My Take on Clothes

By Axel Saenz

HAVANA TIMES – I don’t buy a lot of clothes and don’t have as much variety of designs and colors as I would like. Sometimes I would sneak into my grandmother’s wardrobe, which was always full. From there I would try on a few shirts which, if I liked them, I proceeded to snatch them from the “safe” place where she put them.

One day I found a multi-colored patterned button shirt that I loved. Up to that point, the shirts I wore were black, white or shades of blue. Now I want to have more variety in colors and shades. I have learned to enjoy changing how I look, instead of just wearing cold colors.

I also used to go through my mom’s closet. She has very good taste, so I liked to mix and match and wear several of her shirts, dresses, and pants. In those cases, I always ended up looking like a multicolored clown.

My grandmother can sew, and I have seen her make things like a cover for a sofa on her sewing machine. I remember that I would have loved to have my grandmother sew me clothes to my liking. There was one outfit I would have loved to have: the Exorcist uniform from D-Gray man, my favorite anime.

At the end of the day, clothes are an important part of personality expression. On the internet you can buy all kinds of clothes; one of the most famous places in Latin America is the website called Shein. Shein is an online shopping retailer founded in 2008 that sells its fast fashion garments at discounted prices worldwide.

However, I don’t like buying clothes from Shein. It is true that they sell fairly inexpensive clothes, but Shein is a company that has very bad labor practices, such as employees working 75 hours a week. This means working 12 and a half hours a day, 6 days a week.

Another big problem with buying cheap clothes in general is that they are of poor quality. This is what is called “fast fashion”, as they are garments sold by retailers. This leads to a lack of longevity or even “planned obsolescence”. Planned obsolescence is the determination of the useful life of a product after a period of time calculated in advance by the manufacturer.

Of course, I am not spared, I use Aliexpress for shopping, occasionally for clothes. They are also made with exploitative work, 12 hours a day for 6 days a week. I currently have quite a lot of clothes, but I would like to have more variety, especially in colors. Although in the end, I always end up being attracted to black or blue clothes.