Fair Trade Clothing Brands & Human Rights ... the Ethical Consumer Movement

[Spacemiu]

great topic utopia I'm glad there are some other people here intrested in this kind of thing.

 

[meme527]

"Shopping With Conscience" - Christian Science Monitor article

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0511/p15s01-lihc.html[font=Georgia, Times,]

Shopping with conscience

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[font=Arial, Verdana, Geneva, Helvetica, san-serif;]How and where clothes are made is a hot issue for the young, hip, and well-heeled.[/font]



[font=Arial, Verdana, Geneva, Helvetica, san-serif;]By Michael B. Farrell | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor [/font]

[font=Arial, Verdana, Geneva, Helvetica, san-serif;]Two tiny TV sets sit side by side in the new American Apparel store on Boston's ritzy shopping strip Newbury Street. On their screens, the company's mustachioed young founder spews forth the ethos behind his brand of cotton T-shirts. The irreverent and enthusiastic Dov Charney, also the senior partner of the California company, excitedly explains to shoppers that his company does not exploit the workers who make his $15 cotton T-shirts - each affixed with tags bearing the company's trademark, "Sweatshop Free T-Shirts."

With more than 2,000 employees at its 165,000-square foot garment factory in downtown Los Angeles, American Apparel is the largest producer of US-made garments.

Mr. Charney's videotaped monologue is equal parts art installation, economics lesson, and gimmick.

It trumpets the appeal of the youth-oriented clothing chain that has expanded rapidly since opening its first storefront in October 2003. The company's fitted knits now hang in 47 retail outlets - a number that could double this year.

To be sure, no other clothier on Newbury Street - from Giorgio Armani to Gap - is talking about the workers who stitch their knits or about the factories where their garments are made.

But they may do so soon.

"There certainly is a growing consciousness" of the sweatshop issue, says Wendy Liebman, president of WSL Strategic Retail, a marketing research firm that analyzes how people shop.

This growing consumer awareness has struck mainly shoppers who are young, hip, and well-heeled, creating a class of buyers who care about how and where their clothes are made.

The proof is in the sales of several companies, including Charney's, that have made "sweatshop-free" a part of their pitch.

American Apparel recorded $150 million in sales in 2004 and expects to climb to $250 million this year.

In Waltham, Mass., the company No Sweat Apparel claims a 750 percent sales increase since 2003 when sales totalled about $150,000. The "vegetarian" Blackspot sneaker - developed by Kalle Lasn of Adbusters fame - adorns the feet of the clothing-conscious looking for an alternative to Nike. More than 10,000 pairs have sold since 2004.

Even U2's Bono has gotten into the "conscious commerce" apparel game, selling his Edun label at Saks Fifth Avenue.

"I see the sweatshop issue as being a very transcendent issue," says Adam Neiman, co-founder of No Sweat Apparel. "On the one hand we're trying to help unionize the global garment industry, and on the other hand we want consumers here to start asking questions about their own working conditions."

While Charney is an unabashed capitalist who admits the "no sweatshop" tag on his knits is part of a marketing strategy, Mr. Neiman says he's a "lapsed activist" who wants to "change the world a bit - while earning a living."

A revenue stream with ethics

Far from the American Apparel showroom on Newbury Street that infuses an ambivalent hipster aesthetic with sex appeal, No Sweat Apparel occupies the basement of a nondescript building in a gritty, industrial section of Waltham, a western suburb of Boston. Its khakis, sweatshirts, and shoes are sold mainly over the Internet.

One recent business day, Neiman walked through the stacks of boxes filled with shoes and sweatshirts that have been made by union factories in Indonesia, New York, and Chicago. No Sweat Apparel relies on factories with unionized workforces that either it has inspected or that anti-sweatshop groups have vetted.

"We wanted to create a for-profit business that molds public opinion and creates a new revenue stream," Neiman says.

The issue of global sweatshops and worker conditions captured headlines in the 90s after high-profile allegations were made that products sold by Wal-Mart, Gap, and Nike were manufactured in sweatshops that, in some cases, used child labor.

According to Sweatshop Watch, a California coalition of rights groups that monitors conditions of garment factories, the problem remains widespread because of the vast network of unaccountable subcontractors in China, Bangladesh, the US, and elsewhere who are locked in fierce competition to make clothes at the lowest possible price.

The group defines a sweatshop as any workplace that subjects laborers to long hours and extreme exploitation, maintains unsafe conditions, or uses verbal or physical abuse, or intimidates workers who speak out against conditions.

