Fashion isn't frivolous - article

[pinkytoe]

http://grist.org/living/fashion-isnt-frivolous-its-a-matter-of-life-and-death/
I am thinking of all the women I see trying to keep up with the fashion of the month without considering its true source.

[Jilly]

All of this truly is something that concerns me, all aspects of it, and I take none of this lightly or without respect for whatever opinions others might hold. I find it personally helpful to be reminded about these kinds of things, so thank you for that.

I think about this often, not just garments and footwear, but just about everything that is manufactured or crafted somewhere that does not originate with me.

I have to buy fabric or clothing because I cannot produce my own fiber, raise shearing animals, grow flax or hemp. I have no running stream where I could pound and process plant fibers.

I try to buy responsibly, and for me that means that I try to avoid companies that make me angry or abuse their employers/workers and issues like that. More importantly, and certainly more selfishly, how much I spend on anything has become my most important deciding factor.

I would love to have all of the money that is earned in my country stay in my country by being able to purchase goods made in my country. I would like the money to circulate from raw materials, to people who gather and make things and then send them out to where I can buy what I need.

For me, buying local is very difficult. The seasonal farmer and grower markets sell their items at a greater cost than I can find at the discount markets, where foods come from all over the country and from outside our borders. I just do my best, making whatever decision is appropriate at that moment. Research and consideration are all I have.

And, this is not what you are addressing, but I have a concern about the wages that are earned by foreign workers. Abuse of them is not acceptable, but for some people I just have to guess that these jobs, making stuff for more privileged folk might be the only employment and source of income available to them. That does not make it right and I abhor crappy working conditions, disgustingly low pay and the working and environmental hazards that are a result of that whole, messed-up system.

There are other, larger issues that attend to all of this, and I will not drag them in, but this seems to be a issue that is more than some people who are actually or perceived fashion focal shoppers.

[Gardenarian]

What a sad article. I tell myself I'm not to blame by buying second-hand, but it all comes from the same source.
If people weren't addicted to fashion, all the thrift stores would dry up.