Flipping The Idea Of Recycling Inside Out

I am a gent with limited wardrobe space. When I buy a new item of clothing, that's usually the cue to find an old shirt, t-shirt or pair of trews and consign them to the nearest recycling bin. One in, one out. Why hang onto clothes you don't wear anymore?
But there needs to be an easier way to recycle clothing. Billions of pounds worth of textiles are simply binned every year in the UK alone. I'm lucky in that my nearest charity hopper is a walkable distance from my front door. For many, that simply isn't an option, or they just don't think about it. A clearout happens once a year, and perfectly good items that could be donated to charity or broken down for re-sourcing go straight into the bin.
Swedish fashion label Uniforms For The Dedicated have come up with a smart idea that makes recycling an easy, straightforward process. Their carrier bags flip inside out to become a sturdy, pre-paid mailer into which you can place an unwanted item of clothing. Seal it up, stick it in the post, and hey presto, you've donated to charity. The bag and the old item suddenly have a second life, an uptick in value.
DDB Sweden, who came up with the idea, believe it has real potential. A spokesperson for the agency said:

"We consume too much. With this in mind, we wanted to find a way to convert every purchase into something that would do good in the world. We wanted to influence brands and consumers, and help them take a practical stand for sustainable fashion, recycling and social responsibility."

This idea has legs, I think. Imagine a major high street brand (particularly one with a decent ethical profile, like M&S) taking on this idea. Getting people to change their habits is a complex job, but offer them a simple solution and they will embrace that change whole-heartedly. I'd love to see mailer bags become the norm, and for more of us to keep their wardrobes clear of clutter by donating the orpans at the back of the stack.

Labelling Dissent: The Primark "cry for help" controversy is just one part of a bigger scandal

A fascinating story has popped up in the national press over labelling of clothes in Primark. We're not talking about how the washing instructions have been accidentally changed from "delicate cycle" to "boil wash". This is something altogether more intriguing, and cuts to the heart of the discussion over ethical fashion. 

The basic story is this: Rebecca Gallagher from Swansea bought a £10 summer dress from Primark, only to find a hand-stitched label in amongst the others. The label said "forced to work exhausting hours." Over the next couple of weeks, other Primark shoppers found similar labels in their fast fashion bargains. Primark, caught on the backfoot, claimed that the whole thing was a hoax, instigated in the UK. The altered clothing came from different factories, hundreds of miles apart.

Whether it was a hoax or not is missing the point. The fact is that foreign garment workers do work exhausting hours for terrible pay in terrible working conditions. Drawing that to the attention of the readers of the South Wales Evening Post and later to the national papers isn't a bad thing. The danger, as a sharply written editorial by Tansy Hoskins for the Guardian points out, is that readers and shoppers will assume that it's only Primark that has the problem. It's not. Most of the high street chains have links to factories that carry out abusive or negligent working practices. The struggle for fair pay and conditions in Bangladesh and other centres of manufacturing for Western clothing is one that is going on right now as unions like the National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF), based in Dhaka take the fight to the shop floor. Union officials are tired of seeing their members marginalised as helpless victims, and of the attempts to attribute blame to one brand. Tansy points out:

Their opinion is that poor pay and conditions are not unique to one brand (Primark) but rather "applicable to almost all the brands that are sourcing from Bangladesh." The NGWF is also clear that it does not want to see the destruction of the industry through consumer boycotts as there are no other job opportunities for the four million women working in those factories.

They do however want people to work with them to pressure corporations into raising pay and conditions. "People in the UK should ask brands like Primark, Marks & Spencer, Edinburgh Woollen Mill, or New Look – about the reality of their supply chain," says Amin. "They should pressure brands to disclose their suppliers and to sign the Bangladesh accord, and to ensure a fair price of Bangladeshi garments and pay a living wage to garment workers."

That goal is one that we should all applaud, but cutting the tangled web of self-interest and the quest for excessive profit is a tricky task. We as consumers are wrapped up in that web, too. It's good to see that the struggle for ethical fashion is making headlines. But we should not be fooled into thinking that there's one simple solution, or a lone villain pulling the threads.

