Beyonce Sweats Made in Sweatshop

Just weeks after launching the seven-hundredth celebrity athletic wear line of the year, Beyonce is under fire for claims her Ivy Park sports bra and female empowering booty shorts are manufactured in Sri Lankan sweatshops.

The truth of the assertion lies less in the obvious exploitation of dirt poor Southeastern Asian garment factories and more to the definition of sweatshop. 

Ivy Park has a rigorous ethical trading program. We are proud of our sustained efforts in terms of factory inspections and audits, and our teams worldwide work very closely with our suppliers and their factories to ensure compliance.

So, fuck you, we’re making our shit in Sri Lanka like every other overpriced pair of Spandex yoga pants for sale on Melrose. Why are you picking on black entrepreneurs? This seems racist. Beyonce insists she pays her oompa loompa stitchers seven bucks a day, which is more than twice the daily minimum wage in not quite up and coming Sri Lanka. Pay is relative. A decent home in Sri Lanka with indoor plumbing costs you nothing because there are none. But a thatched roof lean-to with a clay pot in the water closet runs you one-tenth of one-percent for a fixer upper in Santa Monica. 

Labor advocates note that it would take a month’s salary just for an Ivy Park seamstress to be able to afford a $144 pair of Ivy Park leggings. Unless you can boil it for a winter’s worth of soup, it’s unclear why a Sri Lankan would want a pair of pricy Starbucks visiting pants in the first place. Stupid rich people make stupid rich people shit for people who aspire to be rich and trendy. Those idiots half a world away are why there are lines for the seven bucks an hour sewing jobs where you are allowed to pee twice a week with your good employee bonus stickers. Beyonce needs to eat too. Find your own Ivy Park. She’s not even her own baby’s mama.