Pop the bubble – Page 5 – followthethings.com

Posted on August 28, 2024January 26, 2025 by Ian Cook

Cries For Help Found In Primark Clothes (a.k.a. ‘Labelgate’)

Label found by Rebecca Jones
Label found by Rebecca Gallagher
Letter found by Karen Wisinska

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Fashion

“Cries For Help Found In Primark Clothes (a.k.a. ‘Labelgate’)”
Social media posts by Rebecca Jones, Rebecca Gallagher, and Amnesty International Northern Ireland.
Label photos originally posted online embedded above.

Shoppers Rebecca Jones and Rebecca Gallagher find an extra label in dresses they buy from Primark stores in South Wales. One says ‘Forced to work exhausting hours’, the other ‘Degrading sweatshop conditions’. Belfast shopper Karen Wisinska then finds a letter in the pocket of some Primark shorts. It’s written in Chinese, but starts ‘SOS! SOS! SOS!’. It seems to be a coincidence. Rebecca, Rebecca and Karen post them online to share what they have found with their friends and followers. Their posts set off an international ‘whodunnit?’ which makes the national news and ties the company’s PR department in knots. Are they genuine? Are they mischief-making of an artist or activist? Either way, is what they say true?

Will Kelleher & Ian Cook (2014) Cries for help found in Primark clothes (a.k.a. ‘labelgate’). followthethings.com/cries-for-help-found-in-primark-clothes.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 93 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

Mardi Gras: Made In China

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Fashion | Gifts & Seasonal

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

JUXTAPOSE EXTREMES

HUMANISE WORKERS

HUMANISE THINGS

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

INVOLVE CONSUMERS

CHOOSE AN AUDIENCE

SHOW IT BACK

“Mardi Gras: Made In China“
A documentary film directed by David Redmon for Carnivalesque Films.
Trailer and pay-per-view stream embedded above. Search online for streaming availability here.

During the Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, USA, a tradition has emerged in which women who bear flesh have strings of plastic beads thrown at them to wear. Filmmaker David Redmon films this revelry and travels to Fuzhou, China to meet the ‘easy to control’ women who make those beads. He films their high speed, low wage, work and returns to New Orleans to show this footage to drunken revellers. He’d done the same thing in Fuzhou, showing the factory workers how the beads they made were ‘consumed’. The film connects women in China making plastic beads for women in the USA to wear, but under very specific, throwaway circumstances. So what were their reactions to seeing these hidden relationships? How did they make sense of this? Or push it to one side? Or find it funny? What happens when labour exploitation meets carnival excess? Where did these beads go afterwards? Who cleaned them up as trash? Why were they sent to US military personnel in Iraq in care packages? And did those factory workers really tell the director that their jobs were fun and well paid? Who can you trust to translate what people tell you? All of these dramas generated heated debate. Not least about trade justice activism like this being a ‘buzzkill’. But what’s the way forward? The film doesn’t suggest one.

Page reference: Grace Chu, Stephanie Hong & Jasmine Lee (2014) Mardi Gras: Made In China. followthethings.com/mardi-gras-made-in-china.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 53 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Socks

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Fashion

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

ENCOURAGE CURIOSITY

MAKE IT SNAPPY

“Socks“
Undergraduate coursework written by David Roberts, published in the Teaching Geography journal.
Full text above. Reference below (Cook et al 2007).

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Birmingham is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and what properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming’ it. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives via that thing. One student – David Roberts – thinks about his Marks & Spencer socks. He has a drawer full of them. And none of them has a ‘made in’ label. After some online detective work, he’s finds one pair were made for him far away in Bulgaria in a factory owned by an Israeli company that’s fighting battles against consumers boycotting their goods because they’re also made by non-unionised workers in factories in Palestine’s Occupied Territories. Marks & Spencer encourages its shoppers to ‘Look Behind The Label’. And that’s exactly what he’s done. He finds some uncomfortable geopolitical issues are protecting his feet.

Page reference: David Roberts (2006) Socks. followthethings.com/socks.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024February 20, 2025 by Ian Cook

University Lifestyle: Fabulously British

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Fashion | Grocery | Electronics | Home & Auto

“University Lifestyle: Fabulously British“
Undergraduate coursework designed & written by Charlotte Brunton.
Available in full in slideshow above. High resolution download available here.

After researching examples of trade justice activism to add to this site, students taking CEO Ian’s ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter are tasked to make their own. Charlotte Brunton’s inspiration comes from the junk mail arriving at her student house. Instead of getting interesting letters, she and her housemates get student fashion catalogues. In particular, Jack Wills catalogues – six or more every season. They’re selling students an ‘aspirational’ lifestyle, tempting them to buy the commodities they feature. The people in them, the things they have, the carefree, stylish and connected lifestyles they picture – the designers want students to want them. Charlotte and her friends imagine themselves using this, wearing that, experiencing the lifestyles these things can support, together. But who made these things? What about their lifestyles? Charlotte asks herself how she can create a catalogue that highlights how personal these things are both to her and to the people who made them? In real life, she has an interdependent, culture-crossing, ‘British’ life which they are very much part of. So she designs a ‘lifestyle catalogue’ that you can browse to imagine and buy into with her.

Page reference: Charlotte Brunton (2014) University Lifestyle: Fabulously British. followthethings.com/university-lifestyle-fabulously-british.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated browsing time: 15 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 5, 2025 by Ian Cook

Ballet Shoes

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Fashion

“Ballet Shoes“
Undergraduate coursework written by Maya Motamedi, published in the Primary Geography journal.
Full text below.

The students’ first task in the ‘Geographies of Material Culture’ module at the University of Birmingham is to make a personal connection between their lives and the lives of others elsewhere in the world who made the things they buy. These are the people who help you to be you, followthethings.com CEO Ian tells them. So choose a commodity that matters to you, that’s an important part of your identity, that you couldn’t do without. Think about its component parts, its materials, and the properties they give to that commodity and your experience of ‘consuming it’. And write a 500 word first person account that connects your lives. One student – Maya Motamedi – is a ballet dancer. She loves her Grishko pointe shoes. They’re part of her dancing body. After some online detective work, she’s finds who made them for her, far away in Russia. The shoes’ component parts come from plenty of other places. This kind of thinking, this kind of detective work, means you are never alone, never do anything by yourself! The lives of thousands of people are wedged into those shoes, says Maya, dancing with her.

Page reference: Maya Motamedi (2006) Ballet shoes. followthethings.com/ballet-shoes.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

Label found by Rebecca Jones

Label found by Rebecca Gallagher

Letter found by Karen Wisinska