today over 30 bloggers got together across the internet to express their intense upset and horror at the thoughts behind this collection.
i am cribbing bits and bobs from other blogs (i apologise for not taking the time to craft my thoughts and write something about this, it is a subject i am incredibly passionate about. but i am under a lot of stress with some serious health problems at the forefront of my mind and i just could not centre myself to give this subject the attention it so rightly deserves. please read the articles i have excerpted below and go to the sources for the full content. let our combined voice be heard!):
BritBeautyBlog writes:
MAC! What Were You Thinking?
Notorious for their collaborations – some great, some not so – MAC’s collaboration with Rodarte is truly a ‘did not think it through’ situation. Fashion is so quick to disappear up its backside sometimes, with incomprehensible inspirations, but beauty in general tends to tell it how it is – if it’s a Disney collaboration, there will be Mickey Mouse somewhere, not a distant, vague set of mouse-ears-by-candlelight inference. This isn’t always the case; I’ve been presented sometimes with an overworked inspiration that even the most seasoned critic would struggle to find a connection that your average beauty consumer can relate to.
Back at MAC base-camp though, someone, somewhere thought that Rodarte’s horribly macabre inspiration of Mexican town Juarez, notable for its unbelievably high murder count, was a fabulously commercial idea. Juarez is also noted for ‘feminicidios’ – female homicides and las muertas de Juarez (the dead women of Juarez). These murders remain largely unsolved. The fact that the desperately underpaid female factory workers have probably never even heard of MAC, never mind Rodarte, let alone be able to afford a slice of either is adding insult to injury.
Rodarte (Kate and Laura Mulleavy) took their ‘inspiration’ for their 2010 Fall fashion range from ‘lines of women workers making their way to factory jobs in the middle of the night.’ The same women, let’s remember, who on financial grounds will never own even a MAC eyeliner. Who in their right minds thinks that this is a look that should be reflected for commercial purposes? Oh, that’s right. MAC. I’ve taken details from an article by www.colorlines.com – well worth a read, who have already shown statements from both parties falling over themselves to apologise. Other research finds that women who work in the factories do so under terrible conditions, with some required to show ‘used’ tampons for three months to prove they aren’t pregnant. How any of this – and believe me, I am sparing with the details for they go on and on – can be used for a commercial beauty or fashion range is just beyond me. Brands flock to Juarez to set up factories because Juarez commands low wages, tax breaks and low freight costs, thus inflating the profit margin.
Juarez is a city in deep poverty; base to a mass of multi-national owned factories – Johnson & Johnson being one – it’s where drug wars are won and lost to huge human cost. If you look at the make-up, there is an ethereal landscape theme that’s almost romantic, until you realize the source is a landscape of hideous oppression, violence and fear. In my view, that’s bordering on criminal to try and make a buck from such a back story. (Article Here)
Just Nice Things wrote:
According to Stylelist.com, “Rodarte designers Laura and Kate Mulleavy had road-tripped from El Paso to Marfa, and were struck by the ethereal landscape and impoverished factory workers floating to work at dawn in a sleepy, dreamlike state.”
OK then. Delve in a litle further and you’ll soon find out that said “sleepy, dreamlike” factory workers are in fact a legacy of the fact that Ciudad Juarez is undoubtably one of the most dangerous places in the world.
According to Amnesty International over 400 women have gone missing from this region in the past ten years, often brutally raped and murdered, or for their bodies yet to be found at all. It is thought that many of these women disappeared on their way to work in the maquiladoras, or factories of the local area. Apparently the police have done little investigation into these cases, some of which were girls as young as 12.” (Article Here)
MusicalHouses wrote:
MAC has collaborated with designer brand Rodarte to release an upcoming collection called Rodarte, which they claim is inspired by the etheral beauty of the towns that border USA and Mexico. In particular, they named two of their nail polish colours Juarez (a pale pink) and Factory (a pale green). These two names in particular were at the forefront of much backlash, as people accused MAC of exploiting the controversy and violence there for their own profit. In particular, Juarez and Factory were really offensive to many girls, because Juarez is pretty much a poster child for violence, drug crimes, cross-border trafficking, and border-town factories, and a lot of the violence is female-specific(apparently female homicide is particularly high, as is rape). Also, the police are corrupt (stories abound of people being mugged in Juarez by the police), these crimes have little to no response. If you want to know more about Juarez, here’s an 8 mins audio segment on NPR radio called “Juarez: A City on the Edge”, a link kindly passed to me by Tsunimee, a Youtuber I follow. If you prefer to read, there’s also an NPR article on it, called “Whos Killing the Women of Juarez?”
MAC’s response was to quickly issue an apology, and they also said they would donate some of the proceeds to charities in Juarez. Of course, this is where opinion splits, there are people who applaud it, and people who feel that the response is inadequate. Both these posts have valid points.
