Aurora Marinari

I recently did the slavery footprint test at www.slaveryfootprint.org

It is a short survey you do based on the things you own where you fill out an inventory of your clothes, electronics, makeup, etc. It took me about ten minutes to do on account of me owning a lot of crap. Anyway, the point is that when you are done you find out about how many slaves worked for you to have your possessions. I own a lot of Silver jeans, which are made in Canada so at first I figured “well that should drop my number because slaves didn’t make those.” Sure, maybe slaves did not make my jeans, but I don’t see many cotton fields in Canada so someone had to work to get the resources for my jeans to be made. The average person has 25 slaves who work for them. I had an astounding and overwhelming SEVENTY-EIGHT. Yes, 78 slaves worked for me to live in excess. That’s triple the average person. How did this happen? A lot of people are completely unaware that slavery still exists today.

So, here’s where I make my contribution to minimise the slavetrade in my life. A large number of the slaves who work for me worked for my clothes and shoes. As you can see in the picture I’ve attached, I clearly live in excess. 24 pairs of jeans is completely unnecessary. 30 pairs of shoes is a disgusting number. I’m just a student, what do I need all of this for? SO, my new years resolution is that for the year 2012 I will not shop. I could actually wear each pair of my jeans for only 15 days out of the year. Seriously? They would never need to be replaced at that rate. Therefore, I will not be shopping in 2012 as I clearly do not need to do so.

I obviously need to be realistic though and lay out the exceptions to this resolution. Socks and underwear do not count. Also, I currently do not really own business attire, therefore if I happen to be fortunate enough to find a job upon graduating university this Spring and need appropriate work clothes, I will not be breaking my resolution in buying them. However, I will attempt to be smart in my choices of what and where I purchase from. So, don’t bust my balls if you catch me buying a pantsuit or dress pants as I assure you I most certainly do not want to be spending money on them. haha

Wish me luck!

Here’s the thing. Shoes are a big deal in the westernized capitalist world. Shoes say a lot about a person. I tend to feel I look my best when I’m wearing heels. But shouldn’t your shoes make more of a statement than just fashion or personal taste? Shouldn’t they say that you stand for or support something? There’s a shoe company called Toms and they match every pair of shoes bought and donate brand new shoes to children in need across the world. For more information go to this site: http://www.tomsshoes.ca/our-movement So today, I decided that my shoes needed to make a better statement than how much money I can dish out on beautiful heels. My shoes say “I support a great cause and because of a choice I made today I now own a cute pair of shoes and so will a child in need.” Hells yeah Toms! Hells yeah.