I feel that today people desperately want two very contrasting things; bespoke, high quality, and environmentally conscious products and cheap products. Unfortunately these things, for the most part, can not come together. The rise of consumerism has pushed quality out in favour of speed, cost, and availability. It has also sadly pushed out traditional and skilled manufacturing.
I think we have become desensitised to how much items should cost, I came across this myself whilst making espresso cups for Retail Therapy 8. I was selling a set for £30 which I thought was possibly far too expensive, however when I considered the time I spent producing the cups I was effectively paying myself less than £3/hour. We need to realise that if we want products made by someone who is paid a fair wage then they are going to be much more expensive than we are used to. We also need to support people looking to go into a traditional manufacturing career better. With the national minimum wage for apprenticeships so low at £5.28/hour we’re not encouraging or supporting people in these roles.
I think a lot of people’s reservations about spending a lot of money on items because it is really difficult to know if that high price equals high quality. There have been many scandals about high-end brands using sweatshops and low-paid labour, something that is horrifying and disheartening. You would expect when paying higher prices that that money is going towards having well-paid staff and high-quality materials creating a long-lasting product, but we often find this is not the case and you are just paying for the brand.
This prompts the question of what is value. Is it its monetary worth? Is it its longevity? Or is it a combination of many things. Now many people see value as something that can be recognised, for example when you wear a top from an expensive brand people see know you have spent a lot of money on it, and I think that value has become skewed into what you can show off. To me, cost does not always equal value, however, value often comes at a cost. When I think of products that I would consider as high value, they complete their task well, they have lasted for a long time and I feel that their cost was worth what I am getting. On a deeper level, I would want good value products to use environmentally friendly materials and processes and pay a good wage to their workforce. To an extent, value is determined on a case-by-case basis, and everyone would have a different answer to what value is to them.
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