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Fashion Revolution and a sustainable-ish life

written by Kate

Fashion Revolution has rolled around again, can you believe it’s been 7 years? Last year I wrote about the big issues in fashion, and the year before that it was on whether we need a sewing revolution .

This year, I’m going back to basics with the motivation behind #fashrev and the “who made my clothes / fabric / fibre” message. For me, it boils down to two basic things that go hand in hand: privilege, and consumption.

Privilege and income levels

The Covid-19 crisis really highlights our level of privilege in what is often referred to as the “global North”. We have the ability to continue working at home in what’s considered non essential services. One of us is a salaried employee and the main daily worry is the big kid being bored.

In the global North, under normal circumstances, high levels of disposable income allows consumers to have the purchasing power to buy stuff they don’t need. Some call it affluenza. There’s enough demand for clothing that there’s plenty of competition amongst fashion brands for the dollars in our wallet. The result? Mass production in low-cost countries.

To tempt you into buying stuff, marketing then kicks in. This is typically about making things desirable and creating a fantasy so you feel like buying that thing will improve your life somehow. With the subliminal message that if you don’t have it, then you miiiight be feeling a little inadequate or left out.

A man, woman and child toss “disposable” items into the air, 1955. Peter Stackpole—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Consumption drives business

But can we blame fashion brands for overconsumption habits? Business is business, and the point is to sell you as much as possible. Whether it’s in fashion, sewing, electronics, whatever… obsolescence is key to retail.

Also – which comes first, the fact that consumers are demanding more product, or that brands are over producing? It’s a bit of chicken and egg don’t you think? At this point I would not say it is any brand’s “fault” that they are trying to make money, whether it’s in fashion, sewing, – that is the reason that they exist! So for me, boycotting is not always that useful as it doesn’t encourage change in behaviour. Rather, I’d prefer to buy from the more sustainable ranges or brands to increase demand.

But watch out for greenwashing and check what brands are saying!
Quick example – I read on a brand site the other day that organic cotton is biodegradable compared to “regular” cotton because it is a natural fibre. Sorry since when is it only “organic” cotton that is biodegradable?! Also let’s remember there’s not enough land in the world for everyone to buy organic cotton at the same rate as they do conventional cotton…

So for Fashion Revolution am I meant to ask “who made my fibre”?

A better question would be, “how do I want to approach my wardrobe?” There’s no right answer and you can’t do everything so you have to decide whatever “sustainable” means to you. In the past, I have spent a lot of concentrated time on reading and writing a lot about fibres. Heck, I’ve even looked at becoming a full on “sustainable” fabric shop! But that’s just one small angle. Here are some other angles to consider depending on your area of concern:

Chemicals/pesticides etc –> 1) organic fabrics. But careful with this too, organic doesn’t mean chemicals aren’t allowed, just different ones. Read the GOTS standard to find out. PS – did you know that hydroponic tomatoes aren’t allowed to be labelled organic because they aren’t grown in soil? Even if the efficiency of hydroponically grown tomatoes in greenhouses is more than soil-based growing. 2) Lyocell (trade name Tencel™) over viscose. Or avoid viscose where you can, here’s why.
Low waste approach –> deadstock or fabric with recycled content.
Social justice –> small brands who care about this will have a lot of transparency and share their maker stories with you
Concerned about everything? –> buy nothing

Fashion Revolution I made your fibre poster — What do we know about the person that holds up this poster?

But I like buying stuff…

If it’s a good purchase that is special / gets used / carefully considered, then do it! As someone who works in sewing, I can tell you that the business objective is that you can buy patterns and fabric which enable you to make beautiful clothes that you love to wear. The idea is that if you put in the time and effort that goes into making something, you are more likely to wear it and keep it. (Remember the 30 wears slogan?). Whether it’s made from polyester, viscose … when it comes to sewing, these days I’d rather the low-waste-just-wear-it approach rather than get too hung up on fibre. Going to bring out the cotton raincoat / linen in winter example again as to where synthetics come in handy.

Sew many clothes.

