IS anything I'm wearing

ethical? My trousers, from French Connection, were made in Poland. The label on my French Connection polo neck says it was made in China. On my coat, from the same shop, there is no information about its origin.

I know nothing about the conditions in which the raw materials were farmed or the working practices in the factories in which they were manufactured.

Until recently I thought as little about the ethics of these clothes when I put them on this morning as I did when I bought them. Like most people, I only start thinking about the morality of consumerism once I'm dressed. But a new report published this week reveals that more and more people are becoming ethically-minded consumers, with 52% claiming to avoid at least one unethical product.

However, while we are buying more and more Fair Trade coffee, organic food and cosmetics not tested on animals, we're doing so while wearing clothes about which we have no ethical knowledge. In short, we are hypocrites: objecting on some issues, colluding on others.

In food, of course, it's relatively straightforward to ensure an ethical supply chain from producer to consumer. In clothing, it's an entirely different story. Campaigners admit that it is nigh-on impossible to be sure that every purchase in the high street has not involved the exploitation of another human being at some point in the production process. There is the shockingly low price paid to cotton farmers for their crops, the sweatshop conditions in the factories where garments are manufactured, the lack of rights for the pitifully paid workers, and the immense profits made by the high street companies that eventually sell the items.

Despite being shocked by the modern manufacturing procedures detailed in the likes of Naomi Klein's No Logo, a generation

hasn't stopped shopping at, or working for, Nike and Gap.

Of course, there is a hard-core group of radical campaigners, such as the Gapistas, who recently embarked on a 3000-mile US roadshow urging people to boycott the international retailer because of its alleged exploitation of workers.

No one wants to think the cool

T-shirts, sports shoes or winter jackets they have bought from any high street store represent the sweat and toil of underfed, underpaid and overworked Third World children hunched over dangerous machinery.

How can the average consumer be expected to trace the ethical

origins of every single item of clothing they buy?

Mick Duncan, secretary of No Sweat, a UK-based organisation campaigning against sweatshops, says consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about how and where their clothes are made. However, he says it is virtually impossible to know whether what you are buying is, as it were,

sweat- free.

''It is not just Gap, Nike or Adidas, which have all been the focus of high-profile protests, who are guilty. Almost every high street store will have outsourced to countries such as China, where people are given incredibly low wages and often work in brutal conditions.

''We'd like to see much better labelling of garments. In the States, there is a code on a garment which enables you to trace it back to find out where it was produced. We'd like to see that introduced here as well as the development of a union mark - some sort of stamp to say this item was made by unionised workers.

''Until this happens, the only thing consumers can do is to write letters to the managers of the stores where they buy and ask them where the items are made, the names of the factories and whether the people are paid a living wage. The more people do this sort of thing, the more the pressure does mount up and companies such as Levi's and Puma have responded to that sort of

pressure.''

However, Chantal Finney, the

co-ordinator of the Clean Clothes Campaign, Europe's main anti-sweatshop group, says a universal ethical clothing label is at least a decade away because of the complexity of the supply chain.

''What we have now is a great deal of sub-contracting work, a lot of outsourcing, so that for instance, companies in the UK might contract a company in Asia which will in turn sub-contract another company, which will then in turn sub-contract

another one. In this kind of context, it's very difficult indeed for the company to know what is happening in its own supply chain and for anyone concerned to monitor and verify the conditions in which production is taking place.''

Finney would like to see legislation which forces companies to adhere to a strict code of practice. At the moment, several UK high street companies, including Levi's, Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and Next, are members of the Ethical Trading Initiative, a tripartite alliance of companies, campaigning organisations and trade unions.

Members of the ETI must state their commitment to ensuring that working conditions are safe and hygienic, that there is no use of child labour, that living wages are paid and that working hours are not excessive.

However, the ETI is not an accreditation agency, nor does it perform external audits, but instead exists primarily to share experience and promote learning.

Finney says this does not go far enough. ''One concern we have is the tendency for UK companies to formulate codes of conduct and then to present those to their suppliers abroad and say 'over to you', thereby completely passing the buck.

''Of course, the companies here do have responsibility and in particular they have to make sure they offer prices that make it possible for the suppliers to improve conditions.

In addition, the trend towards shorter and shorter delivery times is putting enormous pressure on the suppliers.''

The consumer, Finney stresses, is the king. She insists that by being more assertive, demanding written replies from shop managers about how and where our clothes were made, we can make a crucial difference to the lives of those making them for us.

''Consumers have every right to know where and in what condition their clothes were produced, but there is an increasing trend for

companies not even to mention the country of origin on their labels.

''If more and more consumers start demanding answers to these questions, it sends out the clear

message to those higher up

that we care very much about

the conditions in which our clothes are produced.''

trying to put things right

l Gap

Anita Borzyszkowska, spokeswoman for Gap, says the company has more than 90 employees whose sole focus is working to improve factory conditions. Last year, they conducted more than 13,000 inspections at 3,000 factories and removed 120 factories from their approved list. ''We have been independently told that we have the most comprehensive monitoring system in the clothing industry and the strictest rules that factories have to adhere to. Our efforts are a work in progress - the difficulty is that we work with more than 6,000 factories in 55 countries.''

l H&M

H&M is cheap but their website explains this does not mean they sacrifice their workers. They say they have an extremely enlightened policy on child labour, but Transnationale, an NGO collecting information on large companies, recently reported factories supplying H&M in Bangladesh don't allow trade unions or give their employees contracts. However, some improvements have been made. Their code of conduct explains that while they do not tolerate children working in their factories, if they find any, they financially compensate their families for their loss of earnings after the children are removed.

l Arcadia Group: Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burtons

The company has a well thought-out code of conduct dealing with specific International Labour Organisation conventions, but this year, No Sweat, with the GMB, found sweatshops in East London creating clothes for the company. Workers did not get minimum wage, safe working conditions or acceptable hours. The company responded quickly and said it was willing to work with the union to improve conditions.

l Trying to get it right from the start: Katharine Hamnett

The ethically-aware British designer recently said she was desperate to make her labels conform to ethical standards and plans to launch an organic mail-order service next year. However, she readily admitted to her failures so far. ''I'm trying my best to do it and get it made in a sustainable way, but I've got to survive,'' she said.