Look, if you really have thought this through, pored over your stretched budget, and decided that it’s either fast fashion or your cell phone bill, by all means, buy the $20 blouse for work. I would never begrudge you that. This article isn’t for you. No, I’m talking to the half of Americans earning more than $50,000 , who have a choice about how to spend their discretionary income.By and large, Americans aren’t making thoughtful choices about how to spend their fashion budget. They’re just saying, “It’s so freakin’ cheap, I’ll just buy all of it!” If we are all stretched too thin to pay a few more dollars for ethically made items, why is there is a robust market for pricey, mysteriously made fashion: $400 cocktail dresses, $200 cigarette pants, $500 novelty clutches plastered with smiley faces — without a word on how it's made? How would we be able to discard 80 pounds of textiles per person per year if we were struggling to keep ourselves clothed? The Indian women who daily sort through the tons of discarded items shipped from the U.S. are flummoxed by the “rich Americans” who throw away so much perfectly wearable clothing. Knowing all this, I find the cries of “But, my budget! I can’t afford it!” either disingenuous, or not representative of how most Americans shop.Some people believe that sustainable fashion is more expensive because labels use it as a marketing ploy to charge more. But believe me, fashion designers are all too aware of this misconception. I’ve had this conversation with dozens of designers and labels that accept much smaller profit margins than conventional labels to keep their goods affordable for you. Nudie Jeans , for example, saw its profit margins shrink when it switched over to all organic cotton, because it didn’t raise prices. Luckily for cotton farmers who would like to stop breathing in pesticides, Nudie brass did it because they saw it as the right thing to do, and they hoped consumers would reward them for it.