Yes, people conflate fashion with clothing, the necessity, and they believe they should be able to enjoy fashion affordably as though it’s a necessity.

There are other things like this. People expect to be able to access the things they like without friction, and luxuries become necessities. Meat is a similar example in North America, where it’s terrible for the environment and extremely resource and labour intensive, yet people get upset when they can’t get a pound for pennies.

Both industries benefit greatly from people thinking of the product as a necessity or close to it.

Thats usually the case with these types of articles. A lot of times they arent written out of good will, but to pose something the author does not like as a bigger problem than it actually is. In this case, like you said, the author feels like they are not part of the problem and shouldn't "count."