On The Clothes We Wear

There is a very high possibility that you are wearing clothing while reading this right now, unless it's late at night while you are reading this and your preference is to sleep in the nude, in which case all the power to you. Anyways it is very hard not to notice the impact that the garment industry has on our society.

I mean, if you are to look at shopping very closely you can see that we have made essentially every major holiday in America a major shopping event. It is not say of course that shopping always involves clothing, but with the impact that fast fashion has had on our society there can be no mistake that a huge portion of our spending habits is probably spent buying clothes.

It is estimated that the average American family spends about $1500 on clothing every year. The average women has about 30 ensembles in her closet, which is about three times as much as she would have had a couple of decades ago. This spending habit is also a reflection on consumerism in general as the average household has gotten bigger to accommodate these habits. The storage industry has also seen a growth as it has turned into a multi billion dollar industry as people's wants outgrow their homes.

Now, if you were to look at the garment industry in the surface, apart from encouraging you to spend money on clothing you will wear once at most and then never bother with again, you might not see anything wrong with the industry. To that i'll let John Oliver of Last Week Tonight fill you in with the true cost of fast fashion

Again, it's not to say that all company practices in the garment industry apply to the same form of blissful unattendance towards their clothing manufacturers, but it does get you to think about how you buy clothing. Now I am by no means an authoritative figure when it comes to this, like at all because fashion is not my strong suit. When it comes to fashion it is hard to take a person who wears denim on denim seriously. When it comes to shopping, someone whose wardrobe consists mainly of Old Navy clothing he bought in high school almost ten years ago is also not the most reliable source. All I am asking however is that in your next trip to the mall, when looking at that one shirt that will only cost you five dollars and you cannot believe the deal you are getting, please just think to yourself what the true cost of that shirt actually entails.