Which leads me to: Anti-sweatshop labour and vegan-friendly products and clothing lines in Canada, do they exist?
There's American Apparel for one. Their t-shirts and hoodies (and everything else) are not produced in a third-world child-labour factory, which is exactly what I'm looking for.
But locally in Vancouver, fair-trade clothing can be found at De Lino's. The store sells only clothing using all natural and fair-trade materials. And there's some pretty cute items to be found, such as this Jaci cardigan.
Globally, there's People Tree clothing. One of the biggest, and first companies to promote and sell fair-trade clothing, it aims at sustainable development of producers in developing and impoverished countries (whew, long run-on sentence). 
6 comments:
I'm totally going to check out People Tree.
well i have recently done a four page report on the Gap for economics and i have learned that Isabel is incorrect.
the Gap insepects their factories quite regularly and infact has a whole team dedicated to making sure that the factories are in good conditions.
sorry i just really like the gap, and don't really enjoy people bashing on them for things that they do not do.
have a nice day :)
also see here for more: http://www.gapinc.com/public/SocialResponsibility/sr_factories.shtml
I'm always glad to be proven wrong in matters like these. However, if anyone has ever seen the documentary "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices", factories in China and Bangladesh lie to company authorities about how much workers are paid/ the conditions they work in just to encourage the company to keep them in business. (Wow that was a long run-on sentence and I hope it made sense)
I know Roots doesn't manufacture in sweatshops and there are probably numerous locations in Vancouver. They have really pretty eco-leather purses, too!
what a great post, its good to know that even buying at cute outfit can help the environment!!
As much as I want to love American Apprael, I just..can't. Their whole annonying, porno looking ad campagign irritates me, and the owner of the company was just busted for sexual harrasment and accustations of matrial rape. I LOVE the idea of sweatshop free clothes, but its ridiculous hyprotical if you don't continue humane practices at home.
http://www.clamormagazine.org/issues/38/aa/williams.php
It is a little naive to rely on what The Gap says about itself. They can make their policies sound really great, but you have to look at how those policies actually work out for the people in the factories. Manufacturers have huge power to make change, but they have to have a will to really do it For example, their policy on working hours says that factory owners can't regularly make their employees work more than 12 hours a day, 6 days a week - big deal! See www.maquilasolidarity.org for more objective information.
Post a Comment