Our Family's Move to Ethical Clothing

First hurdle passed. It’s ridiculously easy to pick up cheap clothes these days. Yesterday I went to Sainsbury’s and found myself wandering towards the clothes, as you do. It’s right there at the start if the shop, enticing you over with 25% off.

There I was standing in front of baby boy pyjamas that we could do with for our ever growing 9 month old (who has recently gone into 12-18 months clothes), at silly cheap prices, easy to pick up there and then. Fair trade? Organic? No. I walked on.

Next up, pants. Again, you can pick up a pack of three men’s boxer shorts for under a tenner, but where are they made, who are they made by and what are they made from? Made in India by unknown and from cotton. Pesticides used in the production of the cotton? I reckon do, but it isn’t going to tell me THAT on the packet. I walked on.

When I got home I started my search for ethical boys pyjamas and men’s undies. Baby pyjamas aren’t too difficult at first glance, but then you go to buy and discover lots if ‘out of stock’ signs. Price wise, you can get 6 pairs of supermarket pj’s for less than one pair of fair trade organic pj’s. While we are happy to pay a bit more for ethical clothing, it does seem a massive difference. Or are we simply used to cheap clothes made in sweat shops from the cheapest possible materials? I think we probably are.

Lesson 1 : forget about supermarket bargains, step away from the throwaway lifestyle.

It’s not like we don’t know about these things, we do, and our son has quite a lot if fair trade organic clothing, but when you can pick up the clothes you need so easily, it’s easy just to chuck things in your trolley, and we gave been guilty of that too. It stops here.

But now I need to be all organised. I need to order online because I’m yet to find a reliable source of organic fair trade clothes in my local area.

Then I started looking for organic cotton boxer shorts, fair trade. Hmm.

I think we need to have a sort if the clothes we already have, re-use and make-do is much more ethical than buying new, no matter where they come from.

I really need to get my sewing machine working. I’ve been told it probably doesn’t like cheap thread and that’s the problem with the bobbin thread knotting up.

Today is the first day in our family’s mission to buy only ethically sourced clothes.

I suppose I better learn how to use my sewing machine too!

We are a couple in our thirties and have a 9 month old son.