Happy Earth Day from Pier32!

Citizens of Earth: greetings! Today, we celebrate the one thing that we all truly have in common--the small, blue dot in the cosmos that we call home.

Earth Day is marked every April 22nd with events and parties around the globe, showing that small acts can make a big difference to the health of our planet if enough of us get together. 

In Copenhagen, Denmark—as well as in six other cities on five continents—the Danish Cultural Institute is organizing its annual CO 2 Green Drive Project in honor of Earth Day. Runners, walkers, bikers, and skaters are using their cities as canvasses to spell “CO 2“ with GPS devices. 

In Argentina, volunteers from the Surfrider Foundation are cleaning up the local beaches and planting evergreens and Tamarisk shrubs to help prevent wind and water erosion.

In Milan, Italy, thousands of people are gathering for the Earth Day Italia Festival to learn about environmental issues and spur action on local green initiatives.

Even Google is getting in on the act, with a special interactive Google Doodle, allowing you to play with the sun and the moon. 

If you can't make it to any big events, maybe you could celebrate Earth Day by pledging to make a small change in your behaviour. Try avoiding non-recyclable drink and food cartons (the so-called "five-minute containers" that are picked up, used and binned within five minutes), or walk, cycle or use public transport to get around. Maybe you could continue the good work set up in conjunction with the WWF last month, and keep the lights off tonight for a little later than usual--much easier now that the nights are stretching out.

As for me: I'm working hard on blog posts unplugged, using a laptop with a great energy efficiency profile, and wearing an old and well-loved organic and ethically produced Pier32 t-shirt. It's a small step, but I like to think I'm doing my bit. 

Check out the Earth Day website, for more on how you can say thanks to Mother Earth for putting up with your shenanigans. 

Urban Lace: The Cutting Edge Of Rubber

Do you like rubber? Of course you do. What's not to like? The way it moulds itself to your body shape. The tactile quality. The way it shines and squeaks.
Ahem. Yes. There are a lot of reasons to get excited about rubber, but from an ethical standpoint it's an important resource because it's so sustainable. Rubber comes, logically, from the rubber tree in the form of a gum, which can be formed into anything from bike tyres to sexy, sexy tube dresses.
But because the stuff is so robust, it's also eminently upcyclable. Our Facebook friend Katcha Bilek has made a great business out of selling belts and other accessories out of recycled tyres, and now she's pointed us in the direction of another designer stretching the boundaries of what can be done with rubber.
Urban Lace make clever, gothy jewellery out of old bike inner tubes, which are carefully recut into ear-rings, cuffs and bracelets. They're surprisingly delicate and darkly pretty--accessories with an edge. There's even something for the man in your life.
Urban Lace's accessories have an ever-so-slight fetishy air to them, a hint of the unusual, without going down the handcuff and chain route. As the fashions that were always on the edge become increasingly mainstream, Urban Lace seem to have found the right balance between goth and go-to-the-office. A little something for the 50 Shades-loving lady in your life, perhaps?
For more, hit up the Urban Lace website.

The Trouble With Menswear

A knock-on effect of covering ethical fashion for Pier32 has been the growth of my interest in clothing in general. I like to think that I cut a slightly sharper silhouette than I used to before I started this gig. I'm dressing to suit my shape these days. Less baggy clothes, and I'm certainly no fan of the kid-in-a-romper-suit and big trainers that a lot of men my age have devolved to. Sure, comfort is a factor, but at the same time I'd rather look like a grown-up, ta very much.

Which brings me to an interesting point. Men's clothes are boring. There's no real sense of experimentation. Look at the ladies (which I do with a purely professional eye, I assure you). There's a panoply of styles, looks, prints, fabrics, colours and shapes on display. Every high street is a fashion show. For the men, there are four looks. Workwear. Jeans and a top. Smart casual. Sportswear. That's about it. It's the same wherever you go. Check out any awards show, and you see the problem laid bare. The ladies are a rainbow, a dazzling kaleidoscope of colour and form. The gents are in suits. Black tie. This is the best you can aspire to. Unless you have the nerve and the legs for a kilt which, frankly, I don't.

It's a shame, when you look at the peacock dandies of history. Doublets and hose. Ruffs. Codpieces. Once upon a time invention and innovation was as much a part of men's fashion as it was women. But as the Georgian era moved into the Victorian, we pulled our legs into trousers, put a jacket on and gave up.

