There is no denying that the average temperature of the earth's surface and oceans in recent decade is rising. The global warming observed over the last 50 years is attributed mainly to increased amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases induced by human activities. Based on UN's report Americans are climate's worst enemies: an average American citizen emits 22 tons of Carbon dioxide compared to average of 6 tons per person in the rest of the world. The issue of global warming is so hot that even Al Gore recently made a controversial film about it entitled " An Inconvenient Truth". Although the film received varied reviews and critics on how data and analysis were used to create fears for its publicity, it is a good mean to explain this issue to a very broad audience.
As this issue on global warming is heating up I found a project of the Slate online magazine called Green Challenge , a very optimistic approach which, I suppose, is what we really need. Green Challenge is a carbon diet challenge spearheaded by TreeHugger (an eco-friendly website) created to evaluate and reduce carbon emissions.
For 8 weeks everyone is invited to evaluate its individual contribution to global warming. The challenge is to reduce our carbon emission by 20% at the end of the program. We should start by taking a quiz to evaluate our current carbon output. The quiz basically assesses our basic action items which we need to update every week. Our collective contribution in reducing carbon will also be posted for our information. There will be two prizes that await us if we meet up to reduce our carbon emission by 20%. The first one is a free t-shirt courtesy of I'm Organic (that is for the first 500 people who succeeded the challenge) and the second one is the knowledge that we contributed to save our planet.
Le projet Noé est un projet de magazine "sur l'engagement individuel, la protection de l'environnement et la solidarité". Le projet à l'air bien ficellé, sobre et efficace. Soutenez-les en les aidant à préparer le sommaire de leur premier numéro: Pour cela vous pouvez leur envoyer vos idées à
Pour en savoir plus: http://noemag.blogspirit.com
Two passionate and creative personalities: Maryline Bellieud-Vigouroux, President of Institute de la Mode Mediterranne and Marianne Cat, a designer both collaborated to organize the upcoming Boutique Ephemere in the concept store Marianne Cat. This is a week exposition (from October 17-25) that will feature selected young fashion designers of the region of Marseille. There will be accessories, bags, lingeries and clothes. Capalongas takes pride on this rare opportunity to be selected on this prestigious event. There will be other interesting activities such as "relooking", art expositions of famous taggers Act 1, Lime, Maza and Real. Marianne Cat is located at 53 rue Grignan, Marseille. See you there!
Capalongas will soon walk down the runway for the 3rd Edition of the prestigious Salon d'Ethical Fashion Show in Paris at Tapis Rouge on October 14-16. Isabelle Quehe the founder of this international gathering of designers from all over the world promoting fashion, fair trade and respect of nature, have chosen the Tapis Rouge a magnificent venue for this year's event. We will be participating also in the "Table Ronde" or conferences intended to discuss our social engagements and committments with the other fair trade brands.Ethical Fashion Show's doors will be open to the public on Sunday October 15. If you want to see our spring summer collection 2007 and to meet us its a date!
Courrier International, a weekly magazine widely read in Europe dedicated an entire portion of its supplementary magazine on Ethical and Fair Trade Fashion. A bird's eye view of the different brands engaged in fair trade, ethical and environment friendly clothing was presented. Fashion is now truly ecolo and responsible as cited in the editorial. We were one of those lucky brands mentioned (you can find a small article about Capalongas on page 5) and it feels so good considering it is our first write up.
I remember when I used to be the editor-in-chief of our school paper in High School, I wrote an editorial about OFW “Overseas Filipino Worker”. Filipino government has always been encouraging Filipinos to work abroad claiming that their remittances are vital to our economy. It is not that I am against the government campaign pushing Filipinos to go and work abroad it's just that have always believed that if we want to make our country develop we need to stay. OFW is the term we coined for Filipinos that opted to leave the country and work abroad for reasons of higher salary. Statistics says that there are more than 10 million OFW abroad without counting of course those who entered illegally which are roughly around 5 million. A total of as much as 13 billion dollars of remittances in 2005 was recorded.
