There are ethics behind marketing and in case you haven’t noticed marketing gives you a lot more money than studying ethics.
That's the slippery slope isn't it. Marketing makes more money than ethics. Upselling chinese junk makes more money than selling fair trade items.
I fully support people being ethical. But tbh if people want to be ethical they should just buy used clothes (or gasp not buy clothes at all) instead of spending money on new manufacturing, which you seem to endorse.
As someone earning a 4-year marketing degree I can tell you this is not the same as Forever 21 or Walmart. She's profiting OFF of them and is not a part of them. If you are ordering charms from overseas and making your own jewelry, that isn't as sketchy as buying someone else's jewelry and saying you made it. There's a line here that was crossed, and saying she needs to make a living is not an excuse
You seem to give giant cooperates a free pass for being evil but not if the individuals are doing the same. The seller on Depop is dumb to even think they need to lie about their product origin, because even without it they will still sell. But what is your point? F21 can upsell sweatshop junk but a Depop seller can't because they don't have a business license? That's your basis for ethics?
Not matter how "fair trade"' something is, unless you're directly buying straight from the hands of the people making your clothes, you are still allowing the 3rd party who market those clothes to you (that's what you're studying right) to make a profit, and you seem to have a lot of trouble accepting that.
Instead of paying Necromancynancy a premium for Aliexpress stuff, you are paying Everlane a premium for their marketing on their company's oh so radical transparency and such. It IS probably marginally better because you aren't supporting Chineses sweatshops, but on a grand scheme it doesn't do much. Especially since the problematic sweatshops are actively being replaced by automation. Yes, eventually even Aliexpress stuff are going to be sweatshop free because it's simply cheaper to use robots than humans.
Sometimes people confused with paying more for "eco marketing" means they are saving the Earth. When irl it's best to just CUT consumption on entirely new products, regardless of their origin. We already have an excess amount of clothes to the point it's filling up landfill. It's laughable when people think BUYING MORE (even if it's Everlane) WHILE our landfills are being filled with even more clothes is the solution. Because not buying is just such an unthinkable option.
I agree that Depop is hypocritical with the whole #nothingnew thing while promoting Chinese mass produced crap. But no, buying Everlane is not ethical enough. You're just paying extra to help you sleep better at night.