I like it but I’m not paying that!

Something that I keep on hearing is “I like what you have but I’m not paying £60 for a t shirt, that’s far too much!”

I understand that, I truly do, and I don’t begrudge anyone not willing to spend that on a t shirt, I was one of those people too. The real problem lies here with how the fashion industry has gone over the last 10-15 years and the consumers (us) willingness to let it happen.

A term that is banded around so much at the moment is fast fashion. What this essentially means is inexpensive clothing rapidly produced by mass-market retailers in response to latest fashion trends. Primark, I’m looking at people like you here!

If we’re honest with ourselves, we know we’re buying crap but if it’s £5 a t shirt do we really give a shit? If we ruin it, who cares, it was only a fiver, I’ll go get another one, right? How places like Primark can do this is by outsourcing all the work to factories more than often somewhere in Asia, where the working conditions are not as good, the wages are terrible and the workers are treated like numbers, not like people.

When we buy that £5 t shirt, we never give a thought to what went into making it, we’re just happy that we have something new to wear; got to love those endorphins! I’m not asking you to stop buying them because I sure as hell won’t but if we try and reduce it then these businesses will have to look at their business model and maybe we can bring about some good change.

So why me? Well because our manufacturing is done in the UK, so we keep the jobs here. I know the staff are treated well and their working conditions are immeasurable much better. Our fabric comes from a UK supplier, once again keeping us UK folk in a job. It all comes with a cost but if we can give someone a job, is it not our right to try and do so?

Now onto the main issue, most people think £60 for a t shirt still sounds unreasonably high. Well here’s a breakdown of my costs and if you still think it’s too high then maybe you’re right and I’m trying to fleece people for too much. Vote with your feet, if you don’t like it don’t buy but if you do, you may have taken the first step into changing this industry forever.

Component	Cost
Fabric	£5.69
Fabric cut and made into a t shirt	£11.10
Label in the neck	£0.28
Label on the hem	£0.14
Size label	£0.12
Care label	£0.36
Hang tag	£0.36
Embroidery of the logo	£2.00
Tissue paper that your order comes in	£0.64
Box that it is delivered in	£3.12
Postage (To the UK)	£4.40
Total	£28.21

 As you can see the making of one t shirt probably costs more than most of your high street t shirts. These costs don’t factor in if you take advantage of our free returns which would add a further £4.40, my time and effort, which I currently value at £0.00 or the fuel costs, our manufacturer is 20 miles away so I drive there and pick them up and then drive another 10 miles to get the embroidery done before driving them 30 miles back.

So roughly 100% mark up if we leave out my costs and returns? I don’t think that’s too bad, I have to make a profit somewhere.

If you support what we’re doing please go ahead and buy something, follow our social media pages, ask someone you know to get you that special gift. Who knows, in the future our prices may come down but to do that we need to be selling what we have. We’re here to stay and we’re going to fox things up.