In more recent times, the clothing clothes industry have been hit by downturns in trade with some of the more popular high street clothe stores. Much of the effects were caused by spiralling overhead costs and manufacturing overheads, also sections of the public out spoke their concerns in opposition to the cat walk "stick" models, wanting them to be banned from all fashion shows. The problem with this argument is that there are so many pros and cons to it? The actual victims of this long serving argument are the many teenagers that are buying fashion magazines and ending up trying to emulate these thin models trying to aspire to them, but ending up ill with food disorders. Last year some people tried to rally up radicals to outlaw these so called size 0 models off the catwalk?

The problem with entering the arena of opposing to skinny models is that if the total of models in the UK that were skinny compared to the rest of the models were calculated, you would find that the ratio would be minimal? The problem with the Fashion industry is that it relies on vision, and to do that designers need the best profiled models to make there creations stand out on the catwalk?? People may re-buff at such a comment but the issues surrounding the model industry has been inadvertently caused by itself, in that, in order to reach the masses through advertisement and fashions shows, the side effects are that people outside see the reality of what they see (bill- board posters, magazines) as being the benchmark against how they will be judged by other women and men? How can you separate that ethos from the fashion industry??

Like everyone else this year I have suffered the indignity of the return items fever? Some call it un-wanted gifts and place it on eBay; some like me have returned items because of the size not fitting?? I don’t understand this, the size tag is the same as items I bought last year, the store from which it came from is the same, but for some reason it doesn’t fit?? Now I can go as far by saying that I have put on a little, but No that isn’t the case? The queue for returns at many stores seem to be getting longer by the year, why is that??

Going back to my returned clothes article a pair of jeans, now I know shape has nothing to do with it, so I took a pair of jeans to be the same size and put them up against each other, only to shudder at what I discovered?

The new jeans were 5cms short? What does that mean, yes, I’ve been short changed? Maybe it could have been a one off and I should leave it at that?

What I have noticed more and more is that there has been an up turn of fortunes for quite a few shop stores that have all shown poor standing and profit loss, only to have changed fortunes in the market and in some cases shown a good turnover to which the shareholders must have been very pleased with?

How can this be, I ask? What has changed so drastically to show this recovery?

My belief is that a lot of companies not only the Fashion industry, Banks & call centres have taken the "draconian" step to transferring there production warehouse to Asia? It’s a thing of the past to find a label displaying Made in England these days? The fact that measures taken to moving manufacturing out of the country has re-percussions that almost go un-noticed and that is the victims who end up without a living to make?

An example of this scenario happened back in 1999:-

M&S with plummeting share price and irate shareholders had to do something. It could have listened to its customers, it could have improved its deteriorating customer service and poor quality overpriced clothes, and instead it chose to ditch clothing supply firms based in the UK that had been loyal suppliers for many years. Just before Christmas 1999, when everyone else was looking forward to celebrating the New Millennium, M&S put several thousand clothing workers, mainly women, out on the streets. The contracts are to be placed in Indonesia. Like GAP (the sweat-shop shop), M&S have discovered the latest High Street fashion of underpaid child labour.

The fashion business in the UK is dominated by seven companies who account for 40% of the market - Arcadia Group, C&A, Next, Storehouse, Sears, River Island, M&S. M&S alone accounts for 15% of the UK retail clothes trade. With the emphasis on mindless consumption, whereas the average woman owned 2 blouses in the 1940s she is now likely to own at least 16. Shoppers spend £23 billion a year on clothes, slightly more than on cars. The fashion sportswear market is worth an estimated £1.6 billion a year. An increasing volume of these clothes is coming from the Third World, usually from Third World workers working in appalling conditions for pitiless wages?