It's not a revolutionary idea for a company to build altruism into its business plan. Remember those two Vermont hippies Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield who pushed social and environmental consciousness along with pints of ice cream, or The Body Shop, the British cosmetics company that opened in the '70s and, claims to dedicate its business "to the pursuit of social and environmental change"?

But the sweatshop issue is gaining traction partly because of the rapid rise of American Apparel and, more recently, because of the fanfare over Edun, the fashion line started by rock star Bono, his wife Ali Hewson, and designer Rogan Gregory. The line is said to blend "social activism and aesthetic innovation."

These socially conscious threads - clothes produced, in part, to create "sustainable employment in developing areas of the world such as South America and Africa" - come at a high price. Sweatshirts run $163; women's jeans $164; and T-shirts $55.

By comparison, American Apparel's simple solid-colored, cotton T-Shirts are a bargain. But its $15 standard jersey knits and $34 collared shirts still cost far more than a $10 pack of three plain T-shirts at Kmart.

Why their customers pay extra

For longtime American Apparel customer Jane Leo, a Boston schoolteacher in her late 20s, it's worth paying a bit more for a product that's not only fashionable and a good fit, but is also free of sweatshop labor.

"Because I like the clothing and because they are sweatshop-free, I feel like I'm willing to pay more to be more ethical," she says.

Ms. Leo says that she's the type to buy ethically when given the chance. She opts for eggs from cage-free farms and uses recycled paper towels and toilet paper. "Now I think there are more companies out there, so people can buy ethically if they want to," she says.

Leo represents a sizable chunk of Charney's customers, who like the company's marriage of ethics and style. But for Charney, what's most important is the product - making the best classic American T-shirt possible.

Charney isn't comfortable with American Apparel being seen exclusively as a socially conscious brand, even though that message is found throughout the company's marketing. In fact, he scorns political correctness and the union movement, and even says, "We don't care about sweatshops anymore."

When the company adopted the "sweatshop-free" trademark, he says, it was always about vertical integration - keeping everything from design to sewing and cutting in-house - and knowing your workers. "Sweatshop-free is one element," he says.

Selling ideas along with sneakers

It's also about differentiating itself from the likes of Gap or J. Crew and becoming known as "the antibrand," says James Twitchell, professor of English and advertising at the University of Florida. What American Apparel is attempting to do with its marketing, he says, is to create a narrative that differentiates it from other garmenteers.

"There is no production-based difference, so the only difference you can create is narrative," Mr. Twitchell says. And the narrative created by American Apparel, as well as with the other companies using a socially conscious sales pitch, "is powerful especially among the young who want to 'do good.' There is sort of a mild narcotic in being able to consume and do good at the same time."

Kalle Lasn is using a similar antibig business narrative to sell his Blackspot sneaker - the vegetarian, recycled, antisweatshop sneaker that resembles the classic Converse (now owned by Nike).

"Ultimately we might be putting sneakers on people's feet, but we are trying to take on an industrial giant like Nike." That means helping consumers to see that "a dynamic that eventually does serious harm" is not cool, says Mr. Lasn, self-described "culture jammer," CEO of the Blackspot Anticorporation, and founder of the anticommercial Adbusters magazine, which routinely pillories retail giants and materialistic society.

"We are selling an idea. We are selling an idea of trying to create a new ideal of activism," he says. "If we can successfully launch our Blackspot sneaker on the back of Nike and if we cut into their market share, that would be a success."

But the heightened awareness among a relatively small percentage of shoppers - those who are willing to pay more for what they perceive as "socially conscious" garb - is not enough to make the big retailers change their practices or to retool their marketing, says retail analyst Ms. Liebman.

"It's not at the point where this has affected the retail market.... Value is still guided by price, not where [clothing] comes from," she says.

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[screenage]

^Good article, I just wander if people found out that Dior, McQueen, Prada et al, whether they would stop shopping there.

 

[Lena]

amazing thread
thanks utopia and all participating , this latest post by meme.. super

 

[helena]

ethical fashion websites

1. www.howies.co.uk - etailer of organic cotton jeans & sportswear
2. www.treehugger.com - magazine with links.
3. www.ptree.com - people tree collection (posted by Utopia)
4. www.edun.ie - Edun information and collection
5. www.terraplanta.com - environmentally aware shoe co.
6. www.kuyichi.com - info and collections
7. www.collagefoundation.org - mag co-founded by angela lindvall
8. www.enamore.com - hip hemp fashions
9. www.juste.co.uk - eco-dresses

 

[Ella]

Some very clothes, I loved the flip flops, thank you for posting.

