The Expensiphant in the Room.

Well, it’s no secret but I’m saying it anyway: buying ethical is not cheap. Well-meaning consumers usually start out feeling like this:

And after an hour of browsing online for ethical comparables to their favourite brands, they feel like this:

I’ve felt personally convicted over ethical consumerism for about ten years now and have found the experience to consist of a long cycle of wins and failures. Mostly failures, if I’m being honest (although I do feel like the win:failure ratio is finally starting to balance out!).

Now I’m going to quote Oprah. Oh, and if you’re wondering about the source of that garbled buzzing, it’s the sound of all my friends covering their mouths to stifle a giggle because let’s put it this way– I am not exactly an Oprah-quoting kind of gal. Take this as a sign of my love for you, Gentle Reader. Grab your Blackberry and your PASHMINAAAA and bear with me past the next paragraph.

Barbara Walters once asked Oprah something like, “Okay, so you give lots of money to worthy causes but you’re still rich. Why not give more of your money away? Why not all of it?” to which Oprah replied with something like, “if I think that way, I won’t do anything at all.”

I think her statement provides a nice philosophical foundation for discussing the purchase of ethical clothing. If we each buy 2 items and 1 of them was made in a sweatshop but one of them was made ethically, it’s better than buying 2 items that were both made in a sweatshop. Yes? Yet our minds want to yammer on and on about how we should have bought BOTH of them ethically, and then we are compelled by the emotionally-enticing-but-logically-barren internal refrain of “if you’re not going to buy everything ethically, why bother at all?” This is the type of thinking that leads a consumer to want to tear his or her hair out at the roots and wave buh-bye to the whole question of ethical shopping in the first place.

Instead of asking, “how can I afford an entire closet full of ethical clothing”, why not ask, “how can I afford one piece of ethical clothing?” Good changes are daunting. That’s why we usually fail when we try to make them all at once.