Lauren Laverne on Fashion: Shopping with a clear conscience

  "What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." Oscar Wilde's famous quote always comes back to me. I thought several times in the course of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh. More than 1,120 bodies removed from the wreckage of the eight-storey building. For some Rana Plaza tragedy is a matter of crime, and in fact there were several arrests, including engineers who added illegally several floors shoddily for building and factory built accused the ordered employees who work on the morning of collapse after safety concerns were raised.

You can directly guilty, but it is dishonest to pretend that we are not connected to this tragedy. Government officials blamed the incessant roar of machinery for the collapse of the building. Who are we, if whirring needles? Can you be sure that you are unaware of the workers who entered the plant was today morning and was never sewn at home? Neither do I.

Column this week, then, is a plea for producers of fashion for the traceability of the supply chain and a reference to brands and services that make these things for the consumer. Frustrating at the upper end of the market such liability is easier to find, but there is no reason why the High Street should be freed offer similar guarantees. Lucy Siegle, as in this paper that the big brands to distance themselves from their factories where goods are produced as part of their business model. It helps to protect their profit margins. If consumer demand, they are responsible for large enough, they will.

The other half of the price-value-Wildean aphorism is less often mentioned, but it's worth considering, "and a sentimental ... This is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and not know that the market price for a single thing. "

Often the argument against buying Fair Trade (or introduce all kinds of guarantees for the working conditions of a garment was made) is one of the prizes. It may seem pretentious to ask for anyone more than they pay for it for a t-shirt, especially in times of financial difficulty. But as the wages of the employees represented in the clothing industry a small fraction of the cost of an article (about 1-3%), could significantly improve their situation, a slight increase in prices.

At present, however, if you be sure that the workers who suffer made your clothes do not want to invest in fair trade, is the only option. It may cost more, but the price of a garment is not just a label - there is more than one type of cost. How cheap is nothing if someone dies in order to keep the price low?