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Every day millions of people put on their durable denim jeans without thinking where they came from or how they got there. When in fact those jeans have had had quite the controversial journey. There are two billion jeans produced annually according to the Environmental Justice Foundation and your pair is one of them. How many gallons of water, fertilizer and chemicals do you think went into them ? These are questions that make many of us cringe and they are questions that need to be answered. The production of these jeans is such an intimately global event that we all play different roles in their production and consumption. So now lets take a deeper look at where those Levi’s really came from and see how global it really is.
Jeans have quite a history starting with the one and only Levi Strauss, he was a shopkeeper in San Francisco which at the time was a rapidly expanding city in the 1800’s. The gold rush was on and everybody was traveling to California to strike gold of their own. The Miners clothes had to endure very harsh conditions of cold, rocky and muddy conditions, standard clothes of the day were not quite getting the job done. The cotton twill pants which were standard for the time were uncomfortable and always ripped very easily around the pockets under the stress of mining and tough labor. Jacob Davis, a tailor came up with the idea of using copper rivets instead of stitching the points where the jeans encountered the most stress. The pockets were riveted with copper fasteners to prevent them from tearing from the wear of mining. This very unique feature was a huge success with the miners and hard workers of the time and his denim jeans and overalls sold very well.
The labor involved in making jeans has drastica...
... middle of paper ...
... then a monetary price tag on these jeans we have to account for the human cost as well.
Works Cited
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11 ILSA J Int'l & Comp L 619. (Summer, 2005 ): 9374 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/04/10.
"House of Denim Towards a Brighter Blue; Promoting Sustainable Denim from Crop to Shop." Apparel Online. (February 6, 2014 ): 1351 words. LexisNexis Academic. Web. Date Accessed: 2014/04/10.
"Levi's®." History & Heritage. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
"The True Cost of "Made in the USA" Levi's? $178." GlobalPost. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
EJF. (2007). The deadly chemicals in cotton. Environmental Justice Foundation in collaboration with Pesticide Action Network UK: London, UK. ISBN No. 1-904523-10-2.
Sustainable development has materialised as a framework in addressing economic, environmental and social issues (Macagno, 2013). Primark have themselves adapted to this framework, through working in an ethical and fair way to put issues right and develop sustainable practices. Such practices include; providing consumers’ with ethically sourced garments, through their third party suppliers (Primark, 2016d). They work closely with their suppliers to provide assurance that their products are ethically produced and are subject to independent audits to ensure their ethical approach is well managed (Primark,
Jeans were just one of the different categories of pants along with casual pants and dress pants, and jeans had dominated the category until the 1990's when sales had tapered off when consumers migrated over to khakis, cargo pants, and other types of pants. However, when new innovations in fabrics and style in the jeans category came to the forefront in 2001, people's tastes began to switch back over to jeans. In 2002, jeans sales were predicted to grow by 2-3%.
Priscilla. “The World Economy and Africa.” JSpivey – Home – Wikispaces. 2010. 29 January 2010. .
Did you know that manufacturing 1 pair of jeans requires: 3.6 liters of water, 3 kg chemicals, 400 Mega Joules energy and 13 sq. meters of agricultural land!!!
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During the older days clothes were made by people called tailors then during the wars like world war 2 there was a baby boom. Therefore the clothes had to be mass produced for all the babies coming so they started factory producing. When all the babies were born there was a spike increase in population. During this time period the industrial revolution took place and instead of tailors making everything custom to a person they became industrially produced so they were specific sizes instead of measuring the person. The prices went up a little bit because the clothes were pre made instead of having to wait to be made. Because they were using the most common measurements to make the pre made and sized clothes. There was also pros and cons the pros were that they were
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Morgan informs the viewer about how in the 1960s the United States make 95% of its clothes. Unfortunately, today the U.S. only makes 3%, and the 97% is outsourced to developing countries. China produces one in six of every dress sold in the U.S.
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This article is about the overall impacts of fast fashion. The particular section referenced discusses possible solutions and alternatives to fast fashion. It talks about how it is possible to produce environmentally friendly clothing through the use of organic cotton, bamboo, hemp, and other fiber crops that require less pesticides, water, and other inputs. It goes on to share how certain brands are beginning to implement the model of sustainable clothing. The point of this article is to introduce readers to the topic of fast fashion, give background, and show readers what they
I believe that if Levi’s had recognized the market demands the time it start to change and
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Jeans is not just apparel, but has become a must-have item. Today, a lot of denim-based products are not just apparel, but also other things such as handbags, carpet, and even a sofa. (elaborate more).
It begged a serious question which has since now been largely overlooked by masses of the western world: what is the true cost of the fashion industry?