How many of you have tasted a fruit jelly candy? Personally I’ve always loved the orange jellies shaped like orange wedges and coated in sugar.
Would anyone ever mistaken those super sweet man-made treats as a real orange?
Taking a ride to the store, would you go to the candy isle, grab a package of fruit jellies, bring them home and try to juice them?
No?
Why the hell not? After all, they look sorta like the real thing right? And who can forget the super sweet tangy goodness of sticking the whole thing in your mouth and sucking off the sugar?
Obviously no one would ever mistaken fruit jellies for the real thing, but I’ve noticed a scary trend happening, and I feel we are starting to drown in fake products.
Anyone that knows me personally, having met me, knows my daily attire; an old white tee-shirt filled with lots of stains, and a few pairs of old hand-me-down pants, big and baggie, with holes forming at the seams from being worn and loved so much. Dom’s thrown my black holed pants into the wash with whites and bleached them until they have red spots all over them, but I don’t care…I just keep wearing them. In winter or chilly weather, I will often be found wearing some sort of old tattered big and bulky oversized sweater. Unfortunately, I no longer even own a real wool sweater. My last real wool sweater was thrown away before we moved to NM due to mold contamination. Since moving to NM, I have not found a single oversized 100% wool sweater.
Anyway, that’s what I wear everyday, unless I have to go somewhere. If I go out, usually I wear the same white button down shirt (no stains LOL) and a pair of beige pants. It’s really the only clothing I own. I don’t do this as a vow of voluntary poverty, but more because I have found it difficult to find clothing that isn’t made in a sweatshop from Honduras, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and other third world countries.
To further complicate my dilemma, I’ve found it difficult to find real clothing. Synthetic fibers seems to have taken over new articles of clothing. Have you noticed it? Try finding a 100% wool sweater. I was alarmed when I went to Macy’s two weeks ago to look for a nice wool sweater, and EVERYTHING that looked like wool was either made from a cotton-polyester blend, or a wool-acrylic blend. No real wool to be found anywhere. Is it just me or is this causing others to do a double take too?
As I searched through Macy’s and JcPenney’s, I felt this inner anger starting to bubble and simmer. I just wanted a 100% wool sweater for god-sake! Is that too much to ask? After discovering that there really were no 100% wool sweaters to be found, next I discovered that everything was made in Vietnam. Geez! Ethically and morally I have a very hard time purchasing clothing from sweatshop labor. Beyond sweatshops, I’m just an old fashioned snot when it comes to real products.
Why the heck would anyone pay $150 for a fake sweater? I would pay that price or more for 100% wool or 100% REAL silk, but not something that is a cheap man-made knock off!
Have you ever seen teenage girls studying other girls clothing and accessories? “Is that a real Louis Vuitton or a knockoff handbag?” one girl might ask another. Everyone loves expensive labels and brands, but what about real substance? And what happens when that expensive brand company starts using inferior man-made fibers instead of real wool, cotton and silk?
Items are already way overpriced and the laborers are under paid. To me, it becomes a double insult to charge the same amount of money for an acrylic wool blend sweater, when the materials being used may be of an inferior quality and married together with a cheap man-made fiber. How does one justify such highway robbery?
I don’t know, maybe I’m just a snot.
Because of my inability to purchase sweatshop clothing or fake fabrics, I’ve missed an array of different personal events. From dinner parties to corporate parties with Dom’s company, we’ve skipped those things. It seems to be the price we pay for our own peace of mind.
Have you noticed the alarming trend of real goods being replaced with synthetic knockoffs? Does it bother you that what used to be valuable and long lasting, has been usurped and in its stead inferiority reigns supreme?
I find that knockoffs can never EVER compare to the real thing. No matter how much the fake thing is masquerading as something real, it will always be inferior in quality and unable to measure up to the timeless beauty of what nature can provide.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel the same as you do about women’s clothes these days. Therefore, I shop second-hand. There is great stuff out there for grownups and kids, for next to nothing! There are tons of resale shops around, especially in Albuquerque, along Menaul and Lomas. I especially like Thrift Town — everything is well organized and labeled. The staff gets decent pay and benefits, so they are friendly and helpful. And it benefits a good cause: ARCA, which works with developmentally disabled folks.
I also don’t understand why they still make nice men’s dressup clothes in the US, but not women’s. Our clothes don’t have to change from year to year — lots of women would like to have classic, quality garments that last for years.
Hi Michelle,
I’ll have to check out more stores in ABQ. I’ve only been to the goodwill stores, and I’m not crazy about how they price their products. Even in the thrift shops I’ve been to, it’s been hard to get real wool.