Streetwear Ethics

[Trikitt]

Hello,

I run a small clothing company called T BIRDS in the UK. I am hoping to be selling it in stores next summer as I am piecing graphics and designs etc together.

What I am on this forum to ask is a question that has really annoyed me for the last few years that I have been into Streetwear ever since I discovered that all my favourite brands like Famous SAS, 12 Bar etc all have their shirts assembled in lower / cheaper wage countries such as Mexico, Turkey and the classic of the Far East. Even the Hundreds do it, who have done shirts about the Mexican border and immigration to America. What make it worse is that they put a label in the shirt saying made in the USA!!!

My main question is would you as a consumer much rather know that the t-shirt has been made ethically i.e. in America or the UK and pay more for the t-shirt or does it not really matter that much and you would prefer just pay the market standard?

Sorry to bother you all but it is a topic I wouldn't mind having answered by some of you.

Thanks in advance.

Iain

[rasclaaat]

I think you raise an interesting point. One thing to keep in mind, the shirts use cotton grown in america and are assembled in Mexico or Honduras etc. Is it really so bad to pay people in another country to do a job?
The flip side to that is, that made in the US tees cost more, which would push the price up for the customers, maybe by several dollars. So the real question is do customers want to pay more for the domestic tees?

Furthermore brands like American Apparel which were made in the US were no better than sweatshops -the bosses there systematically stop their employees from unionizing, so using domestic shirts might not actually be taking the "ethical" path. The sad thing about American Apparel is that their original "sweatshop free" claim is a blatant lie, and perhaps the reason why they switched to "vertically integrated" which just means they own everything which I suspect was another lie given that I don't think they grow their own cotton themselves...

And last of all, the printing is done domestically for most of the brands you're talking about, and that's where the real costs come in, so if 75% of what you're paying for is for an american screen printer to put a graphic on a shirt, does it really even matter if part of the construction was done South of the border?

Personally, I don't think most street wear customers really give a shit enough to want to pay more...but that's just my guess

[SoulRebelMusic]

RS label states assembled in mexico using US textiles.

[Telly]

i don't think the HB kids care about this type of thing. They just want to make sure that they look good screw the poor