CONSCIOUS LABEL - Ethical Fashion Initiative
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Sass & Bide’s luxury
clutch is handmade
by impoverished
women from East
African tribes.
LABEL
CONSCIOUS
As consumers distance themselves from mass-produced goods, fashion
brands are realising their value lies in a sustainable, ethical future.
Words Clare press
G
oogle ‘clean cut’ and you’re likely Ballard’s online store, Indigo Bazaar, sells ethical
to find a picture of a short-haired, fashion brands, including her own: products handmade
suited Zac Efron. But (luckily for in an Indian workshop set up to empower local women.
society), higher up in the search Clean Cut was born a little under two years ago, when
results is the much more important Ballard and three friends active in the sustainability
Clean Cut fashion. It is Australia’s community — fellow designer Kelly Ekin, marketing
major sustainable fashion industry body, launched manager Lisa Heinze and blogger Yatu Widders Hunt —
this year, aiming to get both industry and consumers started workshopping ways to get their message to wider
thinking more about ethically produced clothing. fashion circles. Australia, they felt, was dragging its feet.
Sustainability might not be a sexy word, but, says “We saw a need for an industry body offering tangible
Clean Cut’s co-founder Carlie Ballard — a Sydney-based solutions for shoppers, and particularly brands looking
designer and retailer — it is becoming a fashionable to produce their collections more sustainably,” says
one. “Consumers are more aware. They are starting Ballard. “[The conversation] can’t be all about fear, so
to question how their $7 T-shirt got made.” child labour, sweat shops, environmental devastation ►
virginaustralia september 2014 | 105
(clockwise from top)
Clean Cut’s Carlie
Ballard and Kelly Ekin;
Stella Jean production
development in Haiti;
Lily Cole models her
eco-trainers; Stella
McCartney handbag and
hand-stitching; Simone
Capriani, founder of
the Ethical Fashion
Initiative; Nudie Jeans.
are difficult, but we want to start positive greater consumption of, fashion at both worth. Do we really need a bunch of
conversations, too. What can be done? the luxury and budget ends — and cheap new tops bought on a whim in
What should be done to make change?” considering the global fashion industry our lunchbreak? Could we live without
By definition fashion is built on the was worth US$1.5 trillion in 2013, we’re that 19th pair of jeans? Instead, we’re
new, but even by its own standards talking a lot of cash. starting to value the slower stuff —
change has been dizzying. Over the past the handmade, the limited edition, the
five years we’ve seen a revolution in the SLOWLY BUT SURELY bespoke and environmentally aware.
way clothes are made, marketed and sold. There’s another, more surprising, We might even be willing to save up for
I’m talking, of course, about the rise of consequence of this increase in choice: fashion again, to delay our gratification,
such fast-fashion giants as H&M, Zara, for some it’s making us question its to research and ponder carefully what we
Topshop and friends, as well as an might need to make our wardrobes sing.
increase in online retail and social media. Now there’s a radical idea.
The latter has transformed the way in THE VALUE OF In May, Time magazine ran a story about
which designers present their collections. A SKIRT OR A SHOE the ‘maker movement’ in the US, where
Yes, there is still Paris Fashion Week, but consumers are becoming producers on an
gone are the days of waiting patiently for LIES AS MUCH IN artisanal scale. Whether by hand or using
trends to hit stores six months later. technology such as 3D printers, they are
Designers are producing more collections
ITS ORIGINS AS crafting objects at home and in small
more quickly, and the high street is IN ITS PRICE TAG. workshops. Adweek defines the movement
knocking them off like never before. All as a reaction against “generic, mass-
this adds up to greater demand for, and produced, made-in-China merchandise”.
“”
106 | virginaustralia
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(clockwise from top)
Maiyet AW2014 collection,
and founder Paul van
Zyl; longtime ethical
manufacturing advocate
Vivienne Westwood visits
Kenya; Maiyet runway
models; a Vivienne Westwood
garment in production.
