When I moved to Nicaragua in the early 90’s there was an abundance of seamstresses, tailors and fabric stores. Many people had their own seamstresses who would come to their home to sew for the day, or you could visit them in their homes and/or workshops. Back-to-school season meant purchasing fabric (regionally produced sincatex for durability) and then having uniforms made.
As a person who sews at only a novice or intermediate level, it made more sense to have clothing and outfits sewn by professionals. This meant savings in my time and better, long-lasting quality of garments with a good fit. I fondly remember my daughter’s First Communion dress and Little Bo Peep outfit, my 2 sons (tall and thin) tailored pants, and work outfits to fit my odd-shaped body.
Three decades later, however, most of that has changed. Today there are still many who sew as their livelihood, but mostly altering clothing. Almost all the high-quality fabric stores have closed. The availability of natural fiber materials has all but disappeared. Small stores with inexpensive clothing have proliferated and secondhand clothing sales have sky-rocketed in neighborhoods and in warehouses.
What has caused this phenomenon is like what has played out in other developing countries — overproduction of clothing, especially fast fashion which has boomed since the 1980s. In the last 2 decades, clothing production has more than doubled and waste has become part of the clothing model. Many brands intentionally overproduce up to 40%.
Liz Ricketts is an American fashion waste campaigner with extensive research into Ghana’s textile waste disaster. She has written that Australians, for example, donate 310,000 tons of clothing annually. While many raise money for social welfare programs, one-third are shipped overseas. These bales of clothing are sold by market segments, but many end up in landfills. She says that “Waste is a part of the business model of fashion.”
Some people are quick to say that the needs of the poor are being met with a supply of inexpensive clothing. Afterall, Nicaragua is ranked second in poverty (after Haiti) in the Western Hemisphere. Clothing, however, is not a major expense within a family’s income. The weather is tropical so clothing for warmth is not necessary, only year-round, light clothing
The many jobs lost or that will never be realized are part of the opportunity costs to be considered when people speak of savings. Fabric and notion stores have closed, seamstresses are unemployed and long-lasting clothing is now replaced with poor quality, fast fashion alternatives. All of this clothing importation actually detracts and demolishes the building of local economies which Nicaragua desperately needs.
Andrew Brooks, a development geography lecturer at King’s College London, writes in an article in The Guardian that “Once fragile economies were open to imports–like, second-hand clothes, there was a wholesale collapse of vast swathes of local industry,” Brooks writes. “Cheaper imported goods flooded African markets and workers in clothing factories lost their jobs.” Some countries have even started banning imports of thrifted garments.
It is difficult to gather statistics for the importation of used/unsold clothing into Nicaragua, but informal sources say it has surpassed tens of tons per week. “Pacas” are baled bundles of clothing which come in varying prices. While some are labeled by category like men’s ties, or children’s jeans, it is not possible to view contents before purchase. They have a rating system for high quality, medium, etc., but that is not reliable. The actual quality of the contents of bales are frequently based on luck.
Fashion is the second-most polluting industry after oil. Eighty billion new pieces of clothing are consumed annually, and garments are worn less and less. Rotem Taitler in his 3D Insider article “Mass Production in the Fashion Industry: How Quantity Outweighs Quality and Leads to Waste and Financial Loss” bemoans that “US consumers are trashing more clothes than ever before. In less than two decades, the volume of clothing discarded in the US every year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons, approximately 80 pounds of trashed garments per person.”
Returning to Nicaragua, I am constantly amazed at ongoing plummeting prices of used clothing. How very low those prices can go over time should not surprise me but do. Eight pieces of clothing were available for C$ 20 (twenty Nicaraguan cordobas), which had steadily increased from 4 to 6 then to 8. With the current official exchange rate of about 35 Nicaraguan cordobas to one US dollar, this meant each garment was valued at about 7 US cents. The pricing scheme included an unspoken but understood odd clause—if you wanted to purchase less than that, you would be penalized with a higher price.
My utter shock in a subsequent trip was to encounter the same piles of clothing that were selling 40 (forty) pieces for 20 cordobas. Yes, a quick mathematical calculation meant that each garment was priced at 1.42 US cents! And once again, taking less than 40 garments resulted in a higher overall price. Was this a way to have customers haul away the less-than desirable clothing? Afterall, clothing that is unsold must be sent to landfills regularly and such disposal has its own associated cost.
Being in a developing country at the receiving end and researching just a little has made me realize how urgent the need is for awareness and corrective action. As Kenneth Pucker said, “The speed of this hedonic treadmill continues to ramp up exponentially.” Yes, brakes are needed soon.
Great insight MH! This article hits the spot, even more so, as the disparities between the really wealthy and really poor are greater. While the more fashionable stores overcharge for brand names that would not be so costly in USA, and that in many cases are made in sweat shops across developing countries, Nicaragua included, the majority of people only have access to the second hand or discarded thrift store and bale bundles of clothing. Moreover, most of the people with any sewing or manufacturing skills, work in aforementioned sweat shops, making less than minimum wage for making the expensive clothing found in the more fashionable clothing stores.