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Comment by kaufland | Hacker News Reader

Hmm, looking a bit at their site[1]:

Addidas jogging pants -- 59,95 €

Volcom T-shirt print -- 17,45 €

Under Armour T-shirt -- 39.95 €

Like really now -- who needs this stuff? Especially when you can just go to Aldi or Tchibo (or any of a number of other discount retailers readily visible at nearly every shopping mall in Germany) and buy essentially same stuff (minus the logos, of course) for 1/10th of the price. So perhaps a better title might be:

“Fashion generates revenue, and handsome pay-outs. But is basically pointless. And a soul-sucking waste of time.”

[1] https://www.zalando.de/herren-home/

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A t-shirt for 1.75 € is so cheap that it's practically guaranteed to have been manufactured in dangerous conditions in a place like Bangladesh or Ethiopia.

Big brands like Adidas or Under Armour don't have a clean track record either, but at least they are somewhat accountable to consumers because their #1 asset is their reputation. To fix global trade, it's better to do a bit of research into what kind of company you want to support, rather than blindly buying the cheapest imported thing "because they all suck anyway".

I was extremifying a bit my comparison; but the basic point is that the 10x price difference is in no way proportionate to any real infrastructure costs that would be necessary to guarantee safer (or non-exploitive) product standards. I can see the same no-name, barely-fitting (but otherwise generally quite adequate) apparel products from the major discounters costing 2x or 3x if produced at gold standards (environmentally or labor-wise); but not 10x.

That is, at the end of the day, 80% of the 10x overhead you pay at the premium retailers is just for the brand, not for safer products or better labor conditions (which are at best a secondary matter of concern to these outlets).

Sure, but is there any evidence that paying more for a brand name is going to avoid that? Nike doesn't exactly have the best reputation with this sort of thing.

You mean the money is actually going to poor people? Sounds like a plus to me.

Certainly not. The ultra-cheap stuff is cheap throughout the production pipeline. Costs are cut wherever possible: wages, tools, work environment, materials, packaging...

The "poor people" won't benefit from most of the branded product's premium, of course. But it's more likely that it's been produced by a subcontractor that at least respects local laws like minimum wage, construction standards and regulations concerning toxic materials.

Being blunt, how do we know? For example, when the buildings collapsed back in 2013, the discount chains selling unbranded clothes like Primark and Loblaw pledge to offer compensation, while Benneton tried to hide their relationship with the manufacturer.

As it ever been studied if the work conditions of the workers making branded stuff are generally better than their counterparts working on cheaper clothes?

You always get what you pay for. I'd rather not buy too cheap and wear toxic stuff: http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article133578674/Greenpeace-wa...

Valid point, but apparently the Greenpeace study only targeted Germany's largest (brick-and-mortar) discounted retailers; there's no particular reason to believe that the products offered by premium retailers would score any better.

Or that the 10x factor in price overhead is in any substantive way directly invested in safer product standards. No matter how you slice it, to a large extent all we're really getting when we shop at specifically fashion-outlets (as their marketing gurus know all to well) is... the brand.

Pointlessness is rather subjective.

Please don't buy from discount retailers - support your local tailors and fashion designers. For a bit more than what it offered at zalando, you can get higher quality unique products from fashion design students.

Honest question: How do I find those? Online, local brick-and-mortar stores?

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