However, study revealed that contrary to what the government claims migration benefits does not ooze down to the poor and to the less developed regions of the country. Not also to forget the problem of “brain drain”: A doctor that would be willing to become a care giver or a teacher that accepts to become domestic helper abroad is a little bit frustrating. The saddest scenario of this are those minor migrants still unripe of experiences some of whom have never been to school that goes and work abroad for menial jobs that often falls to slavery , maltreatment and abuse. Studies also showed that migration on some cases have negative impacts on families. The presence of the two parents is always essential to children’s growth or that long distance love affair for parents may proved to be difficult in some cases. I have a friend who grew up seventeen years without their mom for she worked as a domestic helper abroad. Well all this to say, how I despise the idea that people leave their country for reasons of higher salary, as we say that “grass are always greener on the other side of the fence”. But what is really the truth behind this: salaries maybe higher but life expenses are also higher, that there is language barrier, cultural differences and that leaving far from your family is not that easy.
To our dearest Norma,
You are very talented and your Capalongas family loves you. We know that it’s been long time now that you wanted to work abroad and you saved a lot of money to pay for this placement. It is sad thing though as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia your talent as embroider will be put to waste. I hope this is not a goodbye for our door is always open for your return. We will surely miss you!
The fair trade market in Salon de Provence was blessed with a sunny weather. It was an opportunity for us to meet plenty of interesting and friendly players of Fair Trade in France (Beatriz of Label Ethique, Jerome of Solasol, Steffanie of Kamakala, Valerie of Ethica Nature,etc. ) The highlight of the event was the fashion show featuring clothes of Kamakala, Azimut, Tudo-Bom and us Capalongas. We didnt had the time to stay for the talk of Gregory (the man behind the label Azimut) on Fair Trade and Transparent Trade. To sum it up it was a success for this first time Fair Trade Market of Salon de Provence; Kudos to Edith of EP Collections and the entire family of Case a Palabres for organizing the event.
This morning I got a call Joe (the head of our Workshop) claiming that that tropical tyhpoon "Milenyo" (speed rate of 130km/h wind) has hit Philippines and that Luzon is under the state of calamity. Roofs and tress are flying everywhere and heavy raining flooded the region of Luzon. All flights have been cancelled too. I felt relieved when he confirmed that none of our sewers were affected. Other than the fact that he needed to put 2 pails and one basin in the middle of the Workshop to catch the raindrops dripping inside, otherwise everything is fine. The bad news though (he saved me the best for last of course), there was power interruption claiming that 60% of Philippines has been deprived of electricity due to typhoon Milenyo. In other words there wont be any output for today. I told him that they better take advantage of this day instead as an unattended restday. Well he said that all the sewers were there chatting and waiting for the electricity in case it will come. He he i would admit I missed those days of "brownouts" in Philippines for its very rare they have it in France.
My four months trip to Philippines gave me a striking glimpse of how people in my country keep up with the sky rocketing prices of goods vis a vis their modest salaries. Eating in turo-turo (literally means to point with your finger) or small food stalls where you could eat a cup of rice with any dish of your choice for like .50 cents (30 pesos) is a normal scenerio for a filipino economising his budget. But what shocked me this time was the presence of undisregardable number of ukay-ukay or second hand (oops vintage) clothes stores of clothes piled up like moutains. Ukay-ukay in fact, is a Visayan (dialect) for "sift through " or "dig up". Up north the term is "wag-wag" to dust off, because you literally find the best bargains by digging them out of a pile and dusting them off from mountains of second hand clothes.
Its history travels way back in the late 70's when Ukay ukay was referred to garments shipped to the Philippines as donations from some charitable group to help refugees and calamity victims. But soon enough, with growing number of overseas filipino workers who learned to collect used clothing preferably designers labels and send them to Philippines. Entrepreneurial friends and relatives would buy them in bulk and sell by the piece to the public. But right now most of these clothes in ukay ukay come from over runs and surplus of garment factories. Ukay ukay are normally found in the center where there is a heavy traffic of people. Prices of goods can range from 20 to 60 pesos for blouses and dresses, pants and jeans from 100 to 250 pesos and leather shoes and bags for 100 to 200 pesos. And the best part of it, you can even haggle to lower the price. These are basically a sanctuaries for people who want some change from the mass produced clothes sold at big malls or if you just simply want to create your own fashion style. So for fashion afficionados of limited budget its the best place on earth.
A short video about Mestres, a young Fair Trade sportswear brand which product lineup is built around Capoeira, all the products being made by a Brasilian NGO.
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