Posts with Category Engaged Consumer

How many people does it take to make a pair of jeans?

Readers of  “Where Am I Wearing?” will no doubt recognize this story about my visit to a blue jean factory in Cambodia.  Of course, the book wasn’t accompanied with an over abundance of hand gestures. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHev86ELF2w[/youtube] …

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In Lesotho, A River Runs Denim

Do you know where Lesotho is? I’ll be honest, I don’t.

I do know that it’s in Africa. I look it up on Google Maps every time I wear my favorite corduroy pants that were made there. But I just can’t seem to commit to memory where in Africa Lesotho is.

“Lesotho” doesn’t seem like a real name of a country to me, but more of an assassin’s name in the StarWars. Each time I try to remember where exactly Lesotho is, I start imagining what the assassin would look like: how far his eyes are apart; the type of laser gun he favors; and other such nonsense. I picture the assassin wearing my brown cords blasting princesses and Jedi into smithereens.

This is the way my mind works….

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The Skill is Gone

The other day I was driving through Farmland, Indiana.   It was rush hour somewhere, but not in Farmland that day…or ever.

The town has a population of 1,340 plus one guy who looked a little out of place.  He was doing the strut where one arm swings and the other holds the waist of his pants to keep them from falling below his knees.

“I wonder where his underwear were made,” I thought, because that’s how much of a problem I have.

I’m not against the baggy-pants look, but Farmland is the kind of place where keeping your pants up is such a priority that suspenders are often employed; fashion be damned. So it’s no surprise that my next thought was, “That boy needs a belt.”

I don’t normally wear a belt, but,…

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Faces behind the labels

I’m haunted by garment workers. When I put on a shirt I see faces and families. Today I’m wearing a shirt Made in Honduras, which makes me think of a fella I met outside of a factory near San Pedro Sula.

This week I’d like to step out of the way and let pictures from my global quest to meet the people who made my clothes speak for themselves.

Where are you wearing today? Join the discussion on Twitter….

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A fresh look at "Made in Italy"

Today, like every day, I’m wearing glasses.  They were made in Italy and I just made a horrible discovery: they are Dolce & Gabbana glasses.

That’s not “horrible” you’re probably thinking to yourself.

Obviously you don’t subscribe to Esquire Magazine.

Anytime I see D&G on a shirt or handbag my mind is flooded with the image that greets me each month I crack open a new Esquire. There’s this fella, who also looks like he was made in Italy, floating in what appears to be a life raft, but he looks too busy casually flexing his abs to be concerned about his life, so maybe it’s just a raft. Anyhow, he’s sweaty and is wearing a white Speedo (he definitely must be Italian). The Speedo has two strings with tiny metal…

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"Guess where my undwear was made?" is the new "What's your sign?"

When you write a book about following the tags on your clothes around the world you get a lot of questions.  The most common is “Why?” which acts as a constant reminder that there is a fine line between first-time author and crazy.

At a book reading a woman asked me to check the tag on her bra.  In case there are some fellas that think this might’ve been a good thing, it was not.

People continually ask me where I am wearing.  I normally know.  I’ve pretty much committed to memory the countries of origin of every item in my wardrobe.

I also get “Guess where my shirt was made,” as if I were a carny that guessed things about people including their age, weight, and country of origin of their…

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Are you a bead maker or a boob flasher?

As unemployment rises we tend to think more about work.  I guess it the “absence makes the heart grow fonder” thing.  Why we work? How we work? What we get out of work?

Yesterday I heard philosopher Alain de Botton talking about his new book, The Pleasure and Sorrows of Work. A lot of the discussion centered around jobs such as the person who fixes the machine that makes the part that makes the box in which the plastic bags are shipped that hold the cookies that people eat.

Ask that person what their job provides the world?  What sense of accomplishment it gives them? They might not have an answer.

Industrialization and technology have separated many of us from…

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Blog post past: Hot Girls Make Great Clothes

Is there anything sexier than women working in a garment factory?

Apparently there is: Women wearing revealing bikinis working in a garment factory?

This is perhaps the most offensive ad campaign ever, not to mention, just plain dumb.

Ecko’s Mission Statement:

At Ecko Manufacturing we do things differently, we make jeans with love.

And just look at our employees! This is manufacturing on an entirely new level. We only hire the sexiest women on the planet because as everyone knows, hot girls make great clothes. Ecko MFG supplies the world with denim of unsurpassed quality. Every pair of jeans comes to the customer from the gentle, smooth hands of a highly skilled employee, who has injected every…

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Nike blasted by Australia's Channel 7 News

I wasn’t aware that Made in Malaysia might mean made by imported, forced labor.  The story below shows Bangladeshi workers crammed together.   Their passports are confiscated and they earn $5 per day.

Click Here To view Nike Human Rights Investigation!

Look, if $5 per day is at or above the average wage, I don’t have a problem with it.  But every worker should have the right to go to their employer and say, “take this job and shove it!” When an employer confiscates passports and manages to workout relationships in which the employee owes them, that’s slavery and it needs to be stopped.

This story’s heart is in the right place, but it’s reporting is a bit thin. I would have liked to see a few more questions answered:

Bangladeshi workers weighed…

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