Causes

What Does It Take To Create a Garment?

Image Credit: Gilt

 

Creating garments is an extremely labor intensive process. I didn’t realize this until I took my first sewing class where I set out to make a dress from an existing pattern. I chose a Vogue pattern that was not too basic, but was still labeled as “Beginner.” I should be able to complete this pattern in one 10 week course, I thought. You can see my post from a few years ago that shows the pattern I was working on.

During the sewing class, I first made the entire pattern out of muslin, a cheap practice fabric, so that we could properly size the garment to our body before sewing it with the real fabric. I had selected a really nice expensive fabric on a trip to New York and was looking forward to wearing my first custom tailored dress. Making the dress out of muslin required twice the work, but that’s what it would take to make it fit properly.

For hours every Saturday, I worked diligently on the dress, eager to complete it. 10 weeks later, I was shocked to find out how long it actually took to sew one dress. The dress also had lining, which required additional work. I had one dress made out of muslin completed and a partially finished dress in the actual fabric. Unfortunately, that unfinished garment is still sitting somewhere in a bag next to my sewing machine calling my name. One of these days I will finish it. (Pregnancy and postpartum postponed the project since I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear it anyways.)

Through that experience and through the many garments I attempted to complete during fashion design school, I’ve learned that making a garment is a LOT more labor intensive than I ever imagined. There is so much manual work that goes into making a garment. Read more →

Fashion With A Mission

There’s a dirty little secret in the fashion industry that most people are not aware of. You’ve probably heard about child labor problems in sweatshops with some of the big fashion companies. That issue has gained awareness by public, but what most people don’t know is that the fashion industry also creates an enormous amount of environmental pollution as well.

With so much fast fashion and disposable clothing, clothing and textile waste from factories are contributing to huge landfills more than ever. Not only are there tons of landfill waste, but there’s also pollution from toxic dye runoff, waste water from the laundering process, pollution from the acid used in the chemical conversion process of turning plants into fabric, and of course the pesticides used to grow cotton.

What does this mean? This means our water is getting polluted and our landfills are overflowing with textiles. Here are a few stats to just give you sense of what’s going on:

  • According to the World Bank,17-20% of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and treatment. 72 toxic chemicals in our water come solely from textile dyeing, of which 30 cannot be removed.
  • North America generates 2 million tons of textile waste each year, which is approximately 68 lbs of waste/household per year. 5% of all landfill production is textile waste.

Read this article with vivid photos of the startling price we pay for fashion in China.

Images courtesy of China Whisperer

Here’s an image of a textile landfill in Syria.

Image courtesy of Waste Biorefining Blog

The problem is big. So, what is the fashion industry doing about it? The big businesses, I’m not so sure. Perhaps they donate money to environmental causes. There are companies creating eco-friendly lines, but I haven’t seen any big fashion names really devote their entire company to the cause.

Read more →

A New Era of Responsibility

I believe there will be a noticeable shift in the attitudes of people around the world in the next few years. The consciousness of the planet is rising, and as it continues to expand, many people will feel compelled to take a deeper look at their lives and how their actions affect those around them. As we gain a broader perspective, we will become very aware of how our decisions and actions create positive or negative consequences. We will also become highly aware of any unintended consequences that result from our decisions.

What does this mean for us? It means that we are all being given a choice. We can choose to take responsibility for every decision and action in our lives, taking steps to improve anything we see that can be improved, or we can continue to our live as it is and live with the consequences. Many will see this as an opportunity for positive change and choose to stand up and take action to do something that improves their lives or the lives of others. This is our time to notice the opportunities to take responsibility for our lives, our communities, and our planet. This will be a new era of responsibility…and it has already begun.

A great example of the type of change we can expect to see in the coming years is from a preview clip for Undercover Boss. This is truly an inspirational clip that I really enjoyed! It is about the President and COO of Waste Management going to do the jobs of the employees of the company undercover. If we all take a more holistic view of the decisions we make every day, we can start creating a better and brighter world that impacts all of us. Watch the preview of this President’s experience:

Read more →

The Human Aspects of Climate Change

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where bloggers around the world unite to blog about climate change. The idea behind Blog Action Day is to spread the message about climate change far and wide to reach as many people as possible through the thousands of participating blogs around the world. This is a day to get us thinking about the how climate change impacts the earth, our home, and our lives and what we can do to reverse the trend to create a healthier planet for all of us.

