Primark – Cheaper and Chicer

Shopping at Primark is an experience. This is a store where trendy things are available at unbelievably low prices. The process begins the minute one walks in, across the road from Marble Arch tube station, right up to the moment when one steps out, with the booty in a brown paper bag.
I needed to see what the media fuss was all about. A store launch that required policemen to hold the mob would have to be fantastic. With is cheap is chic formula given the all clear by fashion bible, Vogue, Primark is an extremely popular shopping destination.
Walking in with a slight trepidation and excitement that a shopping treat holds, I made a mental check list of all the things I needed to buy. The yellow Maxi in the beautiful window display looked especially promising.
I was obviously not the only one who felt like a visit to Primark at an off-peak shopping hour, around 2.30 pm in the afternoon. Women, children, teenagers, their boyfriends, granny’s – they were all there throwing things by the dozen into big blue cylindrical baskets.
The night market in Bangkok felt like a simpler place to bargain hunt. Clothes were strewn all around. The yellow maxi was nowhere to be found, although there were hundreds of other styles to try out. A madras cotton shirt was cheaper than a sandwich at Starbucks.
With all these racks full of clothes, finding your size shouldn’t be that hard. But no, every single size 12 was sold out on most rails, with gigantic size 18 pieces crying out for someone to pick them up. When I made my way to the changing room; the queue was longer than the one outside London Eye with supervisors yelling like army generals.
Giving in to impatience, I, like most, tried on clothes in front of the mirror on the shop floor balancing my bag between my knees. Twenty minutes waiting time at the cash counter, clothes and a pair of cheap shoes chucked into a bag, I stepped outside and finally breathed.
Wearing the clothes for real was a disappointment. The blouse clung at all the wrong places, the shoe bite stung and the threads from a Gucci look-alike print dress were already unraveling. The thought of standing in another line to return these items was enough to think of the 45 pounds spent, as a bad debt.
Cheap prices come at a cost, lower quality. The labels do not carry the country of manufacturing. Primark has come under criticism from various campaigners for working conditions in their factories overseas.
Charity group, War on Want published a report ‘Fashion Victims’, in December 2006 on their findings, “Workers in Bangladesh are regularly working 80 hours a week for just 5p an hour, in potential death trap factories, to produce cheap clothes for British consumers of Primark. Employees interviewed for the report said their managers had been given prior notice of these companies’ social audits.”
Since then, Primark is doing everything it can to improve its image to the public. In a statement to their customers, they say, “Primark want to work with developing countries, not least because our business is very important to some of the poorest people in the world.” They have also signed an international trade agreement, whereby they state that they do not use child labour. Even the packaging has changed from plastic to paper bags.

Throw-in-the-bin fast fashion helps most fashion followers keep their wardrobe up to date without breaking the bank. Spending ten pounds more, being able to try what I buy, a feeling of happiness while browsing and purchasing something I would actually wear thrice feels like a more hassle free option. Would I ever do this again? Not unless I am forced to write another story.