“Hot Girls Make Great Clothes”

I’m doing a project on sweatshops and maquiladoras for one of my classes, and when I Googled “sweatshops” I stumbled upon this article.

It is an article about the clothing company, Ecko, and an ad campaign it started in 2008.  The campaign was “Hot Girls Make Great Clothes” and featured pictures and videos of women in bikinis demonstrating the process by which the company’s clothing is made.  Naturally, this is quite an outrageous campaign, and the author of the above article does a great job in explaining why.

I then went to Ecko Manufacturing’s current website only to find that this same campaign is still going on, which I’m sure you will agree is even more upsetting.  Beyond the awful campaign that mocks women as well as the reality of what sweatshop workers go through, the whole website is full of statements and images that made me more and more angry the deeper i got into the site.

I didn’t want to spend too much time digging through the website’s piles of offensiveness, but here are a few examples of what I am talking about:

One page of the website features careers one can get within the
company–one being the security guard, or, as Ecko calls it, the “Chief
Voyeur.”  And there is a whole description of the position that
lives up to its alternate title.

Another career option is the Head
Hunter.  This person searches for factory employees to make Ecko’s
clothes, the criteria for said employees being “only hot girls can make
great clothes.”

There is also a page about the company’s management,
which features many women who hold important positions within the
company.  I am glad so many of the higher-ups are women, but the page
featuring these women has pictures of them all (the CEO, the VP of
Logistics, the Executive Director, the Director of PR, and the associate
director) in very revealing clothing and posing the the most seductive
positions.  Disappointing.

There is also a news section on the site.  The stories currently
posted are called things like “Unattractive
Girl Sues Ecko!” and “Locker
Room Cat Fight.”

Oh, and here is
where you can rate these hot factory girls to decide who is the
hottest.

The whole thing is pretty fucked up.  I searched Feministing for
“Ecko” to see if anyone had already written any posts on the topic, but
surprisingly nothing came up.  So here you go.  Please, visit the website for yourself and see it
in all its glory.

Here is the company’s public email address: eckomfg@ecko.com

Here is Marc Ecko’s blog.

Also, according to this
website, Marc Ecko is an activist for social change and people’s
rights.  So here
is a link to all the contact info for Marc Ecko Enterprises.

K one more…here
is a link to Marc Ecko’s facebook page.

Please, go nuts.