I often ask my friends, especially my girlfriends, where they shop for clothes. You can call it a job hazard; I call it my "shop research."
There’s a market for everyone, with prices ranging widely for the same type of product. Take a white cotton shirt, for example—you can find one for as little as $10 or as much as $400 (like Theory’s “In Good Cotton”). So what about the $10 version? It’s fair to say it’s “in not-so-good cotton.”
So I'd like to talk about the “in not-so-good cotton”, how does anyone make money from a $10 price tag?
In a simplistic and general but realistic breakdown of that $10, here is how it usually adds up.
The brand’s gross margin takes 50–70% of that, leaving about $3 as the manufacturing cost. From this, the factory takes a margin of 40% ($1.20), the fabric costs roughly 30% ($0.90), and labor gets the remaining 30%—just $0.90.
Here’s where it gets worse. That $0.90 isn’t earned by just one worker. In a fast-fashion garment factory, multiple people are involved. Typically, 2–3 sewers construct a blouse—one for the body, another for the collar, and another for the sleeves. Then come the pressers, packers, and supervisors. Labor costs are shared across 5–6 workers:
Sewing (2–3 workers): $0.54–$0.63 (60–70%)
Pressing/Finishing: $0.09–$0.14 (10–15%)
Supervisors/Quality Control: $0.09–$0.14 (10–15%).
This cycle repeats 90–100 times a day. Workers face immense pressure to meet unrealistic productivity targets for a wage that’s nowhere near livable. Fast fashion prioritizes speed and profit, while workers suffer the consequences.
Legally, brands aren’t responsible for factory workers since they’re employed by 3rd party suppliers. However, it’s the brands’ relentless demand for low prices and high output that perpetuates this system of exploitation.
Next time you consider buying that cheap top or dress you’ll wear only once, think about the suffering behind it. And this doesn’t even address the poor-quality fabrics that make those prices possible.
Fashion might be cheap for you, but someone, somewhere, is paying the real price.
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