Fair Fashion
Last updated 15/12/2008 14:04:24
This week, Fashion Made Fair hosted an event at The Boilerhouse in East London.
The event showcased ethical, sustainable, fair trade and eco brands, who presented current collections, samples, stock and past seasons stock to those consumers looking to buy fashionable clothes that have been made in factories paying fair wages, using organic cotton and prohibiting child labour.
Around 25 companies joined the event, including ladies fashion brands Katherine Hamnett, Amoosi and People Tree, as well as Cyclus who make bags from recycled inner tubes in Colombia, and Greenknickers, underwear made from organic cotton, organic hemp and bamboo.
I really enjoyed watching ‘Blood Sweat and T-shirts’, the BBC3 show aired recently. The show sent six young fashion addicts to experience life as factory workers in India, making clothes for the British high street. The six work in the cotton fields alongside Indian workers, process the cotton, and then go on to work in the mills of India’s cotton belt and stitch clothes in cramped back rooms, sleeping next to their sewing machine.
All six participants come back with radically changed views on the fashion industry. They embarked on their journey not thinking twice about who made their fashion clothing before they went, quite happy to throw away an item of clothing once worn, only thinking of how to dress to impress. After their Indian experience, they each vowed to check the labels on their clothing, buy fair trade only, and think hard about where their pounds are spent in the high street.
The Fashion Made Fair event was widely publicised on green websites www.treehugger.com and www.hippyshopper.com, and while it inevitaby struggles to compete with London Fashion Week and Clothes Show Live, it is a sign that the Fair Trade message is getting across. Let’s shout from the hills, girls…..