NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — All around the world workers pay the price for fashion. Now there's a brand dedicated to the livable wage.
"Right now it feels like such a win if you find a t-shirt for $7 but you have to understand if you’re buying it for $7 someone is making a profit on it," said Jen Milam, the Director of Merchandise Planning, "There’s cost of the raw material so by the time you get back to what the person who made it, their paycheck from that shirt - it’s so minimal."
ABLE, a local lifestyle brand on the west side of Nashville, is trying to change that by creating transformative opportunities for women.
"What that means is that we’re providing jobs for women that might otherwise have a hard time getting a job whether that’s here in Nashville or overseas in Ethiopia, Peru, Mexico," she said, "We were actually the first fashion brand to publish our lowest wage in some of our manufacturing sites. Livable wage is super important to us because in the fashion industry there’s over 45 million women working in manufacturing and only 2% of them are making a livable wage."
Milam says the goal is not to stop you from buying, it's to encourage shopping with the worker in mind.
"I understand [fashion is] so fun and it’s a great way to express yourself. What I hope to see in the next couple of years is that people will buy fewer better things and be more intentional about how their purchase can impact someone else’s life," she said.
You can visit ABLE’s flagship store in the nations neighborhood (5022 Centennial Blvd, Nashville, TN 37209) or onlineonline. Nashville gets extra special treatment and access to some amazing deals with ABLE’s Spring warehouse sale, Saturday, March 23rd, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
