Weekend Reading: Fashion Is the Second Worse Industry for Slavery

Hey readers,

Above is a picture of me and Emilia of Mixua in Brussels trying to decide if we should climb onto the wooden wall so we can get a better picture of the giant solar power flower at the sustainable electronic music festival Paradise City. We decided against it, but if you decide to go to Brussels, you should look Emilia up! She’s a wonderful human being – we connected immediately on a deep level – and the local expert on all things sustainable.

I plowed through this book by the founder of BuyMeOnce, A Life Less Throwaway: The Lost Art of Buying for Life, and it is full of gold advice and interesting tidbits on our cultural penchant for throwing things away. A must read!

Fashion

I’ve been seeing this article making the rounds, positing that the fact that Ivanka Trump is shutting down her line is proof of consumer boycott power. I disagree. 1. The Trump name has 99% consumer awareness. No sustainability or labor issue has that sort of visibility. 2. The only thing you have to do to figure out if a piece of clothing is by Ivanka Trump is to look at the label. No other sustainability or labor issue is that simple for the consumer to determine. | Fast Company 

Learnings from the BoF’s conference – like tiered rental systems, and recognizing that consumers won’t lead the change – on how we can shift to a circular economy for fashion. | Business of Fashion

Fashion is the second most responsible for modern slavery, after tech. | Fashionista

How close are we to wearing biomaterials? | Sourcing Journal

Nobody quite knows what to do yet about microfiber pollution. | Sourcing Journal

I lost interest in most (but not all) luxury name brands a long time ago, because I felt like they were artificially expensive, and there’s increasing evidence that the most sought-after brands are actually not made well at all. I think the fact that many burn their fashion to artificially decrease supply relative to demand is further proof of that. (But, if you want to buy me one of Hermes’s items made from leather offcuts, I wouldn’t protest.) | Dazed 

Ew, this story is so gross. | Racked

Health and Beauty

Why that natural family planning app probably won’t work for you: “I now know that the ideal Cycler is a narrow, rather old-fashioned category of person. She’s in a stable relationship with a stable lifestyle. (Shift-workers, world-travellers, the sickly, the stressed, insomniacs and sluts be advised.) She’s about 29, and rarely experiences fevers or hangovers. She is savvy about fertility and committed to the effort required to track hers. I could add that her phone is never lost or broken and she’s never late to work. She wakes up at the same time every day, with a charged phone and a thermometer within reach.” | The Guardian

Food

“Sugar, he shows, is a blood-soaked product that has brought havoc to millions and environmental devastation to large parts of the planet, premature death to the poorest populations in many parts of the world and huge health costs for societies from the United States to India.” | NY Times

No, seriously. LAY OFF THE BEEF. | Huffington Post

Can you really be a conscious carnivore? | The New Food Economy

Watch out for greenwashing on compostable products! |  Green Indy 

Travel

The Dominican Republic’s beaches are drowning in plastic. | BFMTV

Conservation projects can hurt the locals. | Pacific Standard

Why you should always respect religious and cultural places…even if you’re technically allowed to climb on it. | Medium

Apartment

I’m amazed by this story of an incredibly successful rug company founded by an Indian man to employ India’s most marginalized caste. | Craftsmanship Quarterly

That Sucks

We can’t keep doing this. | Undark

Take Action

Don’t let Japan bring back commercial whaling!

Stop Supermarkets from Wasting Food and Help End Hunger in America