How Prawns Could Get Ethical Fashion Onto The High Street

There's been some encouraging news in the past couple of weeks about social responsibility, and more importantly, our attitude towards it as customers.

After a Guardian investigation into the harvesting of prawns in Thailand by forced labour--OK, let's not beat around the bush here, slave labour--the UK Government has pushed for much stronger safeguards on the food we eat and the clothes we wear, to ensure that they're produced fairly and without exploitation. The consumer affairs minister, Jenny Willott, has gone so far as to state that brands must do more to promote a strong ethical standpoint, or risk losing customers. She said:

"Following the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster earlier this year, we saw another high profile case involving oppressive labour practices in the production of prawns in Thailand.

"Consumers are increasingly aware of these issues and concerned about them. As a result of this public interest, we have an opportunity to highlight those companies taking positive action and encourage others to make a real difference."

 

This bullish tone is backed up by an extraordinary poll for Ipsos Mori, in which 83% of respondents agreed that a company's ethical policy mattered to them. Two out of every five said that they would spend more on a product if it had a proven clean record, despite the current squeeze on household spending.

With consumers starting to take the lead, the government is moving to take steps over ethical sourcing. In a statement to the British Retail Consortium, Willott singled out H&M and Marks and Spencer as companies with strong ethical policies that are applied through their entire supply chain. The inference is clear: these are big names that can still put eco-friendly, exploitation-free credentials at the heart of their business. If they can do it, why can't everyone else?

It's funny how the smallest of things can have such a huge potential result. The humble prawn could be the catalyst for a true revolution in fashion retail, bringing strong ethical policies onto the high street, backed up by a government that, while following the lead of its people, will end up making transparency and ethical practices a pre-requisite of doing business in the UK. Ultimately, that change has been mentored by us, as consumers making the right choices for the right reasons. We don't want to buy products that are the product of cruelty and the government seems to be indicating that, for once, it's on our side.

 

 

Boho City: fuss-free ethical fashion!

If we want ethical fashion to become the norm, then it's important to make sure that it's normal to buy ethical fashion. Stay with me here. We are, as consumers, both savvy and lazy. We'll happily hunt down a bargain, but won't bother to figure out why that must-have dress is so cheap. From this fundamental split in logical thinking, fast fashion has grown, like a weed fed on blood and bone.
Excuse the purple prose, but you get where I'm coming from. If we want the people who make our clothes to be fairly treated, and for the processes by which those clothes are made to be environmentally friendly, then it's important to encourage retailers and manufacturers who stand by those values. Business is not a charity, and needs our money to survive. At the same time, the process needs to be normalised. It should be simple and fuss-free to buy ethical fashion, and it shouldn't be seen as a special or limited edition. Kudos to brands like H&M for launching concsious collections, but surely the whole stock should have those ethical credentials.
All of which is a bit of a long-winded preamble to the point of today's post: Guru Ian pointed me at a rather good new online store that focusses entirely on ethical fashion. Boho City is designed specifically for the 21st century fashionista who wants her fix at the click of a mouse. We're buying more and more of our fashion online these days. Well, why shlep out to the shops when you can have your goodies brought to you like you're some futuristic princess with a horde of magical clothing pixies to do your bidding?
The point is that we're used to this sort of thing--Amazon and Asos has spoiled us, and we now expect a flawless, wide-ranging experience when we shop online. This model is one into which ethical fashion slots beautifully. Low start-up and premises costs, and availability to a global marketplace means that, as long as the experience is smooth and easy, it's equally frictionless to get people spending their money on clothes that are fairly produced and non-toxic. Boho City are smart to realise that there's no need to push the eco-fashion credentials: just sell great clothes that happen to be produced in the right way. Their fun, girly e-store cleverly pushes the brand as festival-friendly. As we're coming up for the biggest show of the season, Glastonbury, this is a very smart move indeed.
If Boho City succeeds (and here at the Pier we certainly hope they do) then that's another step towards a simple goal: affordable ethical fashion for all.

