COOLHUNT - The clothing library

In April 2013 a clothing factory in Bangladesh collapsed. These factories are known for their extremely low paid employees and extremely dangerous working conditions. Those people work very hard but don’t get paid enough for it. And the clothes are sold for much more in Europe. These ratios are not good. We spend a lot more money on clothes and also we never have enough (especially the women among us). The question is can we create a more even distribution and can we stop the child labour in third world countries.

WHAT? Well this is a big problem but 3 friends in the Netherlands came up with a plan of starting a clothing library in Utrecht. Karin Zwiep one of the founders says: “Costumers can borrow clothes for 4 weeks with a card”. And when the costumers bring it back they will wash it because it seems that people don’t trust each other washing qualities. Evita one of the founders has done some research for her study, which showed that people more often exchange clothes and they don’t want to buy it anymore. But how do they get the library filled with clothes? They put large buckets in the city where people can put in their old clothes. And they got a lot of clothes from the organisation Humana. They also have a special feature that they can bring costumers in contact with designers that will make their piece of clothing unique. The target audience is primarily young women because they are the biggest users en polluters.

WHY? This is an idea that can grow in the future because if it works it can be introduced into more cities and maybe we can bring the consume numbers down a bit. It’s a great example of Togetherness because we can share clothes trough an open library. The value behind this trend is definitely sharing because this has became a great part of our lives like Facebook etc. So if you’re interested go to Utrecht where you can borrow clothing in the clothing library. You can keep it for four weeks and then you’ll have to return it. A great way of sharing!

Source: ‘Bewuste modeliefhebber kan naar de kledingbieb’. (Metro, do 18-09-14)

Sources:
* http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2668/Buitenland/article/detail/3431680/2013/04/25/Bangladesh-200-doden-die-20-cent-per-uur-verdienden-voor-onze-goedkope-T-shirts.dhtml

* ‘Bewuste modeliefhebber kan naar de kledingbieb’. (Metro, do 18-09-14)

APPEARANCE - Emma Watson against man hate.

We all know Emma Watson from the famous movies Harry Potter. Emma is also very popular among the men because of her beautiful appearance and she also has the brains. In July this year Emma became ambassador of the United Nations. Last Monday Emma Watson gave a speech to the United Nations about man hate. According to Emma men should be more involved in the equality of sexes. 

Last week she was in Uruguay for a campaign that is meant for boys and men to stand for equality between men and women. In the speech she talks about feminism and how often that is compared to man hate. She thinks that this has to stop. She says that its time that we see sexes as a spectrum instead of two controversial ideals. As a reaction to her speech there was loud applause. 

I think it's amazing that Emma is committed to this problem because it's true that people associate feminists with men hate. And most of the time this is not true. Emma Watson is an idol for a lot of people and especially younger people. I think more people will listen to her.