It's not a situation that's likely to change anytime soon. There's a fashion push every five years or so to put men in skirts. It never works. You can take all the pictures of Beckham in a sarong you like. You'll never get Joe Bloke strutting down his local high street in a swishy print wrap-around, unless he's working out his gender issues. Also, I refer you to my point about the kilt above.

So, if there's to be change, it has to arrive gently. If you can't change the shape, you can change the fabric, or play with form in clever, subtle ways. We're living in the 21st century, now. We can go space-age without draping ourselves in tinfoil.

For example, Ministry Of Supply, who have just successfully funded a production run through Kickstarter, have launched the Apollo Shirt. This is made from the same knit synthetic blend that NASA make their space-suits from. This stuff offers exemplary odor and moisture management, and moves with, rather than against you. The end result? You stay crumple-free, tucked in and looking cool all day.

Meanwhile Voy Voy, a relaxed surfer-skewed brand make t-shirts and polos with neat breast pockets in contrasting colours and stripes. This little pop of colour makes them stand out in a clean, sharp way. Again, there's innovation in the whole production line too, with an insistance on organic cotton and local labour to cut down on distribution and transport costs. A lot of these smaller companies are able to base their whole corporate philosophy around ethical principles, which helps them keep costs down without compromising on quality.

With sites like Kickstarter allowing these small start-ups to reach out to a much wider audience than would have possible a few years ago, we're beginning to see a real boom in clever designers pushing out great new ideas. Maybe the time is right for men's clothing in the 21st century to shrug off the old ways, and herald in a new renaissance.

Have A Dog Day With Jessie May

Let's start the week off by highlighting a charity that are doing a lot of good, and trying something a little different to raise some funds. Jessie May provides free nursing care at home for kids with terminal illnesses in Bristol, Somerset and Gloucestershire. Their visits allow parents to pop out to the shops, help their other children with their homework or simply sit down and eat dinner. It's a vital service, enabling parents to have a break, confident that their son or daughter is in the care of someone who understands the complexities of their medical needs, and, most crucially, someone they trust. No other organisation in the Bristol area offers this type of care, including the NHS. This is tough, but important and rewarding work.
They're holding an event in June that sounds like a lot of fun. In association with Newfound Friends, they're offering the chance for you to be rescued at sea by a Newfoundland dog! These giant, friendly monsters are famous for their skills in the water, and Newfound Friends has made a name for themselves by putting on water rescue shows to help charities like Jessie May raise the money they need. The sight of a 14-stone dog launching itself from a speeding dinghy and paddling to your rescue has to be seen to be believed...

We've supplied hi-vis vests for Jessie May, and are happy to be associated with a charity that's doing so much good work. Places for Jessie May's Dog Day at Portishead Marina are still available, but they're going fast. There's a £10 entry fee, and you pledge to raise at least £100 for the charity by entering. If you're going to be in the Bristol area on June 8th, then this has to be worth a look.
For more details, check out Jessie May's website.

Ethical Brand Profile: Fruit Of The Loom

At Pier32, we're picky about our suppliers. They have to work to internationally recognised ethical and environmental standards, and be open and transparent about their working practices. In a new and on-going thread at The View, we're going to highlight some of our more popular brands and the reasons why we use them.

First up, the daddy of ethical brands: Fruit Of The Loom.

Fruit of the Loom has been going for a lot longer than you might think. The firm was started in 1851 when brothers Benjamin and Robert Knight bought their first mill and started producing cotton cloth and textiles in Warwick, Rhode Island. In 1871, Fruit of the Loom® was registered as an official trademark. That makes it one of the world's oldest brands, predating the invention of light bulbs, cars and telephones!

More than 160 years later, Fruit of the Loom is now a global underwear and casualwear business, employing more than 32,000 people worldwide. It's instantly recognisable and almost ubiquitous. You most likely have an article of Fruit clothing in your drawers or wardrobes right now.

The responsible attitude to workers, materials and processes that is becoming something to shout about for many companies has been part of the DNA of Fruit Of The Loom since the beginning. The Fruit Code sets out the way they expect their suppliers and manufacturers and all their workers, low to high, to treat each other and the planet. In short, with respect. This means simple things, like respect for religious holidays, fair pay, even dental plans for their workers. But it permeates through every part of the business.

Let's take, for example, their flagship European plant in Morocco. Every aspect has been designed with care and forward thinking, with the environment firmly in mind at each step. All the service pipes are underground, saving ceiling height and reducing air conditioning.

