When our T-shirts are poorly made

(Warning: the title is completely borrowed from the documentary broadcast on France 5 on October 16, 2016, because I have no originality).

So we're going to do a big recap that will try to be quite educational (and especially non-judgmental) (well, I'll try) on the cotton t-shirt supply chain (also works for socks) (bam, the link, you didn't see anything).

Okay, so where to start? (I think the article is going to be quite long and will refer back to previously discussed articles, but reminders are good!)

First, the origin of cotton, I want to tell you, it depends! For us, it's Turkey, because in terms of proximity it's simpler (CO2 emissions), but especially because we do organic. But if you buy an inexpensive product, therefore with a material that will be cheaper to begin with, you always want inexpensive labor. You see what's coming, as plain as day, yes, child labor. (We already talked about it here). When you "employ" children whom you don't pay, well, the material doesn't cost millions either. Is it modern slavery? A purely rhetorical question.

Otherwise, cotton can also come from India, yes, because as you know, India is one of the big consumers of GMOs (article here), and obviously when you buy a cotton t-shirt, you have no idea where the raw material comes from, because imagine that huge earthquake!

Afterward, it's really a vicious circle; everyone wears cotton t-shirts, so more cotton must be produced, and since cotton is an ultra water-intensive material...

Alright, once we've talked about the material, let's talk about manufacturing.

Okay. I think you're well-versed in Fast Fashion. If you're coming to this blog for the first time and have never heard of it, don't panic. It's basically big fashion brands, like Swedish or Spanish ones (because we're European), that manufacture in Asia at ridiculously low prices in conditions where human beings are not respected, and then resell here with a colossal profit margin. By the way, if you have time, I recommend rewatching this series of videos where fashion bloggers visited sweatshops.

In short, so we are a brand and we want to produce really cheap (because we want to make a lot of profit), we go to Bangladesh, but we all forget the tragedy of Rana Plaza (Rana what???). Anyway, I saw that there are fair trade projects starting in Bangladesh (I'll look into it).

What's funny is when you say you buy a t-shirt for €2.50 on TV (that's false, it's obviously much, much less). What's the fair price? We already wondered about that here (the fair price is truly a genuine approach for me).

Where am I? Raw Material, Manufacturing. Now for dyeing.

Dyeing, I find, is a real problem. Because basically, despite everything we said initially, if we don't buy GMO cotton, cotton is a rather natural fiber, so it's not processed, and therefore healthy. And then bam, they throw in endocrine disruptors, formaldehyde (we also talked about it here if you want to dig deeper) and all the rest.

It's not all rosy, in fact, it's quite guilt-inducing. What are the solutions? (ORGANIC) (But we're not all rich, Ludivine) (Oh, come on) (I wrote the dialogues, no need to thank me). No, seriously, what are the solutions, because we all wear cotton and all wear cotton t-shirts. When you know that 22,000 people still die from cotton cultivation poisoning, you tell yourself that you have to start changing little by little, and as Gandhi would say, "be the change you wish to see in the world."