I would have to answer a yes to this question, although most of my wardrobe is hardly sheik. Do Levis count as "designer"? Theres' not that many options in the US at least, barring american apparel, of course. It's all imported, and it's all tainted in some way. Heres' how I see it: Regardless of what I wear I will inevitably contribute to exploitation and brutality. The corporation I work for to pay my rent and feed myself is an inhumane organization, much of the food we carry comes from countries where people starve or there is serious malnutrition. The people who grow it get a pittance. This can be applied to EVERYTHING. The computer I'm typing on, the search engine Google which helps design software for oppressive police states, etc. At the core, most fundamentally, I pay taxes to a government that is carrying out an unconstitutional, immoral war, and providing military aid to governments that violate human rights conventions. It's impossible to escape. One important conclusion to draw from this is that boycotts, except in the incident of highly organized, national and international campaigns, and they DO exist, are problematic to say the least. Because, far from the popular wisdom, these problems are not specific, but SYSTEMIC. It is the NATURE of capitalism, it is the FUNDAMENTAL structure of the power systems to create and propogate this kind of inhumanity. This has all sorts of far reaching implications. This leaves me, and the rest of us, obligated to amending, changing, and occasionally dismantling and destroying these systems, while simultaneously thinking of new forms of social organizations and relationships to replace them. I protest, I petition, I vote, and at the end of the day I'm able to feel alright about it. While we should always apply self-criticism, and look inwardly, we should not be paralyzed by guilt, for the guilt is not truly ours. The anger should be directed at the institutions, not just for the aforementioned crimes, but for placing us in a position where we must have complicity in those crimes.