Water is a precious resource in Morocco, so it was important to invest in facilities and processes that improve the water supply for the local community. The innovative water treatment plant used at the Fruit factory cleanses the water used in the manufacturing process so when it re-enters the local supply, it's never been cleaner. Up to 65% of the water used in the dyeing process is recycled. The dye-house itself has a heat exchange system that keeps water at a constant temperature and vastly reduces the amount of energy needed to heat it.

The Fruit Of The Loom commitment to open-end yarn manufacture also means that they use 30% less energy and produce 23% less wastage - vital when you look at the vast output of the factory--just under one billion garments to date. This also reduces the burden on landfill by reducing bale wraps and packaging.

That's just one example of the hard work the company put into their responsibility towards their workforce and the environment. This has been recognised, as Fruit Of The Loom are now WRAP-certified.

WRAP (Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production) is the world's largest facility certification programme and whilst it is supported by the global apparel industry, it is totally independent.

WRAP is dedicated to ensuring lawful, humane and ethical manufacturing throughout the world. In order to receive certification, suppliers are regularly audited and must comply with the 12 WRAP principles. These relate to areas such as workplace regulations, child labour, hours of work, health and safety, discrimination and security.

WRAP certification is a big deal. It's a globally trusted standard, that shows how Fruit of the Loom operates within the highest ethical and environmental standards. At Pier32 we're proud to be associated with the brand, and happy to offer their extensive range to you.

To find out more about Fruit Of The Loom at Pier32, check out the brand page.

Fruit Of The Loom At Pier32

Running The Renewable World

A quick news blast regarding our friends at Renewable World. Five of their noblest souls are pounding the streets for the Brighton Marathon this Sunday morning, helping to raise funds for the charity.

Renewable World are, as you probably know, all about using smart, affordable technology to help make the lives of people in remote rural communities that little bit better. They were featured on BBC's Lifeline appeal programme back in February, and are doing amazing work worldwide.

Tom Morton, Hayley Court, Fran Witt, Neil Gunning and Jim Watson are all running to help Renewable World to deliver energy from renewable resources to power lights, refrigerators for medicines, water pumps, and agricultural improvements. The ultimate aim is to increase living standards and incomes, and improve health and welfare for everyone that needs their help.

Can't say fairer than that, can you? You can help by giving to Tom's JustGiving site, or Jim's JustGiving site.  Or, if you're in Brighton on Sunday, why not pop down and cheer them to the finish line? Look out for the natty green T-shirts... supplied by Pier32, of course!

Time To Give A Cuff

I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting ways in which artisans are upcycling and retasking new clothes and accessories from old. A great place to find this sort of stuff is the online marketplace Etsy. You need to treat the site in the same way that you'd treat any craft fair or market. 90 per cent of what you'll find is rubbish. But every so often you'll come up with a real gem.
Leather-worker Scott Rawlings, working out of Salt Lake City, Utah, has a rather cool Etsy shop, Fullgive. He makes and sells beautifully designed and finished satchels, iPad cases and guitar straps. The item that concerns me, however, has a bit more history behind it.
Scott makes leather cuffs that have been upcycled from old belts. They're weathered, beautifully soft and more importantly, each one is unique. There's interesting details and embossing carried across from the old leatherwork, and an element of potluck when you place an order. You can pick black, brown, or more edgy skate/surf designs, but that's all the choice you get. You're never quite sure what you're going to end up with in terms of detailing. I like that. Sometimes it's good to embrace the unexpected.
Scott's cuffs aren't pricy--in the UK you can pick up one for just over a tenner. I don't think that's bad for an accessory that's pretty much guaranteed to be unique.
Check the cuffs, and Scott's other accessories, out at his Etsy shop, Fullgive.

Give Bear A Job!

Back in January, when Team Pier were at the NEC supporting our friends at Kartforce as they drove in a charity challenge, we met a guy called Bear. Like most of the Kartforce guys he was ex-Forces, back in Blighty after over 20 years of service for his country. He was looking for a job.
He's still looking, almost three months later, but he's doing so with the intensity and focus that comes from a career in the Army. Using Twitter to raise awareness, he's been on local radio, had a feature piece in the Independent, and been retweeted and mentioned by hundreds of people worldwide. What does he have to offer? Well, let's let the man sell himself (collated from his massive tweetstream)...

"As well as testing Jaguars and Land Rovers for JLR, I am also a trained chauffeaur and advanced driver (RoSPA). I have a licence that can only be described as full, and I'm very proud to say is clean. I'm an ex-soldier who's professional, intricate and a perfectionist in he does. If you want a grafter with ingenuity, discipline, common sense initiative and couraage, then you've come to the right place!"

