Status Updates From Il libro della moda anticap...

“The pesticide industry is a product of the Second World War, when insects were used to test chemicals as agents of death for people. It should come as no surprise that such brutal carnage followed the explosion. What links the horror of aldicarb (sold as Temik) in Bhopal, is its primary use as a pesticide for cotton, along with beans and peanuts.”

Hermes uses between 3-4 crocodiles to make one bag.

I am genuinely disgusted and pissed off reading about this. There is no human way to kill a crocodile & the methods are sickening. They can live for up to 1 hour after their heads are chopped off (wtf) and that’s not even the worst. Their living conditions are rancid, tiny, filthy, full of disease from bad water, deformities from lack of movement. Horrible

“The draining of the Aral Sea (once the world’s fourth largest lake) is due to its waters having been appropriated to irrigate Uzbekistan’s 1.47 million hectares of cotton, a practice which began under soviet rule. Cotton is hugely water intensive; a single cotton bud uses 3.4 liters of water and a single cotton t shirt consumes 2,000 liters.”

“There is nothing natural about these environmental catastrophes. They are all the result of the workings of the fashion industry under capitalism. Earth, air, animals, water, and human health all are subject to fashion’s bitter harvest.”

“Imagine a chemical so toxic that just one teaspoon can kill an adult human if it touches their skin. Picture gallons of this chemical being sprayed onto the cotton and citrus fields of the United States. Then picture the scene when 40 tons of this chemical exploded into the atmosphere of Bhopal, India, cloaking the city in poison and killing at least 15,000 people.”

“In the wild, crocodiles can live to be 70 years old. On factory farms, they’re shot at the age of 3.”

Myanmar’s military is the most harsh/brutal towards the labor sector, shooting activists and workers who choose to protest unjust working conditions.

“Violence is a means of subjugating freedom and preventing the growth of labor rights, women’s rights, and self expression. It is designed to crush the spirit and make change seem hopeless so the profits keep rolling in.”

- life in a garment factory often involves physical punishments (slapping, hitting) and verbal abuse (public humiliation, swearing, etc.) Most of the laborers are young women/teens.

“In today’s world, Fashion is just a word that robbers wrap their spoils in. It is just an excuse for the rich to exploit the poor.”

The 1943 Bengal Famine: engineered by Churchill & colonial British attitudes towards India, caused the death of 3mil people.

The reason over 4mil Bangladeshis work in fashion production is because Bangladesh was steered into treacherous over dependence on clothing exports by the neo-colonial policies of the international monetary fund (IMF) and World Bank. These institutions pushed for Bangladesh to abandon dreams of self sufficiency.

“Never forget that fashion brands make their sourcing decisions deliberately, following colonial pathways to industrial sites where they can evade the standards that keep people safe and where they think any resistance to their crimes can and will be crushed. This colonial exploitation is backed by deeply unequal global financial systems.”

“Being materialistic in this sense does not mean doing more shopping, rather it’s a call for people to recognize that products, such as shoes and handbags, are dependent on nature and labor and have a physical, material reality, independent of thought. It calls for use values to take precedence over endless symbolic values.

Quote from 1968 play, The Price: “Years ago, a person, if he was unhappy, didn’t know what to do with himself. He’d go to church, start a revolution, something. Today you’re unhappy, can’t figure it out, what is the solution? Go shopping.”

“Under capitalism, people are locked into a mindset where having is more important than being. We learn to value things only when we directly possess them, rather than looking for happiness in ourselves, in labor, in society, or in nature. Commodities acquire meaning because people are alienated. People balance endless stretches of meaningless working hours with a dreamed future of excitable consumption.”

“The system is on life support and that life support is debt.”

“The fashion industry is a neoliberal icon of what economist David Harvey described as an ‘increasing reliance on fictitious capital and debt creation.”

“Multiple studies have linked household debt with increased depression & stress, a decline in relationships, parenting behavior, & positive child outcomes. This is not a problem of irresponsible consumers; people are actively and officially encouraged to get into high levels of debt for systemic reasons. Interest rates are kept low to keep people shopping for goods that are becoming more expensive as wages drop.”

Advertising is a symptom of this system, not the sole arbiter of problems, but still represents massive amounts of waste.

“If makeup is a creative pursuit, allowing women to express their individuality, why is the same picture painted day after day with little room for novelty and imagination? The woman who does not paint her face encounters sanctions that would never be applied to someone who chooses not to paint a watercolor.”

“If we do not critique capitalist compulsions, then statements from makeup magnates, like Helena Rubinstein - ‘there are no ugly women, just lazy ones’ - become truisms rather than merely grasping attempts to make billions by exploiting peoples’ insecurities.”