All of us are looking for ways to contribute to a better world. We all want a healthy planet to live on that sustains us and future generations, and we strive to take actions to do so, but other than conserving energy and recycling, most of us aren’t sure how else we can contribute to a greener planet. One very important way to create change is to support organizations that are actively committed to helping people that need our support. Donating our time or money can go a very long way in helping those in need.

One organization that I have decided to feature here is CARE, a non-profit organization fighting global poverty in part by helping people in the developing world adapt to climate change. They help communities that are most affected by climate change by helping them with things such as meeting their basic clean water needs, teaching them more efficient farming methods, combating diseases caused by extreme weather conditions, etc.



Today I have a guest blogger, Simon Owens, of CARE, talking about human aspects of climate change:

Climate change is not only about melting ice caps and polar bears. Climate change is about people.

Swinging weather patterns are creating disasters on a scale that human civilization has never before witnessed. Read more →

The Boy Who Built a Windmill to Fight Famine


This story is amazing. William Kamkwamba was a guest on Jon Stewart’s show. He is the author of the new book, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” which is an autobiographical story of William’s mission to fight famine in his country of Malawi by building a windmill just from pictures in a book from a library.

Watch the video here.

You can visit William’s blog here.

What an amazing story! Incredible. His book is available on Amazon. Read more →

Shopping for Global Impact


I found this cute clutch/wallet, called the Gala Clutch, on a site called Global Goods Partners. It’s an online store that sells goods made by artisans around the world. When you buy goods from their site, you are providing income to ethnic minorities, street children, and artisans with disabilities. Next time you’re looking for that perfect gift or want to buy something for yourself, take a look at this Global Goods Partners. You might find something you like and also be supporting a good cause, just by making a purchase. Read more →

John of God’s Soup Kitchen in Brazil

Last December, I visited Abadiania, Brazil with my family to visit John of God’s healing center. My sister, who had gone a couple of times before, showed us various sites in the neighborhood. One of our various neighborhood trips was to the soup kitchen on the other side of the highway from the healing center. This was where the locals lived, and many of them were poor.

John of God built a soup kitchen there where people could come and eat hearty soup several times a week. We visited it to see what it was like. I was surprised by what I saw. It was nothing like what I had imagined. I imagined a small little room that served soup on picnic tables. I was expecting a very modest place that was dim, basic, and all brown or beige in decor. After all, it was just a place to serve soup.

When we arrived, I was surprised to see a bright white and blue structure that was decorated with Christmas decorations. It was during the holiday season, after all. I did not expect money to be spent on such festive decorations. Walking inside, I was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful paintings that hung inside. The interior was bright and airy in the warm summer weather. How nice. It was the best soup kitchen I’ve ever seen.

Here are some photos of the exterior with Santa and his reindeers.

The portrait is of St. Ignatius de Loyola:

Here is a picture of the front door:

The interior as you walk in:


Photo of children in front of the soup kitchen:


A view of the front door:


The window to the kitchen:


The most beautiful painting I ever saw painted of the Virgin Mary above the doorway:

Here is a closeup of it:

Something that really surprised me was seeing all the kids in the soup kitchen. Read more →

Book Review: Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

I’ve been reading a book called Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. It’s been such an inspiring book that I feel moved to do something to make a big difference in this world.


Perhaps for me it will be setting up the new non-profit that I was asked to undertake to help feed the homeless and to help them get back on their feet. Helping the homeless is one of those things I’ve felt called and compelled to do for many years, but was not sure what I can do other than go to soup kitchens and donate some money. Last year, however, an idea came to me that perhaps I can build shelters for the homeless, designed with their well-being in mind, to really support their transition from homelessness to independence. I thought this might be something that I might begin to think about 5 or 10 years down the road. That would give me enough time to pay off my student loans and have enough capital saved up to do something really impactful.

What I’m finding, though, is that when you decide to do something, the resources somehow start to appear to make it all happen. It’s the decision to do it that gets the ball rolling. After feeling inspired by the idea that came to me last year, I made a decision that someday I would help the homeless and start a non-profit organization. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know when, but I knew I would do it. And I knew that I would need some experience in the non-profit world first for me to even think of undertaking this task, but I didn’t necessarily want a job in the non-profit sector. I enjoyed my working in the business community, but still wanted the experience. Maybe I could sit on a board of a non-profit someday? Read more →

Support the Cause: The Big Read

A Campaign for Free Education For All

I’ve just added my name to the Big Read book to show my support for a good quality, free education for every child, and to ask President Obama to contribute $2 billion to a Global Fund for Education. Please add your name to the book, as well.

http://www.one.org/us/bigreadpetition/ Read more →