The sentence of the day/Today’s tongue twister

In front of the flip flop factory, the flip flop fabricators wear flip flops.

How fun is that? I’m having an awesome day writing and that sentence just made it twice as awesome.

New World Vision Report Interview

I recorded another interview for the World Vision Report about Where am I Wearing?. We recorded this one from Ball State’s David Letterman communication center. If you’ve listened to the previous interviews there’s not much new in this one, but it is much clearer. All of the other interviews were recorded continents away over the phone. This one was recorded over an ISDN line in the studio and it sounds like I’m in the same room with Peggy, the host, even though she was in Texas. It’s part of a one-hour special on fashion that will appear on many NPR stations across the country.

I’ve yet to hear myself on the radio, which would be a hoot. But last week a fella I met in China emailed me after hearing one of my previous interviews I recorded via phone in Cambodia, with Peggy was in Texas, with the producer in Seattle, and the editor in North Carolina. The World Vision Report works from a virtual office.

We live in a virtual world. This is a good thing for a writer living in Indiana.

Hard to swallow, my flip flops

The people that make our flip flops often work 15-16 hours per day seven days a week. I don’t imagine that this complies with any worker laws, regulations, or compliances anywhere in the world. That’s why I gave the passage below from Deckers Outdoor’s webpage the ol’ “bullshit” sneeze.

Deckers We do not manufacture our footwear. We outsource the manufacturing of our Teva, Simple and UGG footwear to independent manufacturers in China. We also outsource the manufacturing of our UGG footwear to independent manufacturers in New Zealand and Australia. We require our independent contract manufacturers and designated suppliers to adopt our Factory Charter and to comply with all local laws and regulations governing human rights, working conditions and environmental compliance, before we are willing to place business with them. We require our licensees to demand the same from their contract factories and suppliers. We have no long-term contracts with our manufacturers. As we grow, we expect to continue to rely exclusively on independent manufacturers for our
sourcing needs.

I was told that China has stricter labor laws than what we have in the USA so it’s highly unlikely that the factory I visited that makes Tevas meets them. But in China, the law and practice are two very different things. Deckers is probably not any more or less guilty than other shoe manufacturers that source in China, which is pretty much all of them.

Deckers is trying to capitalize on the sustainability movement, but how long before they start trying to capitalize on the social-conscience movement and offer products by workers who don’t spend every waking minute gluing, stitching, and packing?

I found this passage on their website, too. (Again, I’ve highlighted the points that I find hard to swallow):

We do the right thing by assuring that our manufacturers do not employ child, forced, indentured, or convict labor. We openly and proudly comply with guidelines set forth by Amnesty International that recognized these Human Rights standards in the workplace. How can we be sure? Easy. We have full access to our factories, and we grade them several times a year against our standards. This helps us work closely with our manufacturers to ensure that safety measures like adequate lighting, healthy air, access to first aid, set minimum wages and protection against mandatory overtime, and safe workstations are implemented.

I would drive 45 mph in a 35 mph zone if there weren’t police officers that would give me a ticket. Wouldn’t you? Self-policing just doesn’t work.

Here’s more thoughts on my flip flops.

Winners of the The First Annual Where Are YOU Wearing Christmas Inventory Contest of Destiny

The You are a Spoiled Brat, You Should Feel Guilty Award goes to…

Jenn for her impressive list consisting of 23 items made in only 6 countries:

Green Abercrombie shirt – Made in Vietnam
Gray & White Gap shirt – Made in Sri Lanka
Gray AE hat – Made in China
Santa Claus socks – Made in Taiwan
UTMB sweatshirt – Made in Honduras
Blue snowman pajama pants from Gap – Made in Indonesia
Blue cashmere gloves – Made in China
Blue cashmere scarf – Made in China
Snowman slippers – Made in Taiwan
Purple pajama pants – Made in Indonesia
Pink corduroy jacket – Made in China
Life Is Good sweatshirt – Made in China
Green and white sleep socks – Made in ? (no tag)
3 pairs trouser socks (white, black, and tan) – Made in China
3 pairs “casual” socks (black patterns) – Made in China
Pink slippers – Made in China
Suede gloves – Made in China
Warming scarf – Made in China
Striped pajama pants – Made in China

And the You are NOT a Spoiled Brat, You Should NOT Feel Guilty Award (yeah, I just made this one up, but I felt sorry for her and she’s never won something around her before)…

Eva, who wasn’t very good this year and/or is a nudist with bad circulation in her fingers only received 1 pair leather/fleece-lined gloves - Made in China

Congratulations ladies. Go Here to pick out your prize and email your choice along with the address to which you want it sent to kelsey@travelin-light.com.

Thanks for playing.

My Christmas Inventory

It’s day four post-Christmas and no one has entered the contest. Come on people. I know you are out there. I check my stats and I see that you are visiting. I tend to do all the work around here, now it’s you turn. Remember, you could win stuff and given the number of entries to this point, your chances are good.

