Friday 17 September 2010

FF Thought #11

How much do you know about what you spend your money on? The more conscious our shopping choices are, the less people will suffer for a pretty shoe on somebody else's foot.

7 comments:

Velveteen said...

You are so right. I think about this stuff all the time. But then you get caught in the realm of everyday reality and forget about these things. We shouldn't! Thanx for bringing it up!

ShoppingTherapy said...

i'm pretty confused, i think it is really complicated and i feel i can never be a 100% sure that a shopping choice of mine is ethical. there is SO much to think about on that matter, and although i've written myself a post on 'ethical shopping' i don't know if i want to post it since there are so many aspects that i haven't covered.

Froso M. said...

OMG, u are so right, everybody seems to intentionally avoid knowing those things...

MissEmy said...

It's so easy not to think of that... :( :( Thanks for the reminder.

chloe said...

whoah, you never really think where shoes come from.. these pictures made me stop for a minute and consider my shoe habits...

StyleAndFashionGR said...

That was a great post and I am myself an advocate of ethical shopping. The production in countries with a cheap work force is not unethical by itself. It provides much needed work in poor countries and can indeed make a company competitive.

Where we should pay attention is that there are proper working conditions in place and that no children are being employed.

In any case, if you are interested in designing your own handmade shoes, check out my related post:

http://www.styleandfashion.gr/2010/09/design-your-own-shoes.html

Alecca Rox said...

That's the point. The people in the pictures above are allegedly eating and sleeping at their workspace, which is clearly freakishly limited in order to fit more manpower. At the first picture you can even see glue applied with bare fingers so I guess health & safety are words unknown over there.

Agreed, it's a good thing to produce at poor countries that could do with higher employment rates. However these 'poor' countries have enormous production minimum quantities and honestly, I gasp at the idea that in order to buy cheaper & more shoes made by poor people, local workers will have to loose their jobs and become poor in turn...

It's all about balance as well as conscious decisions, imo.