Pretty and Polished (and informed)

Dress: Karina Dress (c/o) | Clutch: Rebecca Minkoff (c/0) | Pumps: Jessica Simpson | Ring: Kendra Scott 

After blogging for nearly a year, I have started to pay closer attention to the clothes I’m wearing. I am on a pretty tight budget, so buying cheap clothes can be really tempting, but after reading more about how and where those clothes are often made, I decided it was time to be a little more responsible about my purchases and collaborations. I don’t want to bad-mouth any companies, first of all not to be in bad taste, but also because as a consumer it’s hard to really prove how/where clothes are made, so I don’t want to give you any false information. What I mean by how/where clothes are made is:

1. Are the people who are making my clothes working in good conditions (clean, safe, fair)?
2. Are they an appropriate age to be working? (There’s disputes over what age is OK.)
3. Are they receiving a fair and living wage for their work?

Making sure every piece of clothing I wear is cruelty free is pretty much impossible (and I must take responsibility and say that I have unknowingly worked with brands that are terrible in the past, and I realize I didn’t even touch on buying environmentally friendly brands or cosmetics that aren’t tested on animals), but instead of being discouraged every time I shop, I have decided to just make a conscious effort to avoid certain brands that are well known for their use of sweatshops and child labor (click here and here for some sources I found), and additionally work harder to wear and promote clothes that I know are made fairly.

Enter Karina Dress.

Karina dresses are all made in Brooklyn, USA by seamstresses earning a living wage. What a breath of fresh air to hear a statement like that printed proudly on a company’s website. Not only that, but the company promotes positive body image, creating flattering dresses that make women of every shape and size feel beautiful, and features models of every size on their promotional material. I just LOVE that!

Thank you to those who read all of this! If anyone every notices I’m wearing clothes that you have found are not cruelty-free, I hope you will inform me. Like I said, it’s hard to know it all and I want to continue to be educated.

Photos by: Hilary Rattikin Photography