Clothing

To hundreds of thousands of workers manufacturing denim, the term “killer jeans” has quite a different meaning than a great-fitting pair of pants. Sandblasting is a denim production technique commonly used to give the “worn-out-look” to jeans. It is deadly.

Sandblasting is known to cause serious lung diseases such as silicosis, a potentially fatal pulmonary disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust. Sandblasting-induced silicosis has now resulted in more than 100 documented fatalities amongst denim workers. Yet there is no reason for the production of denim fashion to come at the cost of human lives.

This week, Deadly Denim, a new report by the Clean Clothes Campaign investigating seven factories in Bangladesh, revealed that jeans brands including Levi’s, Lee, Diesel, Esprit and Zara, all of whom claim to have banned sandblasting, are still using factories which employ this deadly technique. The investigation finds that manual sandblasting still takes place - often at night, allegedly to avoid detection.

Continue reading "Those blasted jeans makers make a killing out of denim" »

Miniskirts will be declared pornography and Indonesia will ban them as a politician says “provocative clothing” made men “do things”.

Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Minister Suryadharma Ali will ensure tough new anti-porn laws will include criteria such as “a skirt above the knee”, The Jakarta Post reports.

Meanwhile, Parliamentary speaker Marzuki Alie is drafting rules banning miniskirts in Parliament because “there have been a lot of rape cases and other immoral acts recently and this is because women aren’t wearing appropriate clothes”.

Continue reading "Stop skirting the rape issue and cut it off at the knees" »

Two mates of mine – one large breasted, one small breasted – were talking about the first thing they’d do if their mammarial situations were reversed. They both said they’d go jogging on the beach without a bra.

Weird, huh? Boobs are weird. We can all agree that they’re great, but they’re also non-ergonomically designed appendages that need special treatment. Hence all the infomercialtainment time spent discussing the best wire/elastane/Kevlar combinations to mould them into the perfect shape.

Bras used to be such a simple affair. A bit of wire, a couple of cups. Straps. Now the industry is making mountains out of molehills and turning a simple chest restraining device into the lingerie equivalent of cricket’s Duckworth Lewis method.

Continue reading "Watch out - it’s a booby trap" »

Between the Prime Minister’s shoe and Novak Djokovic’s shirt, we can easily wildly generalise that clothing theft is soaring across Australia this new year.

There’s a rather amusing video doing the rounds of Djokovic’s chucking his shirt into the crowd after Sunday’s grand final and a woman snatching it from the sky before its intended recipient had a chance to get a hold of it. Have you ever gone to extreme lengths to see a celebrity or get their autograph? Who was the last celebrity you saw on the street? Who would you go out of your way to see or have a chat to?

And shoes, shirts and celebrities aside, what’s on your mind today?

There are three golden rules in life: Nothing works, everything sucks and everyone you meet is either an idiot or plotting against you.

Being an optimistic and sunny sort of chap I have no problem accepting that this is all an unavoidable part of life and may even play a valuable role in shaping the human condition by teaching us humility through suffering. All I ask is that somebody pays for it.

It’s about time people who indifferently ruin other people’s lives every day were jailed alongside the criminals who do it on purpose.

Continue reading "My feet are wet, life sucks, and someone must PAY" »

Zara is here, as this video of somewhat hysterical shoppers in Sydney today shows. Whether you’re hysterical, trepidatious or completely ignorant, there is little doubt the arrival of Spanish clothing Zara is about to alter the fabric of our style landscape.

Here’s the low-down: Catering to men, women and children, Zara produces, on average, 11,000 distinct items of clothing distributed in 70 countries each year. As the flagship brand of the Inditex group, Zara and its sibling brands boast 5,004 stores with a global turnover of $12.5 billion. Heck, even that sartorial hotspot Kazakhstan now boasts its own Zara outlet.

But, what really marks Zara as an oddity, a stunningly successful oddity, in the clothing world is the way the brand has dramatically shortened the fashion life cycle. Zara’s commercial dexterity to mimic runway fashion and emerging street trends is largely unparalleled, meaning, new looks can make their way from the sketchpad to store shelves in two weeks flat.

Continue reading "Zara’s fast fashion is as unhealthy as fast food" »

If the clothes truly maketh the man, there are a lot of Rastafarians in Adelaide at the moment.

Dozens were out and about over the weekend, with their slouching woven hats in red, yellow and green, and their long, black dreadlocks swishing down their backs.

Strangely, many of them sported wisps of blond from the front, or even a shining, pink and completely bald cranium peeking out from their rasta gear.

Continue reading "Zen and the art of festival dressing" »

For those of you with dirty minds or obsessed with margins, you might want to skip to the next article, I want to talk about women’s clothing.

If you are a woman, and you have done a shopping day anywhere in Australia, you will know what I’m talking about. Size matters.

As a size 12 (you may be a size 6, 8, 10, 14, 16), when I try on a garment which says it is ‘size 12’ (or in your case size 6, 8, 10, 14, 16) I don’t expect to see gaping sides or splitting seams. I expect to see a garment which may suit me or not and that would depend on neckline, hemline and/or if it’s cut on the bias or with the grain.

Continue reading "When it comes to women’s fashion, size does matter" »