What are We Wearing?

Remember Rana Plaza...Reconsider Your Clothing Choices...and Look at What's Happening in the U.S.

4/21/2016

We hope you'll find time to honor the lives of so many who lost their lives at Rana Plaza 3 years ago due to the demands of fast fashion. Don't be tempted by what's tragic, no matter how soft and lovely it seems.

Let INTERNATIONAL FASHION REVOLUTION Week remind you of all the reasons why it's worth knowing more about what you're putting on your precious body.

Do a quick search to find reasons why we encourage you to consider how one piece and take the place of 2, 3, or 4, and gratify you more.

Be willing to hold yourself, your brands and your country accountable.
What's happening with apparel production in the U.S.?

Thanks to Melanie for the moving poem she recently shared in response to this post.

2 Comments

Melanie Berends

6/13/2016 06:17:47 pm

Type it into Google.
Type it right now.
Type it on that assembled device of yours
That prized piece of metal.
Sweat--
Wait. What pops up?
Sweats, sweatshirts, sweatpants, sweaters.
Now finish it.
Sweatshops.

Hot, dusty and hot, merciless.
Hot. Hot and brutal.
No air. No air conditioning.
Few windows.
Grimy with filth
Covered with pieces of cardboard.
Dark floorboards.
Piles of dust. Clouds of dust,
Fill my nose and my throat.

Cheap machines.
Cheap like everything else in the room.
Apparently so are the lives living.
Cheap is what they are.
Lives are not cheap.
Precious, prized.
Cheaply made cotton t shirts you throw away.
Expected.
Chipped and ripped.
Accepted.
Sewn and then thrown.
Accepted.

Machines that jam.
Sewing machines can't jam,
lose time,
won't sew much,
won't get paid much.

You don't know. You can't.
You're ignorant.
I don't blame you.
Not advertised in abundance.
Perhaps you find yourself sympathetic,
Maybe even feel guilty
Go buy a sweater.
It'll make you feel better about yourself.

Not bitter.
Not bitter like the filthy, foul and putrid smell
Engulfing, suffocating
Fibers of plastic
Waistbands of elastic
And the amount is fantastic
Piled high.
Hazard and high risk.
Low risk in low light.

Paid how much for that shirt you're wearing?
Maybe ten dollars?
It's a steal.
Steals lives.
But don't look too closely--
the hem is falling apart.

I got paid three cents to sew it.

Make sixty
Make 'me quick.
The dust makes me sick.

Pick your weapon.
Your money?
Your ignorance?
Your silence?

Sweating.
An itching discomfort.
Few breaks.
Machine breaks.
Hands ache, head aches.
Not allowed outside.
Wastes too much time.
Work and don't stop.
Fill the stores up.
Fill them up fast--
don't make clothes that'll last
Doesn't matter if that seam's ripped.
It'll sell. Discounted.
Discounted labor.
It fits.

It's always silent.
Void of voices.
But...
There remains the perpetual sound of the clunking of a machine.
Booming, clanking, clunking.
No time. No room. One hundred of us.
One hundred and five.
One hundred and ten.
Packed into a tiny room.
No light, no air, no room.
Just the pounding and pounding, ominous footsteps.
The massive movement of a needle
narrow and unstable surfaces shake.
Hem gives way to the push and pull of the metal
Its in my line of sight
Hard to see, What with no light.
constantly and unchanging
Up and down—up, down, up, down.
Cease.

The floor shutters.
Rhythm.
Over and over again.
Overtime.
Twenty two hours straight.

Cheap but easy.
Easy and quick,
an alternative.
Low risk. Low light.
Cheap and accessible.
Remarkable.
Unremarkably so.

That beautiful?
So beautiful, you'd kill for it.

And maybe you have.

Kids.
They're here too.
Young. But American companies don't use child labor.
What a preposterous notion.

Three cents.
Maybe next year, you will find me with a decent bit of luck
Maybe have a job that pays five cents or a buck.

My name is Melanie Berends and I recently discover the store Clothing Matters while I was looking for thrift stores and supporters of sustainable/ethical fashion for a high school project. The assignment was to find a social issue that was relevant to the local community (of Grand Rapids) and make a short documentary on that issue—having a growing interest in ethical fashion and having already read a related book on the issue (Overdressed: The Shockingky High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline) I set out to Clothing Matters in search on an interview. Ms. Marta Swain, founder and owner of this magnificent store, gave me so much more. I had learned so much by the time I'd walked out of that store. My general focus had been on the social impacts cheap clothes and mass consumption but after our interview, I realized I needed to look more into the environmental impacts and the negative effects the clothes we buy have on us and our bodies. The poem above had been a side project of my own but one connected to the short documentary.

joyce

12/10/2016 04:04:40 pm

I recently splurged on a t-shirt & yoga type pants at the store. the reason I did it is because 6 years ago I bought my 1st purchase there of a Cami (t-shirt) it is still a favorite one! So now I did not even want to take these pants off to wash them (but I did) I do love this store & the Ladies there are so helpful. How can one afford to shop here though~ That's the problem! COST is HIGH if your struggling financially. I always shopped thrift ~ still do but will try to buy at least 1 thing a year from now on!! Loved your poem & awareness is key!! I have to many junk clothes!!!

Remember Rana Plaza...Reconsider Your Clothing Choices...and Look at What's Happening in the U.S.

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Remember Rana Plaza...Reconsider Your Clothing Choices﻿...and ﻿Look at What's Happening in the U.S.

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Remember Rana Plaza...Reconsider Your Clothing Choices...and Look at What's Happening in the U.S.