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Bit modern for my tastes, but might suit you, Ganesh - I think you're a more adventurous dresser than I. I'd struggle to get through the website copy, myself.
Back to the ethics of bespoke tailoring... hmmm. It's an interesting one. It reminds me of fairtrade coffee, in a sense, but there's someething more specifically mad going on - in the sense that it should not, in a sane world, be cheaper to make clothes and ship them by sea freight to the other side of the world. Possibly, rising oil prices, along with inflation in the countries where the money is flowing in (most notably China and South-East Asia, but also South America and Eastern Europe) will start to roll this back, but in some cases that will mean recreating textile industries that largely no longer exist, or exist only in a vestigial or premium sense.
So - I go to a tailor and select a cloth, which I can ascertain is made in Britain, because the clothmaker has a name and a reputation, and is accountable. I can be confident (with a degree of inquiry) that the cloth will be cut and stitched in Britain, by people who are paid a reasonable wage for their labour. Again, this is at a premium. In fact, taking this route actually reminds one how much clothes kind of ought to cost, and therefore how many items of clothing we really ought to own. I have the bad habit of buying socks rather than darning or (during particularly bad weeks) washing or pairing the socks I already have - this is very poor form.
Then, of course, you get into the awkward business of whetherit would be better to provide foreign currency to the less developed world, even if that currency does not, eventually, lead to a fair wage for its workers. That's an issue, but even if one could order clothes from a "fairtrade" provider - one which guaranteed its workers and suppliers of raw materials were paid a fair wage - you'd have the shipping issues - and also the shipping costs, which might make it less economically convincing as well.
Hoom. |
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