Well, you have a lifetime to wear them all. And there’s also the mental health and enjoyment aspect to consider when it comes to craft. You could also make stuff for the home, for your family, for your friends ….

As a small sustainable brand owner (Bean & Ted uses deadstock and organic fabrics), I can tell you that businesses concerned with sustainability have their heart in the right place. Even if they sometimes unintentionally greenwash, the aim is to give consumers options to buy better and provide as much transparency as they can.

Sustainability isn’t only thinking about your clothes for one week per year.

Clothing wise my preference is to sew my stash, repair or remake my stuff. My mister is the most sustainable clothing person I know and wears the same t-shirts for 10 years. Our big kid wears me-made, and the baby wears the stuff he’s outgrown, or samples I make for my small brand beanandted.com which uses deadstock and organic cotton. And we use cloth diapers in the daytime.

Fashion Revolution is just as good a reminder to check in with daily life habits as well, and I think my approach is pretty moderate for sustainability. I don’t deliberately make my life exceedingly difficult, but I try to be a bit mindful and take a low-waste / less is more approach.

Broken electronics go to the repair shop until they tell me aren’t repairable any longer. We try hard to eat all the food that we buy (did you know that the Dutch on average throw away 8-11% of all the food purchased?) We are generally careful with sorting our recycling. I’m trying to figure out what keeps the birds and bees coming the garden, and teaching my kid about the outdoors and growing stuff. etc. It might all be small stuff, but it works for me.

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So there you have it, my two cents on Fashion Revolution this year and how it feeds into my sustainability thinking. Does Fashion Revolution trigger a stream of sustainability consciousness in you as well?

Till next time

Kate

April 21, 2020 2 comments

Fabric info Sewing Sustainability thoughts

Are natural dyes sustainable?

written by Kate

Natural dyes – another buzz term in the sustainable world and I’m starting to see it become more popular in the sewing world. Being sucked in by pretty pictures of Instagram feeds of popular natural dye bloggers and the experience of some of my sewing friends, I thought to do some experiments myself. But before that comes the research on the how-to, and I’m afraid that my conclusion is that natural dyeing is not an activity to be done on a regular basis in the name of sustainability.

Let’s dig in. Marketing can make anything look sexy and here’s the kind of pretty picture that sucked me in. I remembered my friend Pilar bought this book awhile ago, and in the interest of immediate reading I bought the ebook by the same author. From there, I moved on to less sexy looking natural dye webshops and websites, googling chemical names, and speaking to my chemical engineer friend.

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A post shared by Pilar ❤️ (@pilar_bear)

What is a “natural dye” anyway?

The “natural” in the term “natural dye” typically refers to the materials that do the dyeing – i.e. plants, as opposed to the unpronounceable synthetic chemicals you’d see in a Dylon dye for example.

Why natural? Well, it feels good to be using plants in your (or someone else’s) garden and things from food waste. Also, it’s unlikely to kill you. I’m referring to avocado skins/stones, pomegranate skins, onions, lavender etc. in terms of things that are generally accessible in daily life. Of course there are loads of other plants and trees used for dyeing which aren’t found in the average European garden (indigo for example) – humans have been using plant-based dye for thousands of years. A lot of these are available in extract form (powder) from webshops.

Anyway the point here is that I’d beware that the term natural automatically means good, even though a lot of us have been conditioned to subconsciously believe that. Every website recommends you wear gloves during your natural dyeing activities. And let’s not forget that not all plants and natural stuff are good guys, there is plenty of toxic stuff as well (arsenic anyone?)

Natural dyeing is still dyeing

…And still consumes resources. For home dyeing, the sustainability point feels just as bad to me regardless of whether you are using natural or synthetic. But “sustainable” is really your interpretation. If you dye something to a colour you like and then wear it to death, that might be more sustainable than buying something new. You decide.

My synthetic dyeing experience

Linen dress post-dye It’s stayed that colour for the last year since I dyed it.

