It looks like H&M is releasing a bunch of organic cotton blends. This is good news, because a lot of people shop there, and not everyone can afford organics from independent and more expensive designers – and organic cotton is far superior to conventional cotton considering the colossal pesticide usage. Is H&M attempting to legitimately clean up its act after recent scandals including the trashing of clothes and the sweat-shop fires? Time will tell.
• The simplicity of a henley is a thing of beauty. Practical, utilitarian, and handsome whether you layer it with an organic plaid shirt, or wear it on it’s own. When that henley is fairly-made in Italy or Portugal from organic cotton, it’s also a thing of ethical handsomeness. While I wish on all my lucky-charms that Nudies would stop using cruel and ecologically devastating leather for their denim tags and jackets, I am happy when they have items like this that are leather-free. (Don’t they know about all the cutting-edge, supple faux-leathers made from recycled soda bottles, TV’s, or in closed-loop Japanese factories?). Nudie does, however, have an amazing human rights program set up with Amnesty International – that with the purchase of any one of their organic cotton “Human Rights Tees“, 10 Euros gets donated to AI. They’ve got some pretty cool designs, as well.
• Is cheap denim worth burning young women to death? Most people would say no – but our shopping habits speak otherwise. On December 15th, 2010, a multi-story sweatshop making clothes for notorious sweatshop slumlords, The Ha-meem Group (employed by GAP Inc., Wrangler jeans, JC Penney, Target, Abercrombie & Fitch, H&M, Walmart, Kohl’s, Sears, Next and Osh Kosh B’Gosh, trapped and killed at least 29 workers in Bangladesh. The unsafe and unchecked conditions in the sweatshop prevented these mostly young girls from making a safe escape, as exists are commonly locked from the outside to prevent people from taking breaks. Many were burned alive, and many jumped to their death. To add insult to injury, “…the workers who were burned alive were likely being paid some $24 a month, less than $1 a day,” according to Change.org.
The disconnect we have concerning where our clothes come from is shameful, but understandable considering the epic propaganda and marketing machine that tells well-funded myths about cheap clothes. Between 2006 and 2009, 414 workers died in 213 factory fires. This latest fire at the Ha-Meem Group factory was not the first one to occur this year either – and famous factory fires that kill poor people or immigrants have a well-documented history.
If you unwrapped a Christmas present from any one of these companies yesterday, or plan on going to the mall to spend gift-certificates, I would seriously consider using the opportunity to return items, speak to a managers, write letters, or otherwise voice your outrage. Lastly, please Sign The Petition to demand that these manufacturers at least compensate families of the victims.
* If you are designer or work with any of these companies – check out the amazing work that Made-By is doing, and find out how to get the button sewn into your label!
• Snack Attack! I am drooling like a rescued pitbull just thinking about these new snacks! The vegan mozzarella-style sticks from Chicago Soy Dairy’s Teese line offers 15 sticks for 6 bucks – that ain’t bad at all. Then, squeeze some of Tiger Tiger’s flavored vegan mayo on your favorite sandwich or burger, and for dessert, how about some raw, Nutella-inspired Rawtella over ice cream or in a cookie sandwich?
• Man Tools from Jack Black are a sure way to keep a well-groomed face and handsome conscious. A cruelty-free and Men’s Health Magazine award-winning lather-brush designed to both meet and exceed the performance of Silver Tip Badger hair, and a razor-sharpener that extends the life of any razor are often hard to find, but here they are:
• Osborn shoes offers one vegan style for guys with cotton uppers and rubber soles. They are fair trade, small-scale, and pretty freakin’ cool. I wish all their soles were rubber!
• Treehugger recently published a list of 7 unethical companies with the most abusive labor conditions. Who made the list?
• A New York Times article today reports on the grossly underestimated amount of oil gushing into the Gulf. “A government panel on Thursday essentially doubled its estimate of how much oil has been spewing from the out-of-control BP well, with the new calculation suggesting that an amount equivalent to the Exxon Valdez disaster could be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico every 8 to 10 days. The new estimate is 25,000 to 30,000 barrels of oil a day. That range, still preliminary, is far above the previous estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.”
