How Important Is It, Really?
Team Bento is currently on our annual sabatical, this time taken in Georgetown, Penang. Of course, I couldn’t visit another country without engaging in a little of one of my favourite hobbies, window shopping.
Something rather curious that I’ve spotted here is that it doesn’t seem to be essential to provide information about either fabric or country of manufacture of the garments being sold. I’ve been trying to rationalise this in my mind, but for me these make up such a very large part of my measure of value.
Here it seems quite acceptable for garments to be sold with literally no tags except the one showing the brand. At first I thought it was perhaps just at markets – items that were handmade by emerging designers and thus more difficult to police – but on closer inspection in a department store I discovered that this is actually a widespread phenomenon.
In Australia of course, it’s compulsory (and legally enforced) that we show not only the fabric used but also the country of manufacture and care instructions too. There are even guidelines for how long the tag should remain readable.
So… how important is this information to you? Do you ever look at the care tag, fabric tag or country of manufacture before purchasing an item? Does it factor into your decision making?




