Dylon home dye for me has been effective. In summer 2018 I dyed the above blue linen dress and since then it been washed SO many times – without any colour fade. Unlike the original navy of the linen which faded to the point of looking really old within a few months (thus prompting the dye experiment). Note this was also Merchant and Mills linen which is not cheap! I remembered just before the dye exercise to take an un-pretty before picture with my phone. You can see the fade lines after not a lot of wash/iron/wear.

What didn’t feel good was that it did require me to buy 500g of salt to go with the dye. That’s 4 small supermarket shakers of salt for 1 piece of fabric. And all of the salt went down the drain. Not to mention the water to rinse off the excess dye particles.

The next time I dyed something was with a Dylon pod which went in the washing machine, and I made some black faded clothing “intense black” again. Like the hand dye, it worked great. I don’t know how much water the machine uses vs what I used for the hand dye. But I did have to run another full machine cycle afterwards, and scrub the seals which were stained with black.

How to use natural dye

Natural dyeing at home is much more a faff than something like Dylon. You still need to use water, and in many cases, a synthetic chemical boost is needed depending on the choice of plants. Additionally, there’s often talk of different techniques to avoid colour fade and needing to take special care post-dyeing. Here’s the basic dye process.

Clean fabric – using a regular washing machine cycle, or soaking with soda ash (sodium carbonate).
Pre-treat fabric – if needed, soak it in a chemical solution or soy milk to make the fabric absorb the dyestuff better and “fix” the colour (more on this below). After soaking, the excess moisture then needs to be spun out in a washing machine, or fabric might need washing again depending on what you used to soak.
Dye fabric – in a pot with water and choice of dyestuffs, and apply heat. Once dyed, rinse again.

Chemical use in natural dyes

Chemical is a word you’ll never see used in marketing. With natural dyeing, step 2 above on pre-treating fabric is referred to as “mordanting”. I’ve used the term pre-treatment because whilst it’s common to call soy milk a mordant, experts like guru Jenny Dean will say it is isn’t a “true” mordant as the soy doesn’t form a chemical bond. Rather, the soy milk might be a good sizing agent to help absorption. This is an important differentiator because it’s about how well the dye will “stick” to your cloth and what colours you get. You can see on Jenny’s website how the effects of the dye differ depending on mordant choice.

Update 20/1/2020 – an Instagram commenter was unhappy that I wasn’t explicit enough in stating that not all dyes need a mordant. For absolute clarity, the way I understand it is that there the use of mordants/pre-treatment depends on the fibre type and the dye. Soy milk is often used for cellulosics as a natural alternative to alum, whereas protein fibres might not need a mordant at all. But is it better from a sustainability perspective to be making or buying soy milk, compared to using a few grams of powdered alum? I wouldn’t know, though I suspect it’s a bit like baking a cake. To have aeration, you could use baking powder, bi-carb, whipped eggwhites, a combination of stuff. There are many ways to yield a similar result, you decide what works best for you.

A nice flatlay (not by me) of soy milk, courtesy of Unsplash. Feeling inspired to try dyeing?

Common mordants are metallic salts of chromium, tin, iron, copper, and aluminium. Chromium and copper were common as well but usage “has declined due to toxicology concerns” according to this article. One of the most popular mordants you’ll see is potassium aluminium sulfate. Because my eyes glaze over when I look at chemical names (I barely passed chemistry in high school), I asked my chemical engineer friend about it. He checked the Material Safety Data Sheet which said this is a stable and non-flammable chemical, but still requires protective gloves when handheld. Kind of kills the flowers and butterfly vibes evoked by the term “natural dye”, no?

So are natural dyes sustainable or not?

On a home level, I’d say to do natural dyeing for the fun of it – not because you want to be sustainable. Besides time, you need a lot of water and energy with the soaking, rinsing, washing, heating on the hob, and use of your washing machine. And as someone who grew up drinking soy milk, it seems like a bit of a waste to be buying or making it for the purposes of soaking fabric, and then chucking it out.

A former fashion lecturer of mine said if you really want to be sustainable with any kind of dyeing then bag up 10m of fabric and send it to a dye house – at least they have the proper infrastructure for disposing of wastewater etc. from a dye bath.

