Leading fashion magazine Marie Claire now prides itself on its ethical approach to fashion, even to the point of running articles on second hand clothing revamps and clothes swapping parties. Perhaps I am naive, but why can we not expect a company of Primark’s size to have ‘a grip on its supply line’? The impression I am left with is not that Primark did not have the opportunity to engage in debate, but that they declined it.

I dress my children in second hand clothes (our local community has an excellent clothing pass-on tradition and a popular charity shop) and would never shop in Primark or any of its peer outlets. And I am one of a growing number of people coming to the realisation that cheap is not necessarily cheerful. As is so often said, many people making tiny changes in the way that they live will cause, ultimately, a massive change in the way we *all* live, and brands like Primark need to be more respectful of that. If they don’t talk to us about their management of their supply chain; if they don’t demonstrate their commitment to ethical sourcing, they will find themselves, eventually, a big brand no longer.

I heard an excellent podcast from Peter Day on Radio4 last week. You can find it here . It told a very interesting story about Zara who had contracted with CompanyA to make their clothes. Zara had screened CompanyA with care and made checks to the factories. The guy who owned CompanyA also owned CompanyB which Zara did not know about and whose factoires Zara had not visited. It transpired that the unscrupulous owner of the two companies moved production (apparently) without Zara knowing it from good practice CompanyA to bad CompanyB.

As soon as Zara found out (notably thanks only to the Beeb) they took action. It was pretty much the right initial response.

There is a lovely utopian solution to all this – don’t allow companies selling items in the UK to contract with any firms that breach our cultural norms on working practices in any way shape or form. The flaw in such an argument is that millions, perhaps even billions, of people accross the world are being lifted out of poverty becuase we’re so keen to trade with developing nations, even if they have not yet reached our expectations of suitable working practices. I don’t want to get too utilitarian about it as clearly that 0.04% are real people, but it does bring me to the same concolusion as the viewers of the programme – it’s better to first push for information and engagement and only once all the facts are in, then discuss other action.

But I recognise that this is not black and white. It’s a debate that’s going to run and run.