Reasons I love writing…

January 20th, 2008 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

#45 Research on YouTube

And then killing time on YouTube

The NLC would like to slap you in the face

December 11th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 5 Comments »

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.

Sign my blue jeans, autograph my undies

November 9th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 2 Comments »

I went all the way to Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, and Honduras and I didn’t even have the sense to get my blue jeans signed by the people that made them.

The good new is that if you go to this blue jean boutique in NYC they’ll take your measurements and while you sip an espresso they custom make your jeans on the spot. When they’re done, the three people that made the jeans will sign ‘em.

How cool is that?

The bad news is that with their non-custom blue jeans running $250+, it might be more economical to purchase a ticket to Cambodia and have the workers there sign your jeans. Actually, having the Cambodian workers sign your jeans would be kind of hard. You’d have to get 85 signatures.

Signed garments? That’s one way to get us thinking about the people that make our clothes.

Where am I wearing? The ultimate slideshow

October 31st, 2007 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

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.

A thousand words

October 27th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 3 Comments »

How exciting is this…?

I described my individual items of clothing to Geoff Hassing and he brought them to life. He came up with the idea of doing the the circles that zoomed in on the tags.

Thanks Geoff. You rock!

All Hail the Blue Jeans

October 24th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 2 Comments »

I’ve talked before about how James Sullivan’s book Jeans is a little too much into the Americaness of jeans, but really it’s hard to argue with him too much. Here’s a passage:

All blue jeans, whether they are rough as sidewalk or burnished to a hand as fine as cashmere, share an “Americana” feel. They may be cut and sewn in Japan, Vietnam, or Hong Kong, using denim from mills in Mexico, India, Italy, or Turkey and synthetic indigo dye from Germany or Brazil. Yet wherever its origins, a pair of blue jeans embodies two centuries’ worth of the myths and ideals of American culture. Jeans are the surviving relic of the western frontier. The epitomize our present-day pre-occupations – celebrity and consumer culture – and we’ll likely be wearing them long after the business suit, say, has bee relegated to the dustbin of fashion.

One question: What the heck do Canadians think of such talk? Are blue jeans more American than Canadian?

Jeans are made of money

October 16th, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

20-30% of each paper bill in the USA is made from blue jean scrap. Really, is there a more American item of clothing? We love blue jeans. We love money. We love money made of blue jeans.

I finished Jeansby James Sullivan today and I know way too much about, well…jeans.

(note: There has to be a better title for this post. Apparently, I’m all outta clever today)

“They” were Jeans

October 12th, 2007 | By Kelsey | 4 Comments »

On Wednesday I posted a quote from James Sullivan’s book “Jeans.” Allow me to rewrite the quote in the context with which he intended it to be read:

First JEANS built the country’s (USA) infrastructure, then JEANS populated it with collective identity.

From what I have read in the book so far, Mr. Sullivan has a tendency to overwrite in his glorification of this inanimate object of Americana. They are jeans, that’s it. When they get wet, they don’t dry. If you’re sweaty they stick to you. And If you run in sweaty jeans you’ll get a rash. Jeans didn’t win WWII. Jeans didn’t settle the West. Give it a rest Sullivan.

That being said, you can bet I’ll be quoting Sullivan when I write about my all-American blue jeans that were made in Cambodia. Sullivan writes about jeans representing the blood, sweat, and tears that built America. They are the American dream that you wear. It’s ironic that today jeans are made by young women workers like Nari and Ai in Cambodia who make not much over $50/month and live eight in a room. I’m guessing that Sullivan will touch on this, too. At least I’m hoping so.

As for our little mini-contest here…

Justin guessed that “they” were Americans, that makes sense.

Kent guessed immigrants, that makes sense.

Thanks for playing.

Melissa, who doesn’t read books, but has been known to sit down with a long book review or two, knew Sullivan was referring to Jeans. I was actually thinking this contest would not have a winner and I wouldn’t have to ship off any Touron attire. I was wrong.

Melissa, feel free to pick something from the Touron Attire store and drop me an email with your mailing address.

World Vision Report Interview – Part 2

October 1st, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

Peggy talks to me about my All-American blue jeans made in Cambodia.

If you haven’t listened to PART 1 you should.

Hands of Labor

September 3rd, 2007 | By Kelsey | No Comments »

These are the hands that make our blue jeans, underwear, flip flops, and about everything else we wear or use. I suppose today is a good day to thank them for their work.