What’s your favorite fashion magazine? Vogue, Harpers’ Bazaar, InStyle, or what about Elle? Regardless of your choice, each one is more beautiful than the last. Page after page of rich colors, gloss finishes, and luxurious fabrics draped over gorgeous models at deluxe prices. While fashion is a unique little universe all it’s own, we cannot blindly accept the glitz and glamour. When you look at those designs do you ever think of the time , production process, waste management, labor cost, or even animal cruelty practices? Most people would say no. I get it, that is a lot of info to take in at once. Fashion, just like nature, is a wonderful complex system that provides our wants and needs. This past week I have read article after article about resource sustainability, toxic waste, and the financial toll that the fashion industry can take on the environment. While most of this behavior is not intentional that doesn’t make it any less dangerous. One article that stuck out to me was about the levels of poverty people experience and that effects them being able to care for their neighborhoods. Also there are companies that use cheap labor or ‘sweatshops’ to create their lavish designs. These same poverty stricken people are ironically contributing to their own demise and don’t even know it! So while these topics may seem worlds apart they are actually interconnected believe it or not. Learning all of this makes me look at shopping a bit differently. Not saying you ladies can’t have a dream wardrobe or anything. Just be sure you are being a responsible consumer in the process. Be sure to be mindful of the brands you choose to invest your money in. Still this was a great week with everything I got to learn. We were using mindfulness to meditate in class and it was super relaxing. If you did not read my other blog, I discussed various ways to use mindfulness. Using that quiet time I was able to daydream and come up with some ideas for a project in another class. Not gonna lie I almost fell asleep but that is not the purpose of mindfulness. During these few class periods my classmates and I were able to have fruitful discussions on our readings and exercises. Everybody had interesting and thought provoking views while we had class discussions. I contributed different points of view for our yes/no debate. While I am not the greatest public speaker it was still a fun assignment. From this week I learned how to speak my thoughts a bit more. Also, improving my debate skills along with some critical thinking. This may sound boring but in real life it was funny and interesting. Anyway just to summarize my thoughts and get them in order, this week was about sustainability, mindfulness and the effect of poverty. Even though wicked problems is a short class I am enjoying myself and hopefully my classmates are too. Enough of my rambling, as always hope you guys enjoyed reading. See you next time.