic well-being? Retailers are producing clothes at enormous volumes in order to drive prices down and profits up, and they’ve turned clothing into a disposable good.
Stores ranging from discounters like Target to traditional chains like JCPenney now offer the newest trends at unprecedentedly low prices. When she found herself lugging home seven pairs of identical canvas flats from Kmart (a steal at $7 per pair, marked down from $15!), she realized that something was deeply wrong.Ĭheap fashion has fundamentally changed the way most Americans dress. She was buying a new item of clothing almost every week (the national average is sixty-four per year) but all she had to show for it was a closet and countless storage bins packed full of low-quality fads she barely wore-including the same sailor-stripe tops and fleece hoodies as a million other shoppers. Maxx, and cheap but trendy retailers like Forever 21, Target, and H&M.
She’d grown accustomed to shopping at outlet malls, discount stores like T.J. Until recently, Elizabeth Cline was a typical American consumer.
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