Blood Sweat and Tshirts

Following the recent BBC3 documentary blood sweat and t-shirts, in which is follows the journey of 6 teenagers as they travel to the back streets of India making items of clothing which will later be sold on the high streets, in chain fashion stores, such as Primark.

In today's throw away fashion, in which items of cheap high fashion clothing are becoming increasingly more popular with today's fashion concious nation.

This documantry see how the points of view of these teenagers, change as they discover the real truth to how their clothes are produced, before it hits the high streets.

Based in shahi enterprises in New delhi, they take on the jobsand live the lifestyles of what all 4,000 workers have to experince everyday. Working to earn as just 20p a hour, 15 hours a day, and 6 hours a week.

The documentary open up your eyes to the reality of the fashion industry, and how unless we all vow to make a difference things will never change.

Video link

Interesting facts:

• 1,000 machinists stich six days a week just to earn on average 20 p a hour
• Three million garments are manufactured and exported a month
• On average every garment goes through 30 stichers before reaching the uk high street
• The daily target for an factory production is 10,000 garments, which is 300 for each production line
• Every minute there is a collar turned, out a hem every 30 secounds and 50 shirts an hour

The great fur debate

Following the recent press coverage from the Bafta awards 2008, many fashion websites such as, handbag.com, the fashion section to Dailymail.co.uk and Glamor mag.com reported on what today's hottest stars wore.

Dresses from Chanel, to Dior were worn, but one that stood out from the crowd was a royal blue dress one worn by the ever beautiful Kelly Brook. The dress was made from elegant satin and fitted Kelly beautifully, but sadly for Kelly the show was stolen by her fur shawl draped elegantly over her shoulder. Many websites published her picture as one of the best dressed at the Bafta awards but as Handbag.com added "We hope that's not real fur though!", it brings back the golden question of whether is socially acceptable? Even if the shawl was made from fake fur, wearing a fur imitation to such a high profile event would draw attention to fur being fashionable and glamors?

Thanks to a recent petition from Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) Gucci has stopped the sale of Seal fur in its stores, and using synthetic and natural fibers instead.

Though Gucci has stopped the sale of Seal fur from its stores, it still continues to sell other kinds of fur in its stores, so Peta have released another petition to send to Gucci to stop the sale of ALL fur from its stores, as each item made from fur represents the suffering of another innocent animal.

Im not a plastic bag...

Following the release of of Anya Hindmarch's famous I'm not a plastic bag on April 25 th 2007, many supermarkets, and fashion stores have all followed suit to create there own Eco friendly bags.

Before the release of the "I'm not a plastic bag", there was a lack of concern for the environmental aspects of using a free plastic bag from the super markets, but thanks to careful placements of the canvas bag in the goodie bags of the Oscars, many stars had been seen carrying this much wanted bag. Stars ranging from Hollywood actress Keria Knightly, to super models Lily Cole and Erin O'Connor led a media hype for the bag, making it 2007's IT bag. For a mere £5 it has to be the cheapest it bag to date.

Sainsbury's even teamed up with Anya Hindmarch to sell the bags in the store, to help spread the message of how you can be Eco friendly and fashionable at the same time.

Now that it was as no longer being socially acceptable to be seen carrying a plastic shopping bag and all eager to get there hands on this £5 wonder, women in their millions all flocked down to their nearest Anya Hindmarch or Sainsbury's.

Within the first hour Sainsbury's sold out all 20,000 of the stocked Hindmarch bags, and 30 women in Beijing china had to be hospitalised for injuries caused by the scrum to the door.

Thankfully the message to be eco friendly spread with a a postitve effect with sainsbury's proudly annocing that over 6 months the number of bags used has dropped to almost half.
And with Other leading brands such as B&Q and Marks and Spence calling for a total ban from the free bags on there checkouts.