"Why does it cost that much?" It's a fair question, and one we'd rather answer openly than avoid.

The honest answer starts with a different question: what is a £15 T-shirt actually paying for? Once you see where the money in a cheap garment goes, and where it doesn't, the price of a well-made one starts to make a lot more sense.

Where the Money in a Cheap T-Shirt goes

The Fair Wear Foundation once traced the cost of a polo shirt made in Bangladesh and sold for $18.25 in the West. The whole thing cost $3.50 to manufacture, with $1.75 of that spent on fabric. The workers who sewed it received $0.54, under 3% of the price.

The rest of the price goes to shipping, agents, marketing, the retailer's margin and the discount it will inevitably be sold at. In other words, most of what you pay for a cheap garment has nothing to do with the garment itself.

To keep prices low, every part of it gets squeezed: thinner fabric, cheaper thread, plastic buttons, faster sewing. The garment is built to a price, not to a standard.

The Costs that aren't on the Label

A low price doesn't mean a low cost. It means someone else is paying.

• The people who make it. When labour is a few pence of the price, the pressure to keep it there falls on wages and working conditions.

• The planet. Garments built to a price wear out quickly, so more get made, bought and thrown away.

• The high street. In the UK, parcels worth £135 or less still arrive without customs duty, a relief that ultra-cheap platforms shipping straight from overseas factories have built their growth on. The government has now committed to removing it by October 2028.

• You. A T-shirt that loses its shape after ten washes isn't cheap. You just pay for it again.

Where the Money in a Parhela Piece goes

Take The Matiasma Fleece sweatshirt. Here's what goes into it, and why each choice costs more.

What

Our choice

The usual shortcut

Fabric

330gsm Italian cotton fleece

Lightweight blends that pill and lose shape

Feature panel

100% printed silk, designed in-house

A cheap print or polyester transfer

Neck tape

Japanese cotton herringbone

Basic polyester tape, or none

Branding

Subtle embroidered logos

Printed labels and logos

Making

Crafted in London, in small runs

Offshore mass production

The same thinking runs through everything we make. Our silk shirts use 100% satin silk with genuine river-shell buttons, never plastic, and a fully fused button channel so they hold their shape for years. The Celestial Overshirt is hand-tufted Italian wool, fully lined in silk, with plant-based corozo buttons.

Then there's the making. Every piece is crafted in London, by people paid fairly and working at a pace that lets them do it properly. Small runs cost more per piece than factory volumes, but they mean we only make what we believe in, and nothing ends up wasted.

Our Rule: The Best Version First, the Price Second

Most brands start with a price point and a target margin, then work backwards to see what they can afford to put in the garment. We do it the other way round.

When we decide to make something, we start by asking what the best possible version of it would be. The finest fabric we can find. The best trims. The right construction, made by skilled hands in London. Only once the piece is right do we work out what it has to cost.

That isn't the fastest route to a high profit margin, and it isn't meant to be. We'd rather make fewer pieces we're proud of than more pieces built to a number. When you buy PARHELA, you're paying for the garment, not for a markdown waiting to happen.

Less is Worn

We'll never be the cheapest option, and we've made peace with that. What we can promise is that every pound you spend with us goes into the piece itself: the fabric, the trims and the people in London who make it, whether it's a hoodie or a silk shirt.