Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Choking on the Boohoo inf luencers’ sanctimony
THE social media set have been sobbing a river of tears after images emerged of the cramped conditions inside a UK factory where some of their ‘fave brands’ are churned out.
Well Boo-bloody-hoo.
The pretty packaging of fast fashion was ripped off as pictures emerged from inside a dingy backstreet factory which manufactures clothes for Boohoo, and where immigrant workers ‘earn’ €4 an hour stitching in conditions so confined it makes any sort of social distancing an impossibility.
The pictures, and an ensuing police investigation into the company’s work practices, prompted a slew of so-called ‘fashion influencers’ to take the hypocritical highground and disassociate themselves from the brand.
The Boohoo backlash came from the pretty-little Insta-things despite years of shilling their services to the highest bidders without any consideration as to how these clothes could have possibly been produced ethically – Boohoo being worth €4bn. The Boohoo backlash came, as expected, from the social media set, who bang on and on at others to be #bekind, #besafe, #beaboss #savetheplanet. Save me the sanctimony.
C’mon girlies of ‘The Gram’, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that corners had to have been cut to achieve the gazillions of profits generated. The raft of hitherto Boohoo lovers slamming the brand irritates me no end.
Given that some of them are walking Boohoo billboards, it is inconceivable that they could have been ignorant of the ill-effects of fast fashion. In fact, the conditions under which many immigrant women work have been well-documented and, until this week, seemed of scant concern to those who gladly hitched their rags to the Boohoo bumper cash bandwagon.
It is only now that the seedy side of fast fashion has been undressed that they have been shamed into this U-turn in what is only a bid to save their reputations. Their hasty retreat displays a shocking disregard for their own responsibility in contributing to the ugly face of fashion.
Covid app ‘plot’
IT AMUSES me much to see a plethora of Covid conspiracy theorists up in arms on the internet at the launch of the Government’s Covid tracking app. It has proved to be a field-day for those who see skulduggery in every corner with the dissemination of half-baked, fully-fledged fantastical ‘facts’ that the new app is a State-sponsored sinister data-collecting mission under the guise of a vital life-saving tool.
The irony that they utilise platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, and even that bastion of validity Tik-Tok, to propagate their philosophy has seemed not to have penetrated their tinfoil cop-on-proof caps. So, while downloading the Covid tracker app is a personal choice, my advice is not be swayed by the pseudo-scientists spreading their Google-de-gook.
My love for Johnny Depp is fading fast
AS a pre-teen I was one among millions of besotted girls who were head-over-heels Johnny Depp devotees. My Depp-desire began when heart throb Johnny played the devilishly dashing detective in US cop series 21 Jump Street. His face adorned the lapel of my school blazer in the form of a badge that I was daily told to remove by nonplussed nuns. Posters ripped from the pages of fanzine Smash Hits were plastered on every inch of my bedroom – much to my mother’s horror. Johnny’s gorgeous face lulled me to sleep every night with sweet-teen dreams of a chance meeting leading me to love, marriage and little Depp babies in a golden, diamond-encrusted carriage.
The passage of time, and a lack of a proposal coming from the former man of my dreams, has seen my interest in Depp wane, but despite his ex-wife Amber Heard allegedly calling him a ‘fat, old man’ I think we can all agree that Johnny is still as delish – if slightly more pudgy – as ever he was. Now all grown-up and with the added advantage of more than a decade’s insight into the vagaries of the showbiz world, I am awake to the fact that Hollywood happy endings don’t happen. Throughout my years reporting on the celebrity circuit, I have been privy to the proclivities of the rich and famous, with most of the more salacious carry-on kept from public view by threat of retribution or, more usually, costly injunctions.
And while some secret stories have been shocking, I can honestly say that the revelations about what is clearly a damaging, co-dependent dysfunctional marriage have shocked even the most hardened.
From violent homeware missile launches in million-dollar mansions, to insults, fisticuffs, Johnny’s slicedoff thumb and, what is the most disturbing and revolting of the allegations, that Heard used the matrimonial bed as a toilet, the picture of their marriage is more ghastly than any of us could imagine.
What is perhaps most unpalatable is the fact that, while finally free from each other, the former couple are still consumed with vengeance and appear to revel in allowing their most base matrimonial moments to become public fodder.
Cowen still needs L plates as a politician
BARRY Cowen’s ‘apology’ in the Dáil this week was more akin to a chapter from Driving For Dummies than a heartfelt ‘mea culpa’. Standing in Leinster House, the minister managed to muster a semblance of shame but his words fell far short of remorse.
Declaring himself ‘profoundly sorry’ for a drink-driving offence in 2016, his Dáil address was littered with excuses and lacking in humility. Seeking to justify his blatant disregard for the law, he dismissed driving with L plates as ‘not uncommon’. While it may not have been ‘uncommon’, Cowen clearly has his blinkers on when it comes to differentiating between what is ‘uncommon’ and what is unacceptable.
One wonders if his failure to pass his test was due to an inability to know the right from the wrong side of the road (metaphorically speaking, of course).
But the most galling of his mealymouthed mutterings was when he had the temerity to say his humiliation will hopefully serve to highlight the terrible dangers and consequences of drink driving.
Does Barry Cowen really take us for the sort of fool who takes more than three decades to pass the most basic of tests?