The North Laine area in Brighton is renowned for being a quirky set of small businesses, where you can be sure what you’re buying is unique. When I moved to Brighton, it was the first place I visited and it helped me to fall in love with the city. It’s normally the top place on the list for anyone on the look-out for vintage finds; vibrant, busy, and a gold-mine for clothing with both personality and history. However, under closer inspection it appears some shops may not be as legitimate as they seem.
Tucked between shops that sell authentic vintage garments, other shops stock pieces that look hand-made or vintage, and certainly for price tags that are similar to the genuine articles. I recently visited a shop in the Laines and bought what I thought was a one-of-a-kind, vintage slip dress, but when I got home I found a modern plastic tag sewn in with the sizing on it. I went back to the shop later and discovered two other slip dresses, identical to mine, hanging in its place. After this experience, I started finding other signs that cast doubt over some shops’ integrity. The cheap fabric, shoddy machine stitching, or plastic sewn-in tags hint that, rather than being painstakingly handmade or passed down through generations, garments may have been imported through “dropshipping”. This is a process wherein large amounts of cheap clothing are bought and then sold with an eye-watering markup. Dropshippers commonly purchase from the same manufacturers that companies like AliExpress, Temu, and Shein use.
If this is the case, not only does this damage the perception of Brighton as a haven for independent and small businesses, it does the same to its reputation as one of the greenest cities in the UK. The impact of fast fashion on the environment, causing huge increases in plastic pollution, water consumption, and CO2 production, has recently been well documented. But it’s not just the environment at the forefront of the modern consumer’s mind; the exploitation of workers, with many in fast fashion working in poor conditions and barely earning enough to live, also affects the choice of where to shop. This has led to an increase in customers “shopping small”, supporting independent businesses.
North Laine is the beating heart of Brighton’s independent shops, and the idea of it being invaded by clothing from manufacturers that create low quality garments with huge environmental and social impact leaves a bad taste in your mouth. If true, it is a highly unethical way of exploiting the “vibe” of the Laines and the customers’ care for the world around them. The assumption when you shop in the Laines is that you are buying unique, sustainable pieces; these shops appear to capitalise on this assumption to sell drop-shipped items to people who are consciously trying to shop ethically. Customers with good intentions may unwittingly end up supporting the very manufacturers they are trying to avoid, and buying poorly made clothing to boot. When you next pop out for a vintage haul, double check your purchases – you can even reverse Google Image search your picks to see if they appear on any manufacturer’s websites. In the fight against fast fashion make sure that your money is going exactly where you want it to; the sustainable independent shops taking fast fashion giants on.
