Friday 27th November 2020, 00:00am: The Pretty Little Thing Black Friday Sale began. Prices slashed to 5p, 10p; buyers frantically adding hundreds of pounds of clothes to their carts, before checking out just as frantically; debit cards confirming their payments, receipts with totals lower than what they’d go on to spend on coffee in the morning. A 99% off sale is practically unheard of, however criminally low prices are often just that: criminal, and come at a very real, very human cost.

The PLT sale shone light on an establishment obsessed with profit, willing to turn a blind eye to those who are stepped on in order for others to reach the top. A company such as Boohoo (the corporation that owns PLT) that is worth $4.3 billion, but can still makes a profit selling a dress for 3p is the epitome of a failed capitalist economy. It shines a light on the dark truth of fashion, a problem that is far from exclusive to PLT. The entire fashion industry profits off a combination of the cheap labour of others, and the blissfully unaware consumer adding more items to a never-ending basket.

I was able to speak to some of the students at a school in North Finchley, to gain more of an insight into real life reactions to the sale, from its very own target market.

Of the three girls I spoke to, all were upset on having missed out on the opportunity to buy clothes at such inexpensive prices. “I wish someone had told me what was going on, so I could’ve stayed up!” “the fact I could’ve bought all those things for literally £3 is so upsetting” “I didn’t buy anything, but only because by the time I woke up, everything was out of stock” Quotes like these show the attitudes that fast fashion companies thrive on. The more people who are tempted by the almost too-good-to-be-true deals, the more profit is made for multi-billion-dollar corporations such as Boohoo.

The problem is not the attitudes of consumers however, but the attitude of corporations. Without an incentive to treat workers fairly, and without reprimand or accountability, there is no way for us as consumers to avoid benefitting of other people’s suffering when we buy clothes from any mainstream shop.

What is clear is that in order for the current system to change, the buyers of PLT clothes need to be more educated on the true cost of their clothes. The first step to solving a problem is recognising the fact that it’s there, and the current backlash PLT are receiving from newspapers on a national level, show that we are moving in the right direction.