Synchronicity in globalization

[missroserose]

I don't wear the bras I sew, I just buy the cheap ones from krom chhat {an open-air market that sells clothes in piles on the ground}. I pay around 2,500 riel for a bra [60 cents]. It's new but not a quality bra. The bras I sew and the ones I wear are quite different. I sew my bras very carefully and the stitches are very tiny and strong with good-quality thread. But the bra I wear is very bad quality and the thread is not double-stitched. It's sewn with larger stitches. Because I sew every day, I know that the quality is totally different.

While I am sewing bras, I often think about whether or not I could ever wear a bra like the ones I make. The bras I make are very beautiful with a variety of quality fabric and I sew them very well. The fabric is good, it's so soft, and it will make the person who wears it feel cool and comfortable. I used to think that if I could have one quality and beautiful bra like I make, I would be really happy and I would be very beautiful. But it's impossible. These bras are for export, and the price of one of the bras I make is almost equal to my salary. While working, I hold the bra up in front of my face, then I ask myself who is the woman who will wear the bra I am sewing. I also wonder how the women in those countries are so rich and lucky to wear these expensive bras while the person who makes that bra just wears a very cheap one bought from the pile of clothes on the ground under the umbrella. So I feel jealous.

--Leap, a Cambodian garment factory worker, as told to Julia Wallace and translated by Kuch Naren. Published in Women In Clothes, 2014, p. 230.


I remember the first time I bought a high-quality bra. I used to wear inexpensive ones as well - probably not quite that cheap, but the ones you could get on sale at Wal-Mart, or in two-packs at Costco. Realizing that I could afford to go to Victoria's Secret and get a couple of well-made bras made from high-quality fabric was almost a revelation. I spent a slightly embarrassing amount of time delighting in those bras, stroking the soft lining, enjoying the vibrant colors, appreciating how comfortable they felt, and admiring how they made my breasts look under my clothing.

And I wondered, at the time, who had made them. I've done some sewing, and I know to a degree how much labor goes into a carefully shaped and structured and fitted piece like a bra. I wondered what their life was like, and (if they had breasts) whether they ever wanted to wear bras like the ones they'd made so carefully to sell overseas to wealthy European and American women.

A good quality, well-fitting bra isn't a necessity, exactly. But it's amazing how it can change one's entire view of oneself.

I wish I could send one to Leap.

Comments

[faith_in_the_journey]

Oh yes and let's send her one of the handmade lace ones from France with the appliqués, that take two years to make from start to finish and make an ordinary woman look And feel like she is the most beautiful goddess to ever walk the earth! I am not embarrassed to say that I am the proud owner of such beautiful works of art and I paid prices that were simply astonishing, most happily! I am so grateful for the men and women who create them – they are artists Who nourish both the body and the spirit!

[missroserose]

How do you propose we do so?

[faith_in_the_journey]

Any way you can figure out, of course! You are very resourceful, after all. You figure it out and I will by the beautiful undies and pay the postage.

[faith_in_the_journey]

Looks like you have the publisher, the author and the translator to start with! Somebody has to know who this worker is and where she comes from in Cambodia.

[jamesd]

Roughly how many days of her income would the bra be worth if she was to sell it soon after receipt? I think that the value is likely to be so high in relation to her general circumstances that she would feel compelled to sell it.

I like the concept and bought a $180 or so bra for a co-worker who got a proper measurement for the first time but that wasn't so far above her general income, just something she couldn't justify to herself because it was pretty as well as the good fit she needed.

[faith_in_the_journey]

So let's send several - one or two marked "to sell" and one or two marked "to keep and use just for you!"