Wonder Woman of the Week: Vannary San

This week's Wonder Woman is part of a growing global trend to balance tradition with social justice. Vannary San is a fashion designer who wanted to revive the lost art of hand-made silk fabrics in ehr native Cambodia while introducing 21st Century empowerment to her workers. The result was a new brand called Lotus Silk. Lotus Silk employs workers to hand-sew (with the help of traditional, pre-industrial looms) silk fibers to create textiles for manufacturing in a country filled with questionable labor practices for international markets.

To be fair, those questionably slave labor working conditions did not start with European merchants as low-income laborers long produced textiles in Southeast Asia before European explorers began establish trade colonies throughout the region. Vannary San however is among a growing number of entrepreneurs finding ways to revive pre-colonial goods production with 21st Century ethical working conditions. San is careful to employ low-income workers with the hopes of empowering them through fair pay and benefits to help struggling farmers and weavers work their way out of poverty without limiting her international marketing opportunities. In balancing traditional with empowering, San's company has built an international market for ethically produced silks available for purchase across the globe.