Living in the midwest, Indiana to be more specific, is quite different I suppose from living in other parts of the world.

The only place I have traveled outside of the continental United States was a trip a few years ago to the Bahamas and a much longer time ago, to Canada.

But as Americans we have a different approach to clothing compared to poorer countries.

And often there is a gender gap in our thoughts too.

We wear clothes to cover up our naked bodies.

We wear clothes to stay warm, or keep cool.

We wear clothes to look socially appropriate.

We wear clothes to protect us.

We wear clothes to fit it or stand out.

We wear clothes to impress.

We buy clothes for similar reasons, plus a few more.

We buy clothes because we wear out the old clothes.

We buy clothes because we out grow the old clothes.

We buy clothes because they are on sale.

We buy clothes because we need something to match or go with something else we bought.

We buy clothes because we have nothing to wear, as we stand in front of an overstuffed closet.

What if we looked at clothing for practical purposes, as a way to satisfy a need instead of a want?

The billion dollar third world clothing factories would evaporate.

We probably would not have to make any new clothes for the next 20 years, because of the abundance we have.

We would have more money, but the third world countries would sink further into poverty.

Or would they?

I predict that the cheap labor that makes our clothes in the third world sweatshops would be put to work in some other third world sweatshop making something else, like smartphones…

Of course this will not happen in my lifetime unless there is a world wide economic collapse.

And now we’re having to think about a lot more than clothing.

So back to my original premise.

If we reduced our clothing spending, changed our habits, adopted a different attitude to the whole accumulation of clothes…

If we switched to buying what we need instead of what we want…

If we stopped trying to impress others with this years style…

So perhaps we can’t create a nationwide attitude change, but…

We as individuals can examine our own attitudes and habits and decide if we need to make adjustments.