Boho City

Adidas: A Strikingly New Approach To Industrial Dispute

We know the story. Impoverished garment workers caught in a struggle for fair pay and conditions against a corrupt and greedy management, bankrolled by a distant multinational who only cares that the contracts go out on time and budget. I've told it on the blog so very many times.

The thing with any perceived truth is that it's never the whole story. A recent strike by factory workers in China twisted the tale in a very surprising way.

Employees at Taiwanese shoe manufacturer Yue Yuen downed tools after finding out that the company had been underpaying its social security contributions. Thousands walked out in a strike that's being called one of the biggest in the history of industrial action. But it was supervisors who first noticed the issue, and confronted senior plant officials over the problem. Even more unusually, some of the big-name Western brands who had a lot to lose from the Yue Yuen walkout sided vocally with the workers. Both Nike and Adidas have made it clear that they would not move production from the plant, choosing instead to support the strikers.

Even more astonishingly, Adidas has offered support and entered into negotiations with the Chinese government to secure the release of two of the leading figures in the strike following their arrest. In a statement to The Guardian, Adidas said:

"With respect to the arrest of two workers' representatives, Mr Zhang and Mr Lin, we were engaged with several labour rights groups in Southern China, to try to determine where they were being detained and offered our support to secure their release. We also wrote to the Dongguan mayoral office, calling for his immediate release."

Despite the heavy financial hit to Yue Yuen, estimated at $27 million, it's fascinating to see the big names siding with workers in industrial disputes. Let's not kid ourselves that this is the dawn of a new caring sharing corporate structure. But the multinationals are starting to see, I think, that it's in their own best interests to keep skilled garment workers happy and healthy. Strikes are bad for business. It makes sense to stop them happening, and if that means putting pressure on the factory owners to pay and treat their workers fairly, then so be it. It's heartening to see corporate pressure flexing in the right direction for a change.

The End Of The Big Society

Last week saw the final nail knocked into the coffin of David Cameron's Big Society. It's been coming for a while: coalition austerity measures have created a steady erosion in charity donations, while cuts to public services have meant that those charities are expected to do more. The notion that "we're all in it together" has been laughable for a while, but recent developments have turned the phrase into a sick joke. In fact, the very opposite seems to be true now, and we're seeing government and the third sector squaring up for a fight.

Referrals to food banks have spiked to levels unseen since the lean years after World War 2. That's an unfortunate statistic for a government desperate to claim that austerity is working. It's a message that they would prefer to have disappeared.

The Trussell Trust, the voluntary body in charge of administering the broad majority of food banks has, according to evidence given by its head, Chris Mould, to the Panel on the Independence of the Voluntary Sector, been told to keep quiet about the numbers it refers to help. Aides working for The Department of Works And Pensions have, according to Mr. Mould, twice warned the Trust that if they continued gathering data and published it, there could be dire consequences. The DWP has also forbidden Jobcentres from accepting Trussell Trust vouchers, which have a questionnaire listing the reason for referral on the back.

Meanwhile, Oxfam has been reported to the Charities Commission by Tory MP Conor Burns for their latest ad campaign, which makes explicit the massive increase in poverty and homelessness under the coalition. Burns claims that the campaign is overly political. He's right, of course: a spike in the numbers of people struggling to make ends meet is a clearly political issue. But that's not what he means. He just wants to shut Oxfam up for revealing facts that are deeply uncomfortable for the government.

The claim that charities are becoming politicised is one that the coalition are making more and more often. Ian Duncan Smith, the Minister for Works and Pensions, refuses to meet with the Trussell Trust for that very reason. The thing is, of course, that charities are set up to highlight and struggle against inequality. If government policy is a direct cause of that inequality, then it's only proper that charities should say so, however inconvenient it is for the coalition's preferred narrative.