 

[travolta]

Anti-corporate activist sneaks up on the sportswear giants

By Tina-Marie O'Neill

Kalle Lasn wants to be David to the multibillion-dollar global corporations' Goliath. The anti-corporation activist and founder of Adbusters magazine wants to end corporate exploitation and create a level playing field between society and big corporations.

He's now using a $500,000 marketing campaign for an`ethical sneaker' to do it.

Estonian-born Lasn is taking on global sportswear giant Nike with the launch of the BlackSpot sneaker, which resembles the Nike-owned Converse ChuckTaylor All Star shoe. Nike registered a record $10.7 billion in revenue in 2003 and its stockprice has already risen by almost 60 per cent this year. Although Lasn is undeterred by these figures, he is realistic about taking the shine out of Nike's 20 per cent market share in America.

"It's an open question about whether we can cut into Nike's market share,"Lasn said. But the debate the idea has generated is healthy, he said.

The BlackSpot sneaker will feature a prominent anti-logo black spot where the Converse logo normally appears and a symbolic red spot to the front of the shoe for "kicking Phil's ***". (Phil is Nike chief executive Phil Knight.)

"We went after Phil because he has played a cat-and-mouse game with the activist community for the last ten years," said Lasn. "He is recalcitrant, he plays hardball and is one of the most hated chief executives among the activist community."

The sneaker was supposed to be launched this month, but Lasn, critical of the way corporations make their millions on the back of Asian and South American sweatshops, ran into trouble finding a suitable union factory to make it.

"I looked at South Korea, Indonesia and eventually China. Now I'm looking at Poland and Spain. We'll launch the sneaker in late summer," he said.

The shoe will retail for about $40-$45.

Adbusters is hyping the sneakers with the `Unswoosher's kick-*** marketing strategy' on short television advertisements, or `subvertisements', on CNN, small networks, full-page $47,000 ads in the New York Times and on billboards near Nike's corporate headquarters in Oregon.

The ads include a Nike Swoosh almost blotted out with markers and accompanied by the Rethink the Cool caption. Other ads ridicule Knight.

The costly ad campaign has divided opinions among readers and activists, who accuse Lasn of selling out.

Lasn's response is simple. "For the last 20 years leftist campaigners have failed miserably to change the way big capitalist corporations operate. They're still chanting Marxist slogans.

"We have to play the branding game, the capitalist game, in order to bring about a different, bottom-up kind of capitalism. It's time to think outside the leftist box," he said.

More than 6,900 pairs of BlackSpot sneakers have been pre-ordered on the website, www.blackspotsneaker.org.

More than 480 retailers have signed up to sell the shoe.

Adbusters has encouraged activists to spread the good word by drawing a red dot on their own shoes, `adbust' Nike billboards with black spots or jam' Niketown stores with black spot stickers.

From http://www.sbpost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-141017475-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FMedia-and-Marketing.asp

http://adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotsneaker/

http://www.adbusters.org/metas/corpo/blackspotmusic/

 

[droogist]

Thought I'd revive this thread by mentioning Dosa...it's a California-based label with an environmentalist philosophy. Prices are extremely high, but I suppose justified, if you take their production methods and labour practices into account (see the time.com article below).

The Organic Designer
Wearing of the Green
By SORA SONG
Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2003

A lot of environmentalists work in bold strokes, saving a species or blocking a dam, but Christina Kim operates in a more subtle way. The fashion designer weaves an eco-friendly philosophy into all her creations. "I am less interested in some really grandiose idea of how I'm going to save the environment," says Kim. "Ultimately, we have to look at how we spend one day." Kim and her clothing-and-housewares company, Dosa, do a lot of little green things that add up. She will make fleece jackets and recycle the remnant material—even collecting other companies' leftovers—as stuffing for poufs in her home-furnishings line. She has made a mission of promoting the "imperfect white"—keeping cotton its natural color, a creamy off-white, instead of using harmful chemical bleaches. "It's more beautiful to wear different shades of white," she says. When she colors her fabrics, she often dips them in natural dyes, such as indigo, cochineal (a scarlet pigment produced by a parasite that lives on cacti) and fustic (a yellow dye drawn from a tropical tree). She employs cream of tartar instead of toxic chemical binders to fuse pigments to textiles. It's more expensive, but "I deal with a high-end market," says Kim, "so I can choose to use things that are environmentally much friendlier." Dosa, with a store in New York City and galleries in Los Angeles and London, sells goods that are good-hearted but not cheap: its hand-embroidered Bali blouse costs $680.

