Is Lightinthebox.com horribly unethical?

I think you've kinda answered your own concerns.

given the prices the chances are it's not entirely ethical. You get what you pay for!

if its a big issue for you then you make have to consider a local seamstress again or buying high street from a company you trust.

It is massively unlikely that they are ethical in any way. I would assume they use very low paid workers who do not have access to employment rights, health and safety safeguards etc. The same is true of a lot of high street shops though.

I suspect they are no more or less ethical than countless other suppliers in the market. The only way to guarantee no employee exploitation is to have your dresses made by a dressmaker local to you.

So it wouldn't be any better if I got dresses from Debenhams, for example? I would really like to avoid unethical purchases, but it seems like there's no real way to do that on a budget then...

Buying second hand/recycled is about as ethical you can get.

If you think about it, a lot of things you buy day to day are made by some poor soul who is really underpaid and worked to the bone! But without that horrible job they wouldn't have any money at all.

Im not for the 3rd world being worked to the bone for pennies in any way at all, but it does seem that not much is made in country's with struck laws on work hours and wage anymore.

With department stores is fairly easy to check and I think Debs might be ok, but then you have to check the brands within Debs as they wouldn't necessarily control that aspect of concessions. I bought my dress from Monsoon who I think have a policy but I avoided sequins as I know that that element of sewing in sweatshops is left to children as they have more nimble fingers.

It's a minefield!

I'm not sure where you are based but a lot of charity shops now have bridal ranges too. I am in Kent and we have a charity shop specialising in second hand wedding dresses, many of which have been donated as 'end of line' from local bridal boutiques. I have seen them ranging in price for £20 to £300. The vast majority are in excellent condition/brand new too.

I understand from friends in the bridal industry that most of the budget dresses are made in China by only a handful of factories. There's a network of suppliers worldwide like Light in the Box who sell for those factories. I have no idea how good/bad the factories are, just that much of the budget market is coming from the same factories.

Cat has made a good point about buying from charity shops. Oxfam have a group of specialist bridal shops where they sell off donated dresses. 95% of these are given by top manufacturers as end of lines etc so they are brand new stock.

Even a dress maker is not necessarily ethical as you don't know where their fabric comes from. Unfortunately you cannot guarantee any high street shop is ethical as they take designs and mass produce so one dress could come from china another could be from England. Even M&S had to with draw angora when they heard the rabbits were being treated horrifically and I would have thought M&S would have clocked it before they sold it. Karen Milan does a lot of charity work in third world countries so her range may be ethical but then again I wouldn't count on it and she comes with a price tag. Unfortunately high demand has led to limited choice :-s

Just to say if you do go down this route and opt for the 'different dresses in same shade' option, make sure you order dresses made of similar fabrics. I ordered two burgundy dresses from Light in the Box (one for my MOH and one for my 11 year old daughter). Neither are really what I would describe as burgundy - my daughter's dress (taffeta) is more of a claret colour, and the MOH dress has a red chiffon overlay and is a totally different shade!

Oh and don't forget to factor VAT and import taxes into the cost!

Hate to tell you this but I worked for Debenhams and they use sweatshops I remember once we got a massive delivery of our stock but with Next labels in and my manager proper kicked off about it and when I questioned how it happened he said it's because they use the same sweatshop as next and marks and Spencer's so it was muddled up.

The majority of department stores use sweatshops and underpaid staff and dont give them benefits I'm afraid it's the world we live in I would actually be surprised if you could find a store that didn't use sweatshops. I also studied business and learnt a lot of this from assignments/reaearch. If it bothers you the best thing to do is buy local or from charities.

Https://www.xperthr.com/international-manual/china-employee-rights/9513/

https://www.loc.gov/collections/publications-of-the-law-library-of-congress/about-this-collection/china.php

China may not have the same levels of employee protection that we do in the UK, but there is legislation in place which does not exist in many countries which produce garments for the UK market. I was really lucky to have the opportunity to visit the Suzhou Industrial park as part of a work visit last year and one of the places we were invited to view was a factory making stock dresses which would then be bought up by International or other Chinese companies for customisation. There were hundreds of workers in a massive modern complex. We saw no children at the factory, which is in line with my experience of China and the Chinese people being very pro-education. I know that everyone can only make decisions on how to apply their ethical compass based on their own knowledge, and no-one has the full picture, but for myself, I am happier to buy from China than Bangladesh or Indonesia, where legal protection is not in place for children.