Well, that explains the holes...

One of my friends sent me a link to a story about Forever 21. It touched on a couple things: 1) Forever 21 steals designs from other designers and 2) they barely pay their workers minimum wage. In one example picture, the dress on the left is Foley + Corinna and probably retails well over $200 while the one on the right from Forever 21 is probably $20. According to the original and much longer article in Bloomberg Businessweek, the author visited the store at the Fifth Avenue location, and noticed something.

"I notice a pair of faux-leather lace-up ankle boots that look a lot like the Jeffrey Campbell ones I'm wearing: The style is the same, so are the combination of hooks and holes for the laces and the distinctively shaped heel. Forever 21 sells the boots for $35.80, less than one-quarter the price I paid. I mention them, and Linda says brightly: 'You should buy another pair here.' "


The working conditions are another thing all together. The author writes, "... on the top floor, with no company name on the door, about 30 people are sewing gray cotton vests for Forever 21 in a small, hot room. Many of them have stuffed scraps of fabric into their noses to block the particles of material floating in the air. They're just finishing up a one-week, 10,000-piece order for which the seamstresses earn about 12 cents apiece, according to Guadalupe Hernandez, a longtime garment worker in Los Angeles. If they sew 66 vests an hour, they'll earn minimum wage." This is in America. A-mer-i-ca. 


So what can I do about it? I do love shopping at Forever 21 when I need a cheap going-out top. But almost everything I've purchased there has fallen apart fairly quickly. Maybe if it was made in 2 minutes instead of 1, it would last longer? The sweater I'm currently wearing is from Forever 21 (coincidence, huh?) and just taking a quick look at it, I can tell the sewing was, um, hurried. Sometimes, you just have to pay more.


Or go to consignment shops! Luckily in Berkeley, we have lots of choices like Buffalo Exchange, Crossroads Trading, and Sola Lucy. These stores are pretty nice, and I know that many of these stores are very picky about what they sell. I tried to sell some of my clothes at Buffalo Exchange, and I was told they were "looking for more trendy clothing" and that my clothes were "too conservative." Not the C-word! 


So as Heidi Klum would say, "Thrift stores, you're in. Forever 21, you're out. Auf wiedersehen."