Anyhow, I can’t complain much because I have generally been sitting on my tush playing with my Christmas toys, eating, and pretending that I have nothing else in the world to do. Even though big, big things are looming. But I’ve finally got around to completing my inventory.

A few notes:

- It may be perceived as annoying to the gift-giver if the gift-opener, upon opening a gift of clothing, ignores the style, color, and size of the clothing and goes straight for the made in label: “Sweet, this one was made in Bahrain. Where’s that?”

- Opening clothes has never been more fun. It’s like Fantasy Football, but with Christmas gifts and no not-so witty remarks about washed-up running backs.

- I received 0 items of clothing made in the USA and only one from a developed country (Italy).

Kelsey’s Christmas Inventory -

1 Columbia Sweatshirt - Made in Sri Lanka
1 Sweater - Made in China
1 TAPS t-shirt - Made in El Salvador
1 Fancy boy shirt - Made in India
1 GAP dress pants - Made in Bahrain (Score. Don’t think I’ve seen anything made from there before)
1 GAP author-ware cords - Made in Lesotho
2 Chaps shirts - Made in China
1 Fancy boy shirt - Made in China
1 Fancy boy corduroy shirt - Made in India
1 University of Illinois fleece - Made in Bangladesh
1 Gap sweater - Made in China
1 Merino wool hat - Made in Italy

Total items = 13
Total countries = 8

The First Annual Where Are YOU Wearing Christmas Inventory Contest of Destiny

At some point in our lives we shake a present and, when we hear that it’s clothes not toys, we don’t pout. Instead we think, “Huh, I could use some new clothes.”

That’s a sad day.

It happens when we can no longer blame our mothers for dressing us like doofi (plural of doofus) in pinstriped blue jeans and snowflake sweaters; when we take over our own fashion responsibility, for better or worse. For me that time was high school. Sure, I didn’t actually buy or pick out my clothes in the store – Mom still did – but I did dress myself: “Now, which Scooby-Doo T-shirt should I wear today?” Christmas was a time to expand my selection of Scooby shirts so I welcomed it and packages that sounded like clothes.

My first gift exchange this Christmas is Saturday. It will be one of at least three gift-giving extravaganzas that will leave me with an entire new wardrobe. In light of my global quest to track down the people that made my clothes, I will be tallying the country of origin for each pair of boxers, turtle neck, sweater, pajamas, etc., that I receive.

I invite you to join me. In fact I will bribe you to do so…

How to enter the First Annual Where Are YOU Wearing Christmas Inventory Contest of Destiny

Read the label on all of the clothing you receive this holiday season and record their country of origin. Post the results in this thread or email them to me at kelsey@travelin-light.com.

Ex.

Mexico - 2
USA - 4
Bangladesh - 1
China - 6

Awards

The You are a Spoiled Brat, You Should Feel Guilty Award

This award will go to the entrant who records the longest list of clothing they received. A tiebreaker will be decided by who has the largest diversity of countries.

The Where the Heck is That Award

This award will go to the entrant(s) who records a country of origin that no other entrant has recorded. A maximum of two winners will be selected. If there are more than two who meet the requirement for this award, I’ll self-conduct a private round robin coin tossin’ tournament to decide who the two winners are. Or maybe I’ll just pick who ever the heck I want.

Winners will be announced and the results of the survey will be posted no later than January 1st, 2008.

Prizes when you win the Where are You wearing Christmas Inventory Contest of Destiny

You’ll be able to choose any one item from the following:

Books – These are books that relate to my quest or ones that I just happen to enjoy and if you are cool, you’ll like them too. I’ll have Amazon deliver the one you select to your door.

Travels of T-shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli - A lot of Economic facts and figures here, but author Pietra Rivoli does a good job of making them interesting. If you want to know the where, what, how, why, and anything else about your clothes from the cotton field to your closet, you’ll enjoy this book.

The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs - Bono writes the foreword. Largely an optimistic plan of how to eliminate extreme poverty. For me this book is at its best when Sachs gets his point across through his experiences from around the world to assist developing countries. Choose this one if poverty is something you think about.

The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi - Scalzi writes the popular blog Whatever and lives across county from where I grew up. This book is loads of fun. Seriously, my back hurt from loading all that fun around.

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff by Christopher Moore - Jesus had a best friend. His name was Biff. Jesus and Biff get in lots of trouble…well, mostly Biff. When there is sinning to be known he knows it. This is perhaps the funniest book I’ve ever read.

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts - Don’t know about you, but I could easily become a travel bum. Potts provides a practical way to be unpractical. He explores the nuts and bolts of long term travel and also philosophosizes (yes, I know it’s not actually a word) about life on the road.

OR

You can select something from the Touron Attire store. But I’d probably go with one of the books.

The NLC would like to slap you in the face

This video produced by the National Labor Committee has some pretty powerful images, including young Bangladeshi women sleeping with their faces smooshed against the side of their sewing machines.

