Many of us are addicted to fast fashion. Well, I am anyway. I have to confess to owning about six pairs of skinny jeans bought from a chain store. I got them in a sale for £10 a pair. How can trousers be so cheap? This season they are bringing out more in different colours; I feel the urge to go out and buy some of these too.

We may think we are using logic rather than our irrational desire when consuming fashion, but the only thing we actually do is come up with justifications to purchase more unnecessary clothes. My personal favourite baloney is to look at my full wardrobe and declare I have "nothing to wear".

Sigmund Freud knew we were controlled by urges first and then used our sense to rationalise these desires. It was his nephew, Edward Bernays, who took this information to change the way advertisers sold stuff. After Bernays revolutionised advertising, instead of ads just consisting of images and product information, they appealed to our subconscious minds. So rather than shopping for the soap that we needed to wash our clothes, we began unconsciously buying the lifestyles portrayed in advertisements. Image, and therefore clothes, are a big part of most ads, so for all our lives we have been getting the message that being on trend and looking our best is a means to achieving our dreams.

I don't suppose I am alone in knowing deep down that actually if I never bought another item of clothing for as long as I lived, I probably have enough garments to last me the rest of my life. If I bothered to mend my clothes they'd probably last me two lifetimes. Knowing this won't stop me from buying clothes though.

I have no idea who makes my clothes, nor if they get a decent living wage and have an adequate quality of life. I don't even know if these clothes are made by adults or children. I like to fool myself that I'm a moral sort of person, yet perhaps I am, not entirely unknowingly, encouraging human exploitation, and I certainly know buying unnecessary clothes won't do the planet any good.

What is the meaning of the short, sharp thrill I get at the point of sale and from my carrier bag of clothes? Am I merely addicted to buying clothes, or am I succumbing to advertising's lifelong manipulation of my psyche, or both?

Feeling a craving and then temporarily satisfying it, is not unpleasant even if a higher part of me knows I'm just being manipulated. But maybe if the supply chain was transparent and we at least insisted on knowing that everyone has been treated fairly we could be more ethical about our addiction to fashion.

Philippa Perry on Fashion Revolution day

On 24 April, the charity Fashion Revolution wants us to mark the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh by wearing our clothes inside-out, labels showing, and asking fashion retailers on social media: "Who made your clothes?" According to a recent survey, 61% of brands don't even know the origin of their clothes, as clothing manufacturing is often arranged through third parties. We can apply consumer pressure to insist that retailers find out so that they can obtain fair conditions for those people producing their clothes.

Ethically made clothing may not be as cheap, but it's time we became accustomed to buying fewer, better-quality items. That's why on Fashion Revolution day I am going inside-out.