• The New York Times Magazine, this week, has a heart-wrenching and though-provoking feature article on a phenomenon many psychologists, criminologists, prosecutors, veterinarians, and law enforcement professionals have suspected for a very long time: cruelty towards animals is directly connected to violence towards other people. “… a growing sensitivity to the rights of animals, another significant reason for the increased attention to animal cruelty is a mounting body of evidence about the link between such acts and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern, including illegal firearms possession, drug trafficking, gambling, spousal and child abuse, rape and homicide.”
Fur is Green? More like Fur is Greed. The fur industry is jealous of the environmental movement. Green with envy, in fact. This has resulted in the Greenwashing award of the decade going to the Canada Fur Council’s “Fur is Green” campaign, which includes a spiffy website, a Facebook group, and amazing rationalizations that make historical comparisons impossible to ignore!
There are so many ways to expose the ridiculousness behind their hairy agenda that I don’t know which one to start with! Ok, ok, I’ll start with the one where they call people wearing fur “Environmental Activists“. So Let me get this straight – according to the Fur Is Green Facebook group, if you are a compassionate person who wants animals to be able to live out their lives in protected habitats and doesn’t want them to be bludgeoned, trapped, or drowned in the wild, or vaginally electrocuted, gassed, or to spend their entire lives in small cages, you are a “fanatic”. But if you rationalize those things under the guise of “supporting thousands of jobs”, while avoiding looking at or openly addressing the actual acts and images associated with fur production, and indulging in toxically peserved luxury products, you are an “environmentalist”? Therefore, according to the CFC, compassion and empathy is fanatical.
Fur Is Toxic.
Producing a fur coat from ranch-raised animals takes more than 15 times as much energy as it does to produce a faux-fur coat! In addition, runoff waste from fur farms destroys waterways, and the toxic chemicals used (ammonia, chromates, bleaching agents, coal tar derivatives, hydrogen peroxide, formaldehyde, sulphides) to preserve the skins are also harming the environment. The fur industry has even lobbied governments in the Great Lakes area to maintain low water-quality standards—so that fur farms won’t be identified as major polluters. Wild trapping is no better, indiscriminately catching whatever wanders into the trap – cats, dogs, endangered species – who are all thrown away after a miserable death.
I will be breaking a sacred rule of abuser-denial by making a historical comparison here (and they will be outraged at the audacity of my comparison): It was only 60 years ago that Ford Motor Company rationalized using Holocaust slave labor (my relatives) for car production. Yes, I know beavers are not Jews, and yes, I know that the Holocaust is not the fur industry – but the rationalizations used are the same. How could something so clearly terrible happen under our grandparents watch? Social atrocities don’t happen magically. They happen when people making money justify horrifying circumstances thoroughly enough to make them seem like “business as usual”. The rationalizers avoid being compared to their predecessors at any cost. And they will continue to avoid these comparisons.
It seems there are always people who find ways to rationalize cruelty if there is money to be made – but to claim that your cruel and toxic industry is a workers’ advocacy, environmental, and “humane” industry is total doublethink!
The “FUR It’s MY CHOICE” poster from furisgreen.com showcases the crux of the disconnect. Anyone who has a dog or a cat knows that animals are more than fiber-production-units. What about the individual animal’s choice to avoid sources of pain and torment? To roam free and raise their young? Clearly, that point can never be addressed.
It’s pretty obvious that the purpose of this campaign is a desperate attempt from a dying industry to quell the doubts of inquisitive potential customers. The problem? The truth is hard to cover up.
Thankfully there are brilliant designers like Calvin Klein, Charlotte Ronson, Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood, Benjamin Cho, Duckie Brown, Eddie Bauer, Guess?, H&M, Tommy Hillfiger, John Varvatos, Levi’s, Paul Frank, and people like Tim Gunn , Todd Oldham, Martha Stewart, Ellen Degeners and scores of other indistry professionals who are outspokenly anti-fur.