The Cameron notion of government, charities and volunteers working together to make a better Britain have been shown time and time again to be a sham. Now we're seeing the ugly, bullying face of a political class confronted with charities that cannot stay silent about the abuses they see on a daily basis. As the government start discussing a new programme of compulsory public work that every school leaver will be signed into--effectively a revamped National Service--I think the time has come to disabuse ourselves of the notion that the Big Society was ever anything but a big fat lie.

Fashion On The Frontline

Cambodian garment workers, caught in a struggle against government forces and vested outside interests, have found a new way to voice their demands for fair pay and decent working conditions. Last month, they staged a fashion show with a difference.

Following protests in January that led to the shooting deaths of five workers by police, a group from the United Sisterhood Alliance decided it was time to show the world not just the injustices and abuse, but how they're coping with the pressure on a daily basis. A fashion show was an ideal way to highlight their bravery and ingenuity in the face of oppression.

The show, Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality, was a mix of fashion, performance art and dance. Factory-made Western brands were modelled by pretty models, and the event culminated in fake riot police rushing the stage and "shooting" one of the girls on the catwalk. The message couldn't be clearer--fast fashion comes at a heavy cost to those on the factory floor.

Heather Stilwell, who has been working with the United Sisterhood Allance and cut the video of the show, says:

"The event may have seemed like a harmless way for the women to express themselves, but when you’re standing up for yourself, even a fashion show has its risks. A few of the organisers actually missed the majority of the show, as they were outside negotiating with police to allow the event to continue. Thankfully it was allowed to go on, as many of the workers had given up a few of their evenings to rehearse – coming to the venue straight from their shift at the factory and sleeping there overnight. It seems like whenever these workers make a gain, something new gets thrown at them, but it’s the organisers’ hope that as more women see their coworkers at events like these, more and more will be willing to speak up about the ugly reality they face."

That's our hope as well. These garment workers want nothing more than to be treated fairly and paid a living wage. When these simple requests are met with riot shields and rubber bullets, it's time to stand up and ask what's going wrong.



Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality from Heather Stilwell on Vimeo.

It was twenty years ago today...

Well, kind of. We don't have the exact date to hand, but we do know this: in June 1994, Gerry Hayter changed the name, location and ethical direction of his promotional-wear company, Headline. It became Pier32, and it's still going from strength to strength today.
In celebration, Gerry let me out of my small room at the end of The Pier, and we chatted about the history of Pier32.
Rob: What inspired you to change from Headline to Pier32? Was there a specific event, or a general feeling that you needed to change direction?
Gerry: Headline was based in Soho, right in the middle of London, but we noticed in the early 90s that many of our clients were moving out of the west end to Putney, Hammersmith, Brentford and Heathrow. We decided to follow them, and moved to Thames Ditton, right on the river (to be strictly accurate, we're *on* the river, as our offices are on Thames Ditton Island). We decided then to not only move our base but also re-brand. My wife Dixie coined the name Pier32, which suited the location. We found that we were increasingly being asked for ethically produced, environmentally friendly products which we sourced and then imported. It made sense from a business and an ethical standpoint to reposition Pier32 as one of the first companies to only deal in ethically produced and environmentally friendly promotional wear.
Rob: Are there any highlights or moments in the 20 years of Pier32 that have made you particularly proud or happy?
Gerry: Our involvement in the 2005 'Make Poverty History' campaign was a real highlight for me. We supplied many of the charities involved with ethically produced, environmentally friendly promotional merchandise. We also provided 250,000 ethically produced environmentally friendly printed fabric swatches which were then personalised with a message by 'Make Poverty History' supporters and left on the hill at the 31st G8 Conference held at Gleneagles, Scotland. Seen together, they were one heck of a sight!
Rob: What is it, do you think, that makes Pier32 special?
Gerry: Pier32 is very much a family-run business. My son-in-law Ian is the marketing director, and most of us are involved in one role or another. We're not at all corporate or stuffy and we believe in the personal touch. There's a good chance when you pick up the phone to talk to us, you'll get through to me.