I’m all for people knowing where and who make their clothes, but I think this video has some faults. The narration is a bit extreme and completely dismisses the context in which the workers live.

The narrator says that the factories reach 100-degrees in the summertime and that the worker’s clothes are covered in sweat as if the workers have a place to escape the heat. They don’t. If they weren’t at the factory, they would be sitting in 100-degree heat in their home. Granted, workers coloring cloth, using irons, or presses work in areas painfully hot year-round.

Is a woman who is allowed eight seconds to sew on a button, and who does this time and time again, any different than any factory worker anywhere in the world that puts the same widget in the same place day-in and day-out? A factory is a factory. Doing a repetitive job efficiently is factory work. I know people in Ohio who have spent most of their lives doing the same thing.

The narrator also mentions that the workers don’t have pensions or health care plans. Few people do in Bangladesh. To say it as if the workers don’t get it like everybody else in the country is misleading.

The narrator makes broad generalizations as if all of the women workers’ families are falling apart and all the supervisors beat the workers.

Without a doubt the video is shocking – somewhat misleading but shocking. Maybe that’s what people need. Personally, I want the whole story and this video is not the whole story. But maybe I saw a video like this years ago and it planted the idea for this quest. This video could be the that kernel for someone else.

Maybe we need a little slap in the face before we actually think about something.

Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles

I briefly mentioned Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles this weekend. The FC follows a few of their items from design to material sourcing to factory to consumer to recycling. Today, I revisited the site and realized that it was even cooler than I thought it was.

If you click on the pictures, you can view a slideshow or a video. They interview workers and managers at factories, talk about the process of producing the apparel, and even what the factory and the jobs mean to the country and the workers. I was blown away when I discovered this. I didn’t realize that any company had gone to such great lengths to introduce us, not only to the manufacturing process of their products, but, to the workers who make them.

Many of the companies I dealt with during my quest were less than helpful and wouldn’t give the location of their factories. In fact, Deckers sold their inability to divulge the information as attempting to guard their sourcing info from their competitors.

I hope more brands will follow Patagonia’s lead.

The video below is from the factory that makes Patagonia’s Polo Shirts in Thailand.

Patgonia Thailand Factory:

I’ve added a permanent link to the right to the Footprint Chronicles. You can bet that as I continue to write about and make sense of my quest, I’ll refer back to Patagonia and their unique MO.

A big thanks to Kasey at Patagonia’s blog The Cleanest Line for pointing me to the FC.

Minding the GAP: Child labor in India

In London’s observer:

…an undercover Observer investigation in the back streets of New Delhi, reveal a tragic consequence of the West’s demand for cheap clothing. It exposes how, despite Gap’s rigorous social audit systems launched in 2004 to weed out child labour in its production processes, the system is being abused by unscrupulous subcontractors. The result is that children, in this case working in conditions close to slavery, appear to still be making some of its clothes.

Oh, that’s why the factories hated to see me coming. Now I get it. I thought that maybe I had bad breath, something in my teeth, or some other hygiene related issues. Here it turns out that journalists are bad news for factories that employ child labor.

No child should have to work and if they do you should at least pay them. And if you don’t even do that, at least don’t beat them. This is an important story: a major American retailer’s clothes are sewn by 10 year-old boys – nothing new, but important. It’s good to keep the issue out there.

BUT…

To me the issue here isn’t that the kids work, don’t get paid, and are beaten, it’s that they were sold by their parents. A ten year old child sold by their very own parent.

I was bought from my parents’ village in [the northern state of] Bihar and taken to New Delhi by train,’ he says. ‘The men came looking for us in July. They had loudspeakers in the back of a car and told my parents that, if they sent me to work in the city, they won’t have to work in the farms. My father was paid a fee for me and I was brought down with 40 other children.

My thinking went like this:

– dude GAP is in for it
– poor kids
– if you work them, pay them
– don’t beat them
– what kind of parent sells their kids
– what kind of conditions (political, social, economical) must a family be living in to think it a good idea to sell their 10-year-old

The story shouldn’t be just about the GAP, but it is. Long after GAP has righted the wrongs of their suppliers in India, the conditions will still remain that parents have to sell their children. We are selfish to think that by simply not buying GAP products we are doing our part to right the problem. The problem is poverty. The problem isn’t just your shirt.

When you read about parents selling their children, the issues of the GAP’s suppliers seems a small part of a much larger problem. But that larger problem isn’t nearly as sexy as a story about a major American corporation.

Where am I wearing? The ultimate slideshow

I raided my photo archive from the WAIW? trip and set it to Gary Jules’ Mad World and U2’s Yahweh. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get either one of them to play for me so I had to do it myself. Don’t worry, I don’t sing. This is more of a beginner guitar player’s shot at spoken word.

This will permanently live in the “About Where am I wearing?” section to the right.