Aleppo. Brexit. President Trump. 2016 has been nothing but a raging dumpster fire of a year. From perfluorinated chemicals in outdoor apparel fouling up the ecosystem (and our indoor air quality) to the employment of Bangladesh's slum children to produce the world's "fast fashion," here are seven stories we could do without. Above, Donald Trump, incoming future commander-in-chief, making American manufacturing great again by outsourcing most of his merchandise.
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016 (Vote for the Most Deplorable)
Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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Aleppo. Brexit. President Trump. 2016 has been nothing but a raging dumpster fire of a year. From perfluorinated chemicals in outdoor apparel fouling up the ecosystem (and our indoor air quality) to the employment of Bangladesh's slum children to produce the world's "fast fashion," here are seven stories we could do without. Above, Donald Trump, incoming future commander-in-chief, making American manufacturing great again by outsourcing most of his merchandise.
Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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WHAT THE PLUCK People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has revealed haunting behind-the-scenes footage of some of the largest ostrich slaughter companies in the world, including those that supply skins to luxury houses such as Hermès, Prada, and Louis Vuitton.. "Our investigators saw the juvenile birds tightly packed into open-topped vehicles for the terrifying journey to slaughter," the animal-rights group said. "Once they reach the slaughterhouse, workers forcibly restrain each bird, electrically stun them, and then cut their throats. Moments later, the feathers are torn off the birds’ still-warm bodies, and they are skinned and dismembered."
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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AWFUL TRUTH
It’s time to face the awful truth: Those cheap clothes we can’t get enough are probably the handiwork of impoverished children from Bangladesh, some as young as 6. About a third of the children who live in the slums of the capital of Dhaka spend an average of 64 hours a week making clothing for the world’s leading brands and retailers, according to the Overseas Development Institute. The London-based think tank, which conducted a survey of 2,700 households, found that 32 percent of 10- to 14-year-olds were skipping school so they could work full time at garment factories. Most of them earned less than $2 a day
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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PLASTIC POLLUTION Patagonia has a startling confession to make: Its popular synthetic fleeces are mucking up the oceans, perhaps even poisoning the food chain. In a study commissioned by the outdoor-apparel retailer, researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara found that polyester and nylon jackets, including Patagonia's own, can shed as many as 250,000 synthetic fibers, or about 1.7 grams of plastic, in a single wash.
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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AMERICAN SWEATSHOP
Los Angeles has a sweatshop problem, and bargain retailers like Forever 21, T.J. Maxx, and Ross are reaping the benefits. At a press conference on Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that an investigation of 77 randomly selected Southern California garment contractors, conducted between April and July of this year, uncovered minimum wage and overtime violations in 85 percent of the cases.
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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SEWING TO SURVIVE
Factories in Turkey are employing Syrian refugee children as young as 10 to make clothes for the British high street, an undercover investigation by BBC’s Panorama has found. Broadcast Monday evening, the news program described the “very picture of Dickensian misery” as reporter Darragh MacIntyre described refugees earning barely more than a dollar an hour—well below the Turkish minimum wage—stitching, ironing, and folding garments for Marks & Spencer and the online retailer ASOS.
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Top 7 WTF Fashion Stories of 2016
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CLEAR THE AIR Greenpeace wants outdoor-apparel companies to clear the air, stat. A recent investigation by the environmental nonprofit found high concentration of hazardous per- and polyfluorinated compounds, better known as PFCs, in the indoor air of stores belonging to Mammut, The North Face, Norrona, and Haglöfs, as well as other non-branded retailers in Europe and East Asia. The concentration of PFCs in the store samples proved to be 20 to 60 times higher than air samples collected in Greenpeace's office and storage rooms in Hamburg and up to 1,000 times that of urban outdoor air.
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