She also told me that on a commercial level, you don’t see natural dyes much. If you’ve gotten this far in the post, you can already see why, right? 1) Synthetic dyes perform more predictably than natural ones. 2) Fashion in general has a very high demand for colouration of textiles. 3) Finally, is growing plants for dyeing purposes really a good use of resources?

Leave it to you to consider. I’m actually going to a natural dye workshop to find out more about the process and ask questions, so if my views on this change, I’ll update this post. And of course I’ll write another post covering the workshop!

Till next time,
Kate

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January 17, 2020 10 comments

Fabric info Sustainability thoughts

Should my choice of fibre to make clothes be top priority?

written by Kate

One of the most common questions I get from friends, family, random emails in my inbox is about the choice of fibre for clothing. I had it again the other day so I thought I would write about my thought process behind my standard answer to this. The question usually goes something like this:

“Is this <insert fibre/fabric> sustainable?
“I don’t know which fibre to choose for project X. Can you help?
“I think <insert fibre/fabric> is sustainable. Where can I buy it?

My answer always involves two elements: 1) there is no such thing as the most sustainable fibre (refer to my blog post about the most sustainable textiles here). 2) I would choose functionality and use over fibre sustainability.

I actually like getting these kinds of questions because it shows that individuals want to think about what they are using to sew. Unfortunately, for me to give an accurate answer tends to put people off or put sustainability in the “too hard basket” – because guess what? There is no black and white answer and I would be lying if I told you that there was.

Why the choice of fibre is not my top priority

Update 13 September 2020: the way I sew is not the biggest action I can take as an individual against climate change. Transport and diet are far more important. See Grace’s blog post here (she’s an environmental scientist that cares about data and truths).

Fashion Revolution #30wears challenge

There are alarming statistics about how little we wear our individual items of clothing. Whilst we might think it is more applicable to the non-sewist than sewist, I think we’ve all had our share of sewing fails that don’t make the 30 wears cut. But really, the most sustainable garment is the one that’s already in your closet. Having said that we know it’s not practical to buy or make nothing. In which case I’d suggest the love-it-use-it test is most important. After all, what’s the point making something super mindfully from a sustainably produced fibre if it’s not suitable for the project? You probably won’t get much joy out of the end result.

Image credit: Fashion Revolution fanzine #2 loved clothes last

As an aside, a friend of mine asked me just the other day about fleece alternatives for a dinosaur beanie requested by her 5-year-old. My answer: if you already have the fleece, he likes it and promises he will wear it, then just use it! Truthfully I couldn’t think of anything else to suggest given the circumstances. In terms of fabric, for example, cotton jersey/interlock would be too floppy. Too much interfacing would make the beanie too stiff. Wool is probably going to be scratchy on the forehead. You get the idea.

There is no right answer when it comes to “sustainable” fibres

Whilst some fibre types in the same family lend themselves to comparison (e.g. viscose vs lyocell), for others it would be like comparing apples and sushi (e.g. cotton vs leather).

Synthetics are one category of fibre that some purists love to hate. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – when I’m riding a bike I’ll take a polyester raincoat any day over a cotton canvas one any day. It’s lightweight, more windproof and dries quicker in case of heavy rain.

Also spare a thought for if you ever wear or sew with jersey. If you want stretch, then you need the nylon (elastane) to ensure you have some recovery (i.e. so it doesn’t stretch out and stay that way). But Kate! What about microplastics? you say. Yes, I know there is a microplastic problem and I’ve decided to keep my clothes for longer and wash them less than avoid synthetics completely. But that’s my personal opinion, it might not be yours.

Finally, if you’re buying something “sustainable”, the term generally applies to the way that something is manufactured. How long you choose to keep/use something, care for it and then dispose of it has a big impact on the sustainability profile of that item.

Individual piety doesn’t change the world

That’s Clare Press (sustainable fashion journalist) quoting Australian economist Richard Denniss in her book “Rise and Resist”. It’s not just Richard in this camp – Extinction Rebellion co-founder Clare Farrell also said the same thing to me once. But if it is true that individual actions don’t matter, then why do we even bother? Because counterintuitively, the opposite is true. If we ALL engaged in some kind of collective action, that has an impact. But we can’t collectively engage if individuals aren’t engaged right? A bit chicken and egg in my mind.

