Globalisation - pooh!

[Miss Crochet]

A mediaeval Advent market opened today opposite our house. Yes, I am aware of how lovely that sounds and it IS just as lovely as it sounds. We're very lucky However, walking by the stalls today, I stopped at one that was piled HIGH with knitted things - socks, mittens, pullovers, scarves. Because we're always moaning on this forum about how handmade stuff is not appreciated, I stopped to admire it (and look at prices.) But there was something fishy about the whole thing, not least that the labels (done in a kind of artsy-fartsy eco way) were all in English (I'm in Germany). So I asked the stallowner where the stuff was actually knitted.

"Oh," he reassured me quickly, "It's all hand knitted. 100% handmade."

"But where is it handknitted?"

And he reluctantly admitted that it's all made in NEPAL.

 

Now, aside from the fact that the stuff has no Fair Trade label on it so goodness knows what the Nepalese knitters got for their work, and aside from the fact that our LYS is only a 100 yards away, think of the CARBON FOOTPRINT involved in flying the stuff from the Himalayas to Germany!! This world is just crazy - people won't pay decent prices for things knit or crocheted by hand in their locality, yet they'll pay for handmade stuff flown in over THOUSANDS of miles. Am I the only person who thinks this is nuts??

[CraftyZone]

I agree with you most the time you find they have very young girls or woman that do nothing all day but crochet or knit things for pennies and people selling them make the big money for the items. Sometimes this is forced labor and the only way they can feed them selves or families.

[cat3crazy]

Interesting! So how were the prices? Would you be able to make the item for the price that was on it at the mediaeval Advent market?

I know that over here I can purchase a simple crocheted doily for less than the cost of the material if I were to make it myself! Of course the quailty of the material used isn't that great and I'm sure that the people that make them get paid very poorly. But because of these types of items, people don't appreciate the amount of work and the actual cost of quality material for homemade items.

[Krakovianka]

Here in Poland, one of the traditional "peasant" crafts involves making Christmas decorations from wheat straw (plentiful and free)--very pretty little things, often sewn with bright red thread to make them even more festive. Because they are small and light, I wanted to buy some a few years ago to send as gifts. Everything I could find--every single thing--was marked "wyprodukowane w chinach", which, as you can guess, means "made in China." China! It's a travesty.

[grannyannie]

It's NUTS and very, very sad...

[Gran]

Yes, the fair trade groups are helping. It's too bad there are always those willing to profit at someone else's expense. There was a lovely fair trade booth at an Advent market in Munich one year. It was great to see how popular his booth was.