Bear (he uses the nickname online for security purposes) is a trained Army mechanic who has maintained incredibly expensive and complex front-line equipment. He can drive anything and fix anything. He'd make a brilliant chauffeur/handyman for a corporate client, but his organisational skills (he's run decent-sized charity events) mean that he could turn his hands to practically anything.
He's all over Twitter, and he's not giving up. Frankly, it's the least we can do here at the Pier to give a friend a shout. So, let's finish the week with a battlecry and a call to arms. Give Bear A Job!

You can follow Bear on Twitter as @BigBearF1, or check out the hashtag #givebearajob. Everyone at Pier32 hopes you get the job you deserve soon, big fella.

H&M: Conscious Or Unconcsious?

H&M are doing an awful lot these days to try and show themselves as the greenest store on the high street. They're one of the few big brands to release a sustainability report, for example. Their 2012 report came out last week, and it's fascinating reading. This is no corporate puff-piece. It's a bracingly honest document, that's prepared to admit that they're not perfect. Work needs to be done on wages and worker conditions in their factories, for example.

They do have a lot of which they can be proud. Working with the WWF to cut down on their water usage, partnering with the French government on a pilot scheme to accurately map their supply chain. Then, of course, there's the Conscious Collection, bill-boarded everywhere, a flag-waving showpiece for their use of new, eco-friendly fabrics.

It's not all rosy, of course. Transparency is all well and good, but there are different kinds of clarity. Anti-sweatshop group The Clean Clothes Campaign recently launched Unconscious Collapses, an action that focuses on the unsafe working conditions in H&M's Cambodian factories. These unventilated buildings have led to malnourished and overworked factory staff fainting in their hundreds. Christa Luginbühl, a coordinator for the Clean Clothes Campaign says:

“H&M claims that [its] clothes are made with responsibility for people and environment, but hundreds of overworked and malnourished workers faint during their daily work. A fashion collection cannot be ‘conscious,’ ‘sustainable,’ or ‘responsible’ if a producer denies garment workers the basic human right for a living wage."

H&M, meanwhile, simply say that "more needs to be done." But the point is that H&M made $2billion in profits last year alone. If more needs to be done, then surely they have the money in the bank to get the goals that they mention in their report sorted out, and quickly.

Any huge multinational is always going to have problems with a supply chain spread globally, and abuse is something that's easy to turn a blind eye to. It's great that H&M are not painting themselves as paragons of sustainability, but it's important that their eco-initiatives are scrutinised carefully for signs of greenwashing.

With that in mind, Vogue and H&M are hosting a live webcast on sustainability at 3pm this afternoon (UK time). It's probably worth checking out to see if you believe that one of the biggest brands on the planet are putting their money where their mouth is.

Subscribe to the feed at the link below.

H&M CONSCIOUS LIVESTREAM AT VOGUE HQ

 

Puma Take on The Cradle-To-Cradle Challenge

It's fascinating to see how some of the biggest brands, particularly in sportswear, are reacting to the charges that they're environmentally and ethically unfriendly. All of a sudden, we're seeing huge strides as label after label clamour to show us that they care.
Puma have always been in the forefront of this change in perception, so it seems right that they should be the first to push forward with their first closed-loop collection. Their Incycle range is made of biodegradable components, with the raw materials coming from organic sources. No toxic nasties were used to create the clothes, which have earned the much sought after Cradle To Cradle Certificate. The Puma Basket Trainer (pictured) is made from a blend of organic cotton and linen, while the range's jackets and backpacks are made from PET and and polypropylene, all of which can be broken back down to their original components.
It's all well and good launching a recyclable range, but it's not much use if your customers can't easily return the items when they're done with them. To that end, Puma have closed the loop by offering in-store recycling bins in conjunction with recycling giant I:CO. This isn't just for their clothes; they'll take any brand. This is important in getting customers thinking about the whole life cycle of the clothes they buy. Recycling bins tend to live in car parks and municipal tips. They're an afterthought, connected with unglamourous chores. Turning the process into a feel-good drop-off of beloved items, rather than an alternative to the bin, means people are more likely to do it in the first place.
This is a tiny part of the full Puma range, but it's a start, and a campaign in which we in the ethical fashion have a vested interest. If the big boys can make a go of cradle-to-cradle, then it becomes that little bit easier for the rest of us.
The Incycle range from Puma is available in selected stores worldwide, and online at Puma.com.