The flip side – why you might want to care about your choice of fibre

Fibre choice may be one way that you choose to engage in sustainability. Maybe you don’t want to use thrifted fabric or you can’t find anything you like. Maybe you prefer to buy the prints that you like and use up every scrap in various projects. Whatever the reason, you want to buy new fabric – so you think you should buy better. Great! Then choose something that is produced more sustainably if you can – bearing in mind that fibre sustainability is not clear cut.

What do I mean by this? Well, in the absence of any widely accepted fibre sustainability ranking, you need to choose what you are passionate about. If you want to be anti- plastics, avoid synthetics. Worried about pesticide use? Choose organic. Does it all seem too hard? The fashion industry has come up with some rankings and indexes on the sustainability of fibres. But these should be treated with caution.

A note on using fibre sustainability ranking lists and indexes

The benchmark that I have found easiest and clearest to understand to laymen like you and I was developed by a consultancy called Made-by. Whilst the firm doesn’t exist anymore, as recently as last year I still saw it being quoted as a source of info. But the benchmark is not without problems. Besides being quite a few years old (I want to say 2012 but I’ve lost the original file now except the picture), the basket of measures on which is based is determined by the consultancy – so entirely subjective.

Another index is the Higg MSI. This looks at the impact of materials production. In contrast to the Made-by list, Higg will tell you that linen has a higher impact than cotton, with viscose having a lower impact than both linen and cotton. This goes against all kinds of conventional sustainable fashion wisdom which tells you that linen is preferable to both cotton and viscose.

The point is that depending on what measures you use and what you perceive to be the real problem areas (do you think the environmental impact of agricultural is worse than extracting oil from the ground?), what is sustainable to you is going to be different to what it is for me. At least by making a choice, you’re sticking with the principles that you believe in.

I care about my choice of fibre but it’s not my top priority

I love clothes and fabric, so fibre choice is one way I try to engage in living a more sustainable life. But I have a lot of clothes. So it is just as important (if not more) to me to get the best use out of them, which means thinking about use. Ultimately it is just personal choice. There are so many things I could better in terms of an eco-friendly life (transport, diet) that I don’t think it’s worth being overly stressed about fabric choice!

Want to think more about the most sustainable textile debate? Click here to read my interview with Dr Mark Sumner from Leeds University on what is the most sustainable textile to buy. Spoiler alert: there isn’t one.

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December 6, 2019 12 comments

Recycling and waste Sewing Sustainability thoughts

The sustainable tote bag kit: now available for sale

written by Kate

Did you see my recent blog post on a recycled fabric collaboration? It’s available for sale: a DIY sustainable tote bag kit with all the sustainable sewing vibes.

*UPDATE 5 JAN 2020: BAG STRAPS ARE BEING RESTOCKED AND NAVY OR LIGHT DENIM COLOURWAYS ARE AVAILABLE (TEAL IS SOLD OUT)*

Order here

Here’s are a few pics from those who have made the navy version (reposted with their permission). I love the sashiko on Wilma’s one, and also the minimalist vibes of Annie and Alex’s ones!

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A post shared by Wilma (@vladivos)

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A post shared by Anne Blayney (@anniebeeknits)

And here’s my sewing bestie Alex @sewrendipity who tested the pattern, she also made the navy.

Price

Netherlands: €59 plus €6 tracked shipping – total €65
Rest of EU: €59 plus €9 tracked shipping – total €68
UK: £51 plus £9 tracked shipping – total £60

Payment is via bank transfer – there is no webshop at this moment seeing as quantities of these kits are so limited. If you live outside these locations please email me (kate@timetosew.uk) if you’d like a price/shipping quote in your local currency.