In addition to Juarez and Factory, there’s a lipstick called Ghost Town, that’s white, and one that’s called Sleepless, that’s a “light grey taupe”, for that chic abused factory worker look. And they’re even promoting lip erase, a concealer for the lips that’s used to block out your natural lip colour so your lipstick is more true-to-colour on your lips. I know it’s a permanent item in their line, but including it in this collection is just bad taste. Yeah, now we can buy Lip Erase to look like a murder victim! And don’t forget Bordertown, a mineralized eyeshadow that’s black with red, blue and silver veining – so you can get a badly punched up black eye, just like the victims of rape and violent crime! And of course don’t forget the pigment named Badlands, or the eyeshadow called Sleepwalker – I guess being raped and abudcted on your way to work in a factory must feel like a dream, huh? Is this what MAC and Rodarte means by the “etheral” inspiration of Mexico? I really don’t know how MAC and Rodarte can claim that they weren’t aware of the connotations with a straight face. Everything, from the promo pictures to the product names to the colour selection, looks very deliberately done. I know that the whole concept behind the colours and the names is a bit deeper than simply exploiting associations – I know there is this whole sleepwalking, etheral theme behind it as well, but it doesn’t negate the bad associations nonetheless, and I think the companies were capitalizing on it. They wanted this. They made it happen. They wanted the buzz. They just didn’t want to look bad in the ensuing discussion.
In light of this, I feel that MAC’s response – donating some of the proceeds to charities – is horribly inadequate, but it’s the best they can do for now. They really should pull the collection altogether, but that may not be possible, given that the Rodarte collection is a collaboration with the Rodarte designer brand, and that Rodarte was really the one who came up with the entire concept. You can read about their “inspiration” here, and they have deconstructed US$4000 designer dresses based on this whole border-town concept. MAC, doing a collaboration with them, was probably contract-bound to imitate their concept for the makeup line too. So it would be hard for them to get out of it. In this case, I suppose the only other alternative is to donate the proceeds. It’s not ideal, but I guess this is life. I personally feel that MAC should have gone one step further and donated ALL the proceeds to the charities, along the line of their Viva Glam lipsticks, instead of a measly unspecified “portion”. That way, at least they wouldn’t be profiting from any of the controversy they’ve created.
On a last note, I’m also surprised that while everyone is heaping criticism on MAC, while Rodarte – the collaborator and original designer that originated this whole fiasco – got away with it. The fashion press didn’t give them a very hard time about their disgusting collection, and some even called it “beautiful”, and as far as I know, Rodarte, unlike MAC, isn’t donating any money to the associated charities at all. It just saddens me that Rodarte would stoop so low to get “inspiration” for their clothes, and MAC had to follow suit. I’ve never heard of or bought anything Rodarte, but now I don’t even like or want to buy anything from them, and MAC has been tainted by association for collaborating with them. What are they going to come up with next, a Nazi-inspired collection with a red, white and black eyeshadow trio called Swastika?” (Article Here)
More information on the Juarez murders can be found here and you can read other opinions about this matter on the following blogs, all of whom have been moved to write about the issue:
www.bigfashionista.blogspot.com
www.londonbeautyqueen.blogspot.com
www.sparklesandbows.blogspot.com
www.musicalhouses.blogspot.com
if we stand united we can make our voice heard and the world will take heed. the situation in juarez is horrific and to be used as inspiration for a fashion line is beyond deplorable.
Thank you for this post–this whole situation just horrifies me.
[...] this past week with Ginger + Liz threatening a blogger with legal action for stating fact, and MAC’s distasteful Rodarte collection, but here’s hoping the rest of the week is amazing and controversy free. Personally, I am [...]
You could wonder what's next.. Sept 11 nailpolish? Quantanamo orange lipsticks? Burkablue afghanistan eyeshadows?
What's next? Quantanamo orange lipsticks.. Burkabkue afghanistn eyeshadow.. 11 sept red nailpolish?
Romanticizing the horrible things these people go through is so disrespectful, I'm disgusted. The people (both from MAC and Rodarte) who worked on this must've been delusional or something, what on Earth were they thinking?!
I think it's a good thing that MAC's going to donate a portion of the proceeds to the people in Juarez. It's quite a shame though that they only came up with that after they'd been told off.
Rodarte is just making excuses instead of truly apologizing. Ethereal landscape, my arse. They must've known what was going on there, or at least they could've looked it up (ever heard of Google, people?). One more brand I won't even consider buying anything from…
I'm actually not that mad. Was it disrespectful and stupid? Yes. But did it actually do any harm to the women of juarez? No. They are most likely never going to find out that their misfortunes were the inspiration for fashion and the fact that mac is giving some of the proceeds to charity (I know they probably won't be donating a lot considering they were so unspecific, but some is better than none) is a concrete positive for those women. Also, this whole scandal is raising awareness of the problem. I for one didn't know about it until people criticized the collection. So quite frankly, I think this whole thing has worked out for the good.