do you know where your clothes have been....?

...or come from?

today i walked into fairweather a low end unisex clothing chain and was immediately struck with a horrible chemical smell. so much so that i just had to leave.

it reminded me of a conversation i had recently with our dyer at work. she was telling me that in the past year she has had lots of problems with clothes holding their dyes and having to wash them many many times to get chemicals out before the fabric being ready to receive the dye. she wondered what was going on so she did some research and found out that much of the clothing made in china is heavily sprayed with pesticides before being shipped out. pretty much all that low end stuff you buy in canada is now made in china. the quotas were lifted a few years back. the demand for cheap clothing is so high....how else can a company compete? slave labour, cheap fabric dyes and pesticides ....that's the answer. i don't blame the companies. i blame the consumer who won't pay good money for quality clothing made in canada. they demand to have new cheap stuff readily available.

another odd thing about that i thought....a year ago is when i started getting a skin rash. i sorta wonder if these chemicals could be a contributing factor in that for me.

so think about that next time you comparison shop for clothing and wonder why does this cost more than that....b/c that cheap shirt my cost you more than you think....in the long run.

or better yet...buy vintage!

:)