Full list of what’s included

0.5m fabric for the body and 0.35m chambray lining – each containing a proportion of recycled cotton/denim. Also: upcycled leather bag straps and leather “me made” label; organic cotton sewing thread; 2x sewing machine needles; interfacing and rivets for attaching the straps. A digital copy of the pattern via email.

What is sustainable about this?

Want to balance sewing in a more sustainable way, whilst still having fresh fabric and sewing nice things that are actually useful? Me too. So I came up with this:

1. Recycled fabric

The fabric is woven by Annemieke of micro mill Enschede Textielstad in the Netherlands. It is a blend of recycled cotton or denim, together with wool, viscose and virgin cotton. This fabric is not available to buy anywhere else and not available in yardage form. You can read more about it here.

2. Upcycled leather

Naomi Rachèl Timan is a Dutch bag designer and exclusively upcycles leather from old unwanted furniture. The leather straps for this kit are hand made. Together we chose pieces of leather to match the fabrics, then cut and sewed the straps in her studio with her antique industrial leather sewing machine. This is anything but your average leather straps from an online shop! Note that some straps are pieced together – this is due to the size of the pieces of leather available. PS – the leather labels are also upcycled, hand-stamped and hand-cut.

3. Zero-waste sewing pattern

I wrote a bag pattern especially to go with the fabrics, with step by step photo instructions (no printing required as you measure the pieces as shown in the cutting layout). It is designed to leave you minimal to no scraps by the time you finish sewing and makes the best use of the different colours in the fabric on the front and back. The bag fits an A4 notebook, laptop, purse, water, pockets and has lots of different design options. Sewing wise it is not difficult but it needs careful cutting and handling. Thus I would not recommend it as a first sewing project.

Some final pictures

So you can see the details (including the inside pocket) and the light denim fabric colourway.

Order your kit here

Can I buy the fabric in yardage form?

No, the fabric is available only via this kit. This is so you can try the fabric in small quantities without waste to make a finished useful project, and allows me to keep the price point reasonable.

November 6, 2019 7 comments

Fabric info Opinion pieces Recycling and waste Sustainability thoughts

Fabric production: choosing local or offshore?

written by Kate

Local or offshore production? Transparency in the fashion business is a funny beast. I love everything about apparel fabric and for the past few years I’ve always wanted to do something with fabric – but not in the traditional way. Every time I think of clothing or fabric production my autopilot mind heads offshore. Mostly Asia, but also Turkey, Poland or Portugal. The million-dollar question though: even if I know where my stuff is made, does it actually change whether I would buy it? Apparently I’m not the only one thinking about this:

“Have you become obsessed with looking at your tags to see where your stuff was made? …. why was this the case and what led the company to do their production there?”
Kestrel Jenkins, Conscious Chatter podcast

I start by thinking about my interpretation of local. For me, this is typically about smaller companies with a proportion of operations in-country. As opposed to a company that happens to be founded or headquartered here but outsources all production.

Clothing vs fabric transparency

Transparency in terms of where clothing was made is a mainstay of sustainable fashion brands. The only high street name I know which makes a song and dance about transparency is H&M. Click on a product online and you’ll see the name of the factory where it was produced. Whilst it’s a positive initiative, is the average consumer going to track down the working conditions etc. of the listed factory? Do they care whether the label says Made in China or Made in Turkey? (or anywhere else?)

Finding the “where” is less easy when it comes to textiles in general (as opposed to RTW clothing). According to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), in 2018 the top textile exporting countries (all textiles not just clothing) were … *drumroll*…. China – by far the largest (no surprises there), followed by the European Union (no breakdown of specific countries). Then Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Turkey, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Cambodia, and the USA. In terms of top imports, the EU sits at the top of the list followed by the US and China.

How did we get to this situation?

The end of the WTO Multi Fibre Arrangement in 2004 meant that quotas on clothing/textile exports from developing countries were lifted. You’ll hear it reported that this was a key reason for the death knell of manufacturing in Western Europe and the USA. Not to say that there isn’t any manufacturing left, but there is no doubt that it has dwindled due to cheap labour elsewhere. (I could write a whole essay on this but not today).