I think we can draw a parallel between daggy? These days the two concepts are
this and the rise of what Simone Cipriani, increasingly becoming happy bedfellows,
founder of the United Nations’ Ethical as more fashion tastemakers are
Fashion Initiative, calls “responsible embracing sustainability as a fashion
fashion”, the idea that the value of a skirt, ideal. Cipriani’s list of luxury partners
a shoe or a pair of pants lies as much in includes Vivienne Westwood, Stella
its origins, materials and the hands that McCartney and Sass & Bide. Models
made it as in its price tag or glossy ad are all over it, with Lily Cole designing
campaign. As Cipriani puts it: “Beauty eco-friendly trainers and Amber Valetta
is always linked to responsibility.” running an online ethical fashion
Beauty is a key word, and one with boutique. Colin Firth’s wife, Livia, is
which fashion has always been obsessed. even encouraging Hollywood to take
Sydney-based product designer and up her Green Carpet Challenge.
upcycler Liane Rossler said recently in Ethical fashion consultant Melinda
The Australian, “No one wants to support Tually says the garment factory disaster
modern slavery. I mean, are you going at the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh last year,
to feel glamorous in a new dress if you where 1133 workers were killed and many
know someone suffered to make it?” more injured, was a game changer. “That
But how does beauty sit with forced many in the fashion industry to
sustainable fashion, which has a engage in the conversation about working
reputation for being, dare I say it, conditions,” she says. ►
september 2014 | 107
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Fast and fair?
Italian Vogue’s editor Franca Sozzani Can fast-fashion retailers be sustainable,
agrees: “You know, we will never forget
that. What happened in Bangladesh is
ethical and responsible? H&M, the world’s
not sustainable. So factory culture is the second-largest clothing retailer, thinks it can.
first thing we as an industry must change.”
There is plenty of good news, however. BY SARAH NORRIS
Tually points to outdoorwear brand
Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles, which H&M reportedly made sustainability at the customer level, as
looks at how its cotton is grown, its wool about $2.7 billion profit well as production and value change.”
and down harvested and how finished last year. That translates Working with WWF, H&M has
goods are shipped. Nudie Jeans has to a lot of clothing, and begun to tackle issues of water
a commitment to Fair Wear-accredited that makes H&M’s aim scarcity in areas of its Asian
producers and organic cotton supply, of being a leader and operations, a plan that builds on the
as has Stella McCartney to vegan a catalyst for industry change successful Better Cotton Initiative it
accessories. H&M has even made a even more ambitious and surprising. Yet joined in 2005 to address water-use
commitment to pay producers a fair it’s what the company has set out to do issues at the product source. It locks in
‘living wage’ by 2018, and is pouring for the past 10 years, launching H&M a commitment for the company to use
money into organic cotton and recycled Conscious Collection and a number of 100 per cent cotton from sustainable
polyester [see box, opposite]. “Brands environmental and ethical initiatives that sources by 2020. (At the moment that
prioritise the use of sustainable materials figure is 15.8 per cent.)
and improve the conditions of the people Helmersson doesn’t deny these
who make its clothes. initiatives are driven by cost. “One of
factory culture H&M — a company with 3300 stores the reasons we manage to keep our
is the first in 54 countries — has also partnered with costs down is because we are cost
key lobby groups such as the Sustainable conscious across the whole process,”
thing we as an Apparel Coalition, and also works with she says. “But [with these policies] we
industry must organisations including UNICEF, WaterAid are thinking long term. Of course organic
and CARE. H&M say it’s so it can deliver cotton is more expensive… but as
change. more fashion choices that are good for availability grows and we increase our
people, the planet and our wallets. demand, prices tend to drop a little.”
“” “We were pioneers within the field
in many ways when we began this
Helmersson adds: “We’re a big
company, we can put the resources and
are realising there has to be more process in 2005,” says H&M’s investment into these materials to
transparency in their supply chains across head of sustainability, Helena start the process because in
the board, from an environmental and a Helmersson. “We’re the only the long run, it will really
labour perspective,” says Tually. “What company working with make a difference.”
we need is more customers to demand it.”
