Ethically priced fashion but with excessive markups??

So I understand that sustainable fashion is higher priced due to the ethical and fair practices but brands like reformation prices still seem very high priced. For example this article reveals that a plain cotton t-shirt rounds out to true cost of only $10 and sells for 36 with the other 26 going towards business costs. https://www.sustainably-chic.com/blog/true-cost-of-a-sustainable-organic-t-shirt To me, that seems reasonable, but other ethical fashion stores are charging upwards of $200 for a single cotton ethically made dress. Surely, the basic patterns and dyes on the fabrics can’t increase the true cost that much? Even if it went to true cost of an additional $10 or $15 thats what... $25 true cost, the mark up of nearly $175 does not seem reasonable at all. Even with large scale overhead costs and especially considering these larger brands already have better reach than the smaller lower cost ones. Maybe a mark up for $50 but at most the dress should go for $75 not $200-250. I feel like some of these larger ethical fashion brands actually discourage consumers who want to shop for ethical and sustainable fashion from buying because the prices are so high. Again, I’m not referring to the high price due to the ethically sourced fabrics and the fair wages and sustainable practices I am referring to the markup that’s going in towards marketing or other services. Well yes these are needed for businesses to run it just doesn’t seem right that the markup is so high. Example: fast fashion is turning a profit at $10 for something unethically made at $.20, theres about a 2,000-3,000% markup excluding overhead costs on fast fashion items. While the markup on high priced ethical brands $20, sold at $200, excluding $25 additional for overhead costs is around 350%. This is a drastically lower priced markup, but still the markup seems a bit high even for “overhead costs” and sustainable practices. I am definitely trying to become more sustainable in my own practices and also in shopping but the exuberant pricing for decent looking ethical pieces is discouraging. When a much more reasonably priced $75-80 dress that is ethically made could still turn a reasonable profit for the company with only the 75-100% markup. And thats with about $20 dress making, about $25 and some change for all other costs associated with the single garment. The company would still turn $34 in pure profit for the dress. So why can’t ethical brands, allow more people to become conscious buyers by lowering their profit margin for true sustainability of the sustainable fashion industry? And don’t even get me started on vintage clothing pricing these days...Thoughts?

Submitted April 11, 2021 at 09:25PM by Virtual_Carry1217 https://ift.tt/2RsgaXr