The British buy more clothes than their neighbours and five times as many items as they did in the 1980s. What was once a monthly payday treat, is now something for every weekend - or perhaps more often than that. And who can blame us? A quick trawl around the high street reveals dresses aplenty for under a tenner, and you can get a bikini for as little as £1.
Globalisation means things can be produced in far-off lands at low cost, meaning more choice and lower prices. But how is that even possible? And what of the environmental cost of our shopping habits? The relationship between shopper and fashion industry may have become dysfunctional. A BBC Radio 4 investigation for the Today programme took us from Spain to Ethiopia as we examined whether the planet, and some of its poorest inhabitants, are footing the bill for our unquenchable thirst for fashion - and how we should tackle that.