The designer also uses organically grown wools in addition to handloomed cottons. "In fashion, we're much more interested in the end product, the few moments of glory on the runway," Kim says. "For me, it is the making of one garment [that's important]—it goes through so many hands, I feel responsible for those people." Last year she provided the livelihood for some 500 women in the Assam region of India who spun eri silk by hand for Dosa. Eri silk comes from cocoons in the wild and is harvested only after the silk moth has broken free. Kim uses it undyed and buys only what's available naturally. "As our modern society grows, we're losing human touches," she says. "I want the wearer of my clothes to feel someone's energy, someone's hand, someone's warmth."

from http://www.time.com/time/2004/innovators/200401/kim.html

They sell a few pieces online at www.brownsfashion.com:

 

[utopia]

fair trade going trendy?

^ great article droogist, thanks for posting...some of those pieces are very lovely and very old-world.

I'm finally moving this topic into trendspotting, as I do believe this can be a justified movement now in fashion trends, and it brings to mind also what we've discussed in the arts and crafts thread (http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27040), about the movement towards a greater focus on the craftsman (and in the case of fair trade, a sensitivity towards the individuals who make what we wear) as well as a more organic aesthetic comprised of natural materials and dyes.

I came across an article in the telegraph today: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/26/nfash26.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/03/26/ixportal.html

They have been dubbed "ethics girls" but those behind fair trade fashion say it's the Next Big Thing...

 

[oceanharlot]

yay! great thread!

american apparel was the first of this type of fashion house I had ever known, so when I hit one in NYC, I went nuts buying up their stuff. it doesnt hurt that the clothing was just amazingly cut too...

 

[missy-t1]

I read that Sienna Miller only wears fair trade clothing....

 

[pointup]

^I highly doubt that.. not with all the designers she sports.. but I could be wrong.

I'm bookmarking this thread for sure!

 

[tott]

I'm all for fair trade, but much of the stuff is seriously hippiesque or non-descript.

I'd love some fair trade with more "attitude".

 

[orlem]

I love this thread! Thanks for the topic.

This is not clothes but still kind of fashion, The Body Shop is very liberal-minded with their workers and production.

 

[utopia]

^ beauty products are also very appropriate here in trendspotting, seraphelle, so thanks for the tip on the body shop! they support community trade, and there's more information on their website about how they do it: http://www.uk.thebodyshop.com/web/tbsuk/values_sct.jsp

the body shop is affiliated with http://www.makepovertyhistory.org, and white bands can be bought at their uk shops.

 

[missy-t1]

Oh thanks for that Utopia I've lost my Poverty band so I need a new one! And its an issue that I actually care about and I dont wear the band for fashion.

Arn't all Stella McCartney products fairtrade?

I know H&M and many other chain stores and big brands such as Nike exploit children and the poor in the developing countries...

 

[luxmode]

Thought I'd revive this thread by mentioning Dosa...it's a California-based label with an environmentalist philosophy. Prices are extremely high, but I suppose justified, if you take their production methods and labour practices into account (see the time.com article below).

thanks for mentioning dosa, droogist. i wanted to post something about the brand, but i didn't know if dosa was technically fair trade or not. i really love her clothes and i think they are worth the expense!

also, thanks to utopia and everyone else who posted...this is a very informative thread

 

[droogist]

Arn't all Stella McCartney products fairtrade?

Unfortunately no...Stella McCartney's products are vegan, but that's as far as it goes.

And you're welcome utopia, luxmode...luxmode, I hesitated about posting it for the same reason, but this thread doesn't seem to be strictly limited to fair trade anymore. Perhaps a name change is in order, to a more general title...although the name seems to be changing all the time

 

[Spacemiu]

Dosa is a cool brand
thanks for the article droogist

I saw a bunch of the Edun stuff the other day, I really like it actually

 

[utopia]

Unfortunately no...Stella McCartney's products are vegan, but that's as far as it goes.

And you're welcome utopia, luxmode...luxmode, I hesitated about posting it for the same reason, but this thread doesn't seem to be strictly limited to fair trade anymore. Perhaps a name change is in order, to a more general title...although the name seems to be changing all the time

yes it has undergone a few name changes already... perhaps we might start up a separate organic and vegan clothing trend thread...I think it'd be good to keep this topic focused mainly on fair trade clothing, rather than lumping all the 'philanthropic topics' all into the same thread and thus overshadowing the fair trade focus. I'll do some research and get to it shortly.