The Blue Bunny Effect

Have you ever thought about what it takes to produce your everyday clothing? Have you ever thought about the pain and suffering that might be caused from buying clothing from your favorite store? Neither have I. In my mind when I think of clothing being manufactured, I think of the Devil Wears Prada, the designing aspect of clothing production, but my mind rarely wanders to where the materials actually come from. Most people forget that leather is made from cows, pigs, and even kangaroos. A snakeskin boot or a crocodile handbag was made from an actual reptile. Okay, maybe not too shocking, but from my research on the subject of clothing production and animal welfare I have found it is all too common that it isn’t animal welfare it is exactly the opposite, it’s animal cruelty. To get a better idea of the magnitude of this is in the definition of cruelty from Cruelty’s rewards: The gratifications of perpetrators and spectators by Andrew Rowan states “cruelty (from the Latin crudelem, “morally rough”) is the deliberate infliction of physical or psychological pain on a living creature.”


During my research, I viewed different sites ranging from the PETA and ASPCA foundations to YouTube and Blogger. Here is what I found on each and every site, abuse. The problem is for me, and many others out there we conclude that when animals are skinned they are already dead. However, this is far from the truth. On every site I viewed I found evidence of this and other abuses, and every time it took only seconds for my stomach to turn and for me to avert my eyes and stop the unimaginable video. The fact that it took me less than 30 minutes to find so easily countless videos of abuse makes my heart break. To me, cruelty of animals is all too real and evident in our “daily society”.

Well, now that my eyes are opened, and I hope yours are too, we can talk about how to avoid situations such as these. In the reading of Fashioning Sustainability (Forum for the Future), I have already solved one of the issues of ensuring animal welfare in my blog, “raising awareness”. In this portion of the forum it is discussed that 130,000 animals are killed every day just for their fur coats. 130,000 animals? That means that almost three times the population of Stillwater, OK could be clothed with fur coats in just one day. To me it seems quite ridiculous; to waste so many animals lives for just one portion of their bodies. Yes, not all, but some products are produced from animals slaughtered for only one purpose. These animals are not slaughtered for their meat, hooves, skin, fur, and horns, but slaughtered for only one part of the whole animal. This is where it becomes evident to me that I no longer want clothes that are produced from animals that are not cruelty free products. What is a cruelty free product you ask? It is essentially a product that is not created from an animal on an “endangered species list, but is a by-product of the meat industry, and has a ‘no-fur policy”. If you would like a list of companies or products that follow this policy on the products they produce you can search the PETA website or click this web address: http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/companies/default.aspx.

 Another problem I discovered in the readings of Shifting the New Dominant Social Paradigm in the Apparel Industry: Acknowledging the Pink Elephant by Cosette Armstrong and Melody LeHew and in my own research is the problem of the so-called “pink elephant (consumerism).” In short, consumers without knowledge of what is put into the products they purchase will continue to go on choosing the “cheaper option” of products instead of choosing the cruelty free product which is more sustainable and ethical than the other. What needs to happen next is a paradigm shift, the “old procedures and rules need to be replaced as a new paradigm makes them flawed” (Armstrong). The new paradigm needs to be pro cruelty free products! As consumers gain awareness and knowledge of this subject, cruelty free products will be quite possibly be in higher demand. You might ask, “how can just one person help when so many producers do not provide cruelty free products?” The answer is that you are not alone, after further research one can assume consumers are the driving force behind sustainability in clothing, and care about the materials used in the products they purchase. This means that if given a choice between a cruelty free product and a non-cruelty free product the consumer will choose to purchase the cruelty free product despite a possible increase in price. Understandably, consumers want more human and environmentally friendly products. Quite possibly, the more people that incorporate this idea will help to drive clothing markets to make safer and more humane choices simply because of the consumers needs! Another question you might ask,  “how do I find such items? What do I look for when purchasing cruelty-free products?” Regrettably the government does not mandate that products be labeled as such. Therefore, you as a consumer must do your research before you shop alleviating this problem. One last alternative is to look for the bunny. This is a label that has been deemed for the cruelty-free products.

The idea of creating a sustainable product has the preface that it needs to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” as The Designer’s Atlas of Sustainability by Anne Thorpe states. Therefore, the next time you go shopping for a new pair of shoes, a belt, or countless other options check if you can find out about the product first before purchasing. Is it a cruelty free product? Does it help on the quest of sustainability? Is it eco friendly? If it is, then you are helping the present and future generations carry on the sustainable endeavor and giving us the consumer a better and more humane choice.

http://youtu.be/_BJ7qh4GxGo.