Maiyet is the rare high-end fashion
house that has good ethics in its DNA. (clockwise
from top) H&M
In a former life, founder Paul van Zyl was Gold singlet,
an international human rights lawyer $19.95; Sol
jacket, $99.95,
who sat on South Africa’s Truth and and embellished
Reconciliation Committee. “Through my jumpsuit, $99.95;
cream jacket,
work I became convinced that while part $69.95; magenta
of what makes a successful country is top, $29.95, and
shorts, $29.95.
justice, rights and laws, part of it is also
making sure that people are able to lead
dignified lives through work and
opportunity,” he says. “Without that there’s
a risk to stability, because you get an
angry, marginalised, disaffected people.”
If fashion seems like a big leap for
van Zyl, consider this: “When I travelled
I saw two things,” he recalls. “Firstly,
there are a lot of people at the bottom ►
virginaustralia september 2014 | 109
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KOWTOW Beautiful fair trade organic
LOOK GOOD, cotton basics for men and women
FEEL BETTER designed in New Zealand and
sustainably made from ‘seed to garment’.
These brands make a stylish, www.kowtowclothing.com.
sustainable difference. PEOPLE TREE The original. Fabulous
ALAS Kelly Ekin’s socially and multi-label store founded in 1991 by
(clockwise from
ecologically responsible Australian Safia Minney, who just so happens to be
right) Stella Jean
SS2014 collection; sleepwear brand. Even the packaging CEO of Fairtrade in the UK. It was leading
Bhalo top and skirt; ethical fashion before it was even a
Toms plaid Paseos is recyclable. www.alasthelabel.com.
shoe; Kowtow BHALO Perth’s ‘slow fashion’ leader. phrase. www.peopletree.co.uk.
‘Solid Light’
collection; Alas Think hand-loomed fabrics and an ROOPA PEMMARAJU Melbourne-
make-up pouch and eco-designed factory partner that uses based, Bangalore-born designer working
pillowcase.
recycled water. www.bhaloshop.com. with Indigenous Australian artists to
CARLIE BALLARD Easy basics in create extraordinary textile-driven
hand-woven and organic cotton fabrics, collections. www.roopapemmaraju.com.
ethically produced by Indian artisans. STELLA JEAN Another Ethical Fashion
www.carlieballard.com. Initiative darling, this Milan-based
DURO OLOWU Upscale Nigerian-born, designer’s beautiful prints are made by
London-based designer producing artisan weavers and embroiderers in
collections in Burkina Faso thanks to Africa. www.stellajean.it.
a partnership with the UN’s Ethical TOMS US shoe brand behind the One
Photography: Amanda Shadforth, Flora Hanitijo, Georgia Blackie, Getty Images, ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative, Sky Rainforest Rescue, Tahir Karmali
Fashion Initiative. www.duroolowu.com. for One campaign — every time it sells
HONEST BY One hundred per cent a pair of shoes, it donates one pair to a
transparent, eco-friendly luxury brand by child in need. Since 2006, it has given
ex-Hugo Boss art director Bruno Pieters. away more than 10 million pairs of shoes
www.honestby.com. in 60 countries. www.toms.com.
of the pyramid who lack access to basic
goods, services and jobs. Secondly,
many of them have extraordinary skills,
but those skills are often trapped in
their local markets.”
He decided that by helping to
establish a market for these skills,
he could make a real difference, so he
tapped the likes of Richard Branson
for funding and launched Maiyet as
a luxury womenswear brand in 2010.
The label is headquartered in New
York under the creative direction of
Kristy Caylor, formerly of Gap Inc.
Since its runway debut at Paris Fashion
Week in 2011, it has received glowing
accolades from the fashion press. You
can now shop for Maiyet’s glamorous
clothes, shoes, bags and jewellery in
some of the most prestigious stores
in the word. They don’t come cheap,
but nor should they. Maiyet’s cachet
is down to both style and substance.
“I think that in a world of disaffection
about mass brands, people are wanting
to see integrity, transparency and
meaning in the brands that they buy.
That’s the way things are headed,” says
van Zyl. “This is just the start.”
110 | virginaustralia september 2014
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