Rodarte MAC Juarez Collaboration

For those of you who know me well, you’ll know that my coping mechanism is ignore the problem, slap on a smile, and keep going.  This is how I’ve been handling a very sad story in beauty and there’s only so long I can let something fester before it has to come out.  That time is now.  The short version of the story goes like this:

There is a town on the Mexican-US border called Juarez where a lot of women work in sweat shops and there is a high incidence of rape, murder, mutilation, and femicide (violence against women). Fashion house Rodarte collaborated with MAC to launch a makeup line in autumn 2010 with obvious references to Juarez in the names of the colors of products “Factory,” “Ghost Town,” etc.  Beauty blogging chaos ensued over the exploitation of women and the fact that Rodarte and MAC were due to profit from it.  Then MAC declared that they would donate all of the profits from the line to help the women of Ciudad Juarez (yippee!).  Just when it seemed there was a less sad ending to the story, a few weeks later the companies decided to pull the plug on the whole thing.  So the result is that I’m left in emotional limbo-land.  I’m glad that the nail polishes and lipsticks will never hit the shelves but I’m sad that the blogging coverage has died down and I want to make sure that we don’t forget about the women of Juarez.

There are so many reasons to be sad: primarily the plight of the women in Juarez.  Then there’s fact that a cosmetics company actually went so far as to create a product line without considering the implication.  The fact that they’ve scrapped the whole line together still makes things seem unresolved for me.  The last I heard MAC was planning “to donate all of its projected global profits from this collection to local and international groups that work to improve the lives of the women and girls of Juarez”.   I asked them for an update on this calculation to which I got an out-of-office for NY Fashion Week (my bad!)

I would encourage you to find out more about this topic and help the women of Juarez.  I’ve particularly liked the coverage that Healing Beauty Blog have given it.  You can make your thoughts on the topic known by signing this petition.   Since MAC and Rodarte have scratched the line I’m not sure what impact this fact has on the petition but I think it’s important to keep the subject alive regardless.  I may be a little late to the blogging party, but it’s never too late to help the women of Juarez.  Some great organizations you can donate to include: Justice for our Daughters, Casa Amiga,  and CEDEHM.

Now that I’ve told you such a sad beauty story, I have to balance it with a happy one.  My good friend Jolie recently blogged about the Importance of Beauty and I have to say I was particularly touched by her musings on whether or not beauty is important.  She writes:

“There is a need for levity and whimsy and excitement and joy and entertainment–beautiful, all!–in this world. Beauty connects us, whispers tantalizing promises, pleases the senses, inspires us, gets us through”.

Although MAC and Rodarte have made appalling insensitive decisions in regard to their Juarez-inspired line we can’t go around all doom and gloom.  Thanks for the uplifting quote Nadine!