You don't get to your twentieth birthday as a company without doing something right, and Pier32 aren't just surviving--we're thriving. I'm proud to be working with Gerry, Ian and the rest of the Pier32 family. Raise a glass with me as we welcome the next twenty years of ethical goodness.
And, as a treat, behold! The actual View From The Pier.

Not a bad place to work, is it?

This summer, reach for the Summit!

If you're an active type like me (quiet at the back there) you'll be on the lookout for new outdoor clothes to help you make the most of the gradually improving weather. Say, then, you decide to do a little last-minute hiking or hill-walking, and find out that old pair of walking boots just isn't going to do the job. Problem, right?

Well, a new social enterprise specialising in outdoor clothes might just save the weekend. Summit Clothing offer a rapid response time and can deliver all orders placed before 7pm the next working day.  The website sells top range brands for hiking, climbing, mountaineering, camping and general outdoor adventuring, which can be delivered in record time ready for last minute trips.

Run entirely by volunteers, and with 50% of all profits going to charity, this isn't your usual outdoor store. I'll let Keiran Hawkin, founder of Summit, tell you more:

“Summit Clothing is breaking the boundaries and perceptions of a small social enterprise, by offering the exact same products and services as other businesses.  We have even gone a step further than many of our competitors by offering next day delivery before 7pm and unrivalled customer service.  Summit Clothing offers the same top quality brands and improved service compared to other adventure stores, but the main differentiation is our ethical values.

 50% of all our profits are donated and re-invested into global projects close to our hearts that will resonate with our customers.  From helping disadvantaged children take part in outdoor sports, to making sure remote communities have access to clean water, Summit Clothing is making a difference.”

So far, Summit have teamed with iDID Adventure, helping kids from disadvantaged backgrounds to enjoy a holiday in England's wide open spaces. They plan to partner with a range of companies to supply water filters to remote communities in Nepal who currently have no access to clean drinking water. But there's no compromise on quality or choice either, as Summit supply top-name brands like Mountain Hardwear, Grivel and Montan.

So, if you need outdoor gear in a hurry, looks like it's worth giving Summit Clothing a visit. Social responsibility and all the choice you'd expect from a big supplier? Best get your boots on...

Summit Clothing

The Fix Is In With Droog

I'm about to make a confession. It's not something of which I'm particularly proud—in fact, as the author of an ethical fashion blog, it's frankly embarrasing.
I don't know how to sew on a button or fix a patch onto a worn pair of trousers. Yes. Yes, I know. It's pathetic. It's not that I don't know how to do it in theory. It's not like I haven't tried. But somehow, my buttons drop off, my stitchwork unravels. I have perfectly good jeans in the wardrobe that I simply can't wear due to holes in unsuitable places.
Now, I have two options. Well, three, if you count going cap in hand to the mother-in-law, but let's not invoke the nuclear option quite yet. In my home town of Reading (jewel of the Thames Valley) an actual honest-to-goodness alteration and repair shop has recently opened, presumably to cater to clueless goofs like yr humble author. Better yet, the phenomenon of Repair Cafés that I wrote about last year has reached our neck of the woods, and meets regularly. The next one will be held on the 15th of June in the old Jackson's building—worth a look if you have clothes, electronics or tools that need fixing (or indeed, if you're interested in proper old department stores in a stripped-out state). More on that here.
But all this is local news, and doesn't address the issue at hand—what if I wanted to repair my clothes myself? Well, Droog, a Dutch design shop with an admirably quirky sensibility have just the thing. Create Me Textile is a sheet of pre-cut shapes in different colours with an iron-on backing. They make repairs a piece of cake, and are perfect for adding a little angular Euro-style to tops and bottoms that maybe need a little freshening up. The pack is €20, which is, I'll grant, a little on the pricy side. But when you compare that with the humiliation of going to the mum-in-law with a sack of holey jeans, it suddenly seems worth it.

Droog Create Me Textile