However, fast forward 15 years and the situation is changing a little. Labour is no longer as cheap in top manufacturing countries and there is even talk about whether near-shoring of apparel manufacture is going to happen. A quote from an interesting report by consulting house McKinsey & Co last year (well worth a read if you have time/interest – link below):

79% of respondents in our survey believe that a step change in nearshoring for speed is highly/somewhat likely by 2025.
McKinsey & Co, “Is apparel manufacturing coming home?” – October 2018

Why I choose local over offshore (where possible)

Given the manufacturing situation in Western Europe, finding fabric that is locally produced has for me always found a bit of a challenge. (Less so for clothing as small sustainable fashion brands do the work for you). And even if the fabric is marked Made in Italy or Made in the UK, what do you really know about it? There have been some pretty shady stories about local manufacture as well which I’ve linked below. Instead, I’ve typically gone for the deadstock / second hand / small independent fabric store route where I feel I can connect with the person running it.

When I then decided to look at fabric production and sourcing, my research told me that selling fabric is a volume game where offshore, large volumes or trading deadstock wins if you want to be really commercial about it. Doesn’t mean to buy sell fabric that way is a bad thing, just that it wasn’t going to be my thing.

Which is why I really feel strongly about being able to put out something for sewists with my recycled fabric project with Enschede Textielstad (launching next week!) The fabric will only be available as part of a kit. Here’s a sneak peek where you can see both sides of the same fabric in the teal colourway. And yes, the leather is upcycled and local as well.

Recycled fabric project involving upcycled leather – available for you next week

Factors to consider in the local vs offshore production debate

But I digress. Continuing with the theme of things to think about with local vs offshore:

1. It is often not possible and/or financially feasible for retailers to source locally manufactured products.

There needs to be a demand for a product at a price point that people are willing to pay. The labour cost and the standards of living in Western Europe mean that products manufactured here are likely to be higher priced (unless there’s a lot of scale). The cost of wholesale then makes it hard for the retailer to make a living.

On the flip side, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any local craftsperson say that they don’t work hard for a limited amount financial return. Especially if they make things themselves and don’t outsource, then they don’t have a scalable business.

2. Local doesn’t always mean better.

True story. Heard about exploitation in the UK? The Environmental Audit Committee work into fast fashion this year heard evidence about garment workers in Leicester being paid less than UK minimum wage. And in Italy there can apparently be some pretty shady practices as well, read about that here.

3. Textile and clothing production is a mainstay of some economies

What would happen to employment if brands suddenly stopped manufacturing in places with low-cost labour? This was a question put to Clare Farrell (co-founder of Extinction Rebellion) at a sustainable fashion event earlier this year where I invited her as a guest speaker. She was very straightforward in saying she had no answer for that (does anyone)?

FYI, one view put forward by Kalpona Akter (Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity) in the Autumn 2019 issue of Peppermint magazine was “we want these jobs with dignity” rather than a boycott which would mean loss of jobs.

What about ethical offshore production?

I’ve found more of a big deal being made of ethical production / social justice amongst sustainable fashion brands rather than fabric manufacturers. By social justice I’m referring to things like better working conditions, family-run factories, giving local artisans a global platform for their work etc.

Whilst I’m all for the social justice side, it makes me mad that sometimes the same brands massively greenwash on the eco side. I acknowledge that no one does things perfectly but I have boycotted brands before if I’ve received a dodgy (or no) email response from them when I’ve asked about their eco marketing and credentials.

Final words on local production

From where I stand, it’s about being selective. On the environmental side, it’s a nice idea that my stuff doesn’t have to travel that far to get to me. (This might be totally the wrong answer from a carbon perspective if production efficiency outweighs the transport.).

More significantly though, because local businesses are often smaller, I feel like there is a tangible economic impact on the local / regional economy. And if I live here and I’m in a position of privilege to support this, then why wouldn’t I?! Like everything sustainability-related though, it’s a decision for each individual to make on what matters and what you can feasibly do.

Click here to read about the fabric project woven with recycled yarns where production is in the Netherlands.

October 30, 2019 0 comment

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