The end of cheap clothing is nigh, and bloody good riddance, say I

The BBC is running a story today entitled ‘The end of cheap clothes is near‘.

It was obvious this was going to happen, as I prophesied a while ago. With a worldwide rise in food prices, not only will everyone from east to west have to curb their clothes-buying to stretch the family budget, land that is currently producing cotton will turn back to food production as the prices for food crops increase.

Every which way, clothing is going to cost more to produce. Even third and second-world workers have seen wage rises over the past few years (gee - I thought they were going to eat straw forever), fertiliser costs are rising, and as transport costs increase because of the oil crisis, clothing will cost more to ship from production site to retail outlet. That means the price increase will be loaded onto individual garments at retail level, so we will be able to buy fewer of them.

Getting on my puritan high horse here, I can’t help thinking that a bit of this could be a very good thing. (more…)