EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | CONTACT
A local woman has gently explained to a Cotton On employee that if she had any money to spare, she probably wouldn’t be fucken shopping there!
Known for offering basic clothing that begins to unravel after three washes, Cotton On remains one of the few affordable clothing retailers in Australia selling tops and T-shirts for under $70 – with the only other option being Glassons, which caters more to trendy twenty-somethings.
Still, despite very clearly being a store for people who have coin to spare, Cotton On staff are required to ask every customer if they’d like to donate to a charitable cause at checkout.
But for local woman Heidi Loom, 29, she IS the cause – which is why she’s fed up with being guilt-tripped by companies asking her to give more.
Speaking to our reporter, Heidi questions whether luxury boutiques like Gucci or Chanel ever hit their customers up for donations, or if it’s exclusively poor people getting tapped.
“It’s a mutual humiliation ritual.”
“The Cotton On employee doesn’t want to ask, but they have to – and then I have to be like, ‘Oh no, sorry, I’m a huge piece of shit who doesn’t care about starving kids in Africa!’. Yeah, I just spent $9 on a Boost Juice but can’t spare $2 to give a child clean water.”
“And it’s not that I don’t want to help. It’s the principle – these corporations make millions in profit using sweatshop labour… which I’m now also supporting because I’m buying it.
“I don’t want to be having an existential crisis while shopping for a fucken basic tank top.”
More to come.
