The Discerning Brute: fashion, food & etiquette for the ethically handsome man

Fashion Offenders, Every 9 Days & Animal Cruelty Syndrome

• 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?

1. H&M: sweatshop fire recently killed 21, organic cotton fraud, trashing unsold clothing.
2. Abercrombie & Fitch: sweatshops in Saipan, exploitative worker contracts, zero-transparency according to Corporate Responsibility, ILRF’s Hall of Shame
3. The Gap (Old Navy & Banana Republic): New Delhi child labor, Saipan sweatshops labeled as “Made in USA”, Forced abortions on female factory workers.
4. Nike: Human trafficking and indentured slavery, anti-union policies, sweatshops and unpaid workers.
5. Limited Brands (Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works, Express and The Limited): Jordanian sweatshops, human trafficking & slave labor.
6. Phillips-Van Heusen (Calvin Klein): violent sweatshops, forced labor in Saipan.
7. Wal-Mart: criminal labor practices, sweatshops.

• 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.”

2 Comments

joshuakatcher, June 12th 2010 | Tags: Abercrombie & Fitch, animal cruelty, banana republic, Bath and Body Works, Express, green, H&M, Limited Brands, nike, oil spill, Old Navy, osborn shoes, sweatshops, The Gap, The Limited, vegan, vegetarian, victoria's secret, wal-mart
Posted in accessories, activism, animal rights, dogs, fair trade, fashion, green, news, organic, pets, philosophy, social responsibility, vegan, vegetarian

Fresh Friday Finds

1. Conference of Birds

I attended the COB runway show for the Spring 2009 collection and was thrilled to see some organics! Andrew Holden’s ‘excellent bad-boys’ looked as if they were just back to London from a desert excavation or an Egyptian urban-safari. This collection featured gorgeous canvas jackets, Hebrew-inspired scarves, lots of layers, an organic hooded trench coat, vests, and a bright but soft color palate of yellow, bone, black, gray and pale blue. DB contributer Jodi worked on this collection. Most of the spring collection was vegan, but there was some wool and leather, unfortunately.

2. Blog of a Vegan Pirate

SuperVegan has been publishing the blog of Tod Emko who documented his time serving on the Sea Shepherd pirate ship, The Steve Irwin, and their mission to stop illegal Japanese whaling from February and March of 2008. In light of the 2008 IWC Meeting finishing with the usual deadlock, and Sea Shepherd officially announcing its 2008-2009 anti-whaling campaign, Operation Musashi, it seemed a good time to show people what’s going on in the world of whaling.

3. ‘Top Model’ Judge Protects Seals!

America’s Next Top Model judge and renowned photographer Nigel Barker opens A Sealed Fate? tonight in New York. If you are in NYC, go check out an exhibition about the world’s largest slaughter of marine animals. Tyra, no doubt, would approve—even if she didn’t think of it first.
July 25-27 at 401 Projects, 401 West St., New York, (212) 633-6202, humanesociety.org/protectseals

4. Victoria’s (Dirty Forest Destroying) Secret cleaned up!

LISTEN to CEO Todd Katzenmeyer as he talks about how the Forest Ethics campaign changed the company’s catalog practices. Also pay attention to the insanity of Corporate monsters like VS and the insanity they foster.

5. An Olympic-Sized Fur Trade

China is one of the world’s largest suppliers of fur garments. More than 95 percent of China’s finished fur garments are exported for sale overseas, and many of them go to North America. Cat and dog fur is often deliberately mislabeled as “Asian jackal” or “rabbit” fur. This summer, with the world’s eyes focused on China during the Olympics, PETA is exposing the horrors that take place on Chinese fur farms. This is a historic opportunity to speak out against the global fur trade and influence consumers worldwide.

6. Ontario has made the largest conservation commitment in Canadian history, setting aside at least half the Northern Boreal region – 225,000 square kilometres – for permanent protection from development.