Week 2: Graduation

Week 2: Blog 2

Franchesca Flores

Photo from Express.com

I guess you can say week two wasn’t my hottest week for the be green challenge, I’m about to graduate next month, whoo! And of course, I’m trying to look my best I have all year for my graduation, so this weekend I went back home to go look for my graduation outfit. But I do want to say that before I went to look for a graduation dress in stores, I did raid my mothers and sister closet, and what do you guess, I didn’t find anything that said, "Yes!!!" As much as I’d love to wear designer clothing like Gucci or Versace to my graduation, I don’t have the funds to casually shop at these stores that are mentioned in the documentary, True Cost, to be more ethical and sustainable against fast fashion, since they are made either by request or in an exclusive amount. So, you could find me in Express, where I bought a jumpsuit that was made in Sri Lanka. Asking myself more where my clothes are made from, I decided to look into the wages and conditions these workers. Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, where the sweatshop workers get paid 18,500 rupees a month ($126) and about 4.30 euros a day ($6.23). The clothing industry in Sri Lanka employs about 300,00 people and is known to have better working conditions than other clothing producing countries (Kale, 2016). Although they have better working conditions, they do get paid less than the living wage in the country which is 48,608 rupees ($332). I’m really trying to keep it real with this challenge, so I do want this to be my last consumer purchase of clothing in stores while this challenge is ongoing. So that means I’ll be reaching out to my moms and sisters closest again to complete my graduation look. 

Works cited:

Kale, Sirin. "How Much It Sucks to Be a Sri Lankan Worker..." Broadly, VICE. 17 May 2016. 

"True True Cost." Directed by Andrew Morgan. 2015.