Changing the clothing industry

JuzaMum

Good luck

I prefer to by ethical products. Ethical clothing seems to often be too expensive or poor quality however I do have a lovely hemp dress that seems well made and was 'fair trade'. Lots of people with great ideas were laughed at. I truely hope you suceed.

DKLS

Doer wrote: »

Hi guys,


For a long time I felt powerless due to the circumstances of the clothing industry but now I'm thinking of starting my own clothing label to make an actual change. I always thought it was impossible but why would it be? I might not have the money or the expertise but the people who did failed to improve the industry in a way me and many other people would satisfy. So now I'm looking to start my own label and I don't want any dirt on my clothes. From cotton to production to transport.

In effect you are powerless, the sector has largely moved off shore and your model wouldn't work, I can guarantee the numbers simply wouldn't stack up.

Am not sure how helpful it is applying western standards and culture to working practices overseas, mate of mine setup a business designing,making and selling jewellery, extremely talented but he was always on the verge of going bust here.

He secured a small investment and decided to try a new model of, he designs and sells and a company in india manufactures. He went to visit a small artisan factory who had done some samples for him and discovered two children working there, initially he was horrified until it was explained that if these two didn't work their families would go hungry and siblings wouldn't go to school.

Since then he has invested some of his profits back into the area and built and funds small school and health clinic he set up systems so that the working kids can get an education and access to healthcare.

ahw23

Just to say that although this sounds very challenging, it surely isn't totally impossible? I'd cite People Tree as one fair-trade, organic and otherwise generally ethical brand that has kept going and even expanded while keeping a grip on its supply chain and prices. If anyone knows anything to their discredit then I'd like to know.

Ben84

I think there is a want for more ethical clothing. People think about this stuff. Naomi Klein wrote a book about it, and she's a big author now. I've seen various TV programmes over the years too. However, when I look for more ethical clothing, my choices seem to be quite sparse. So either there isn't enough out there, or it's not easily found. I'm unsure why there's this situation however, and wonder if it does imply that making and bringing these items to market has challenges?

Anyway, I'm also working towards setting up my own small business at the moment. I'm far from an expert, but a few things have occurred to me along the way.

If you don't have lots to invest (I really don't!) then at least it's going to drive you to find more efficient ways to do things and to be sensible with the money.

Also, I can greatly relate to the overwhelmed feeling. I think it's a sign you need to scale back the plan. You can't go from here to everything overnight. If I were going to set up an ethical clothing company, I'd be looking to eliminate as much as possible from 1961Nick's list, so I might be considering obtaining plain T-shirts from a reputable ethical company and adding my own artwork to them. Even getting that going is a lot of work for one person, but it does reduce the scale of the work to something more manageable and I imagine the cost of your custom additions would be far more manageable on a smaller scale, yet they would still have the potential to be unique. It does also reduce the design work to 2D images. With the right technology, you could even at first do the print applications yourself, and even on demand to avoid waste and stock sitting around. In contrast, supposing you were to set out to make a pair of jeans or handbag, I would expect that you'd need to pay a lot of money to get a whole item designed, and then the minimum order sizes combined with the ethical sourcing requirements would make it only workable on a large scale. I would not set out to do that from day one, but maybe you could one day with the right experience and resources get there. Tee-shirts are also lower cost items typically that people might be more willing to buy online without trying on in person first?

As people like to say, Rome wasn't built in a day. But, I suppose they had to start somewhere. It's good to think of plans, but they can get big fast and then they're too much to take on. Maybe the answer is to take out the key points and do them in a way you can access now? My T-shirt thoughts I'm sure are only one of the possible ways to do this.

ricey420

Good for you, have a go at it mate and don't let anybody put you off. Everybody starts somewhere.

Surveying operations will be costly, time consuming, unenforceable or all three.

If it's your thing, you could ensure that all supplies and manufacturing is in the UK. We have more stringent legislation in this area and you'd be directly affecting the British economy also.

If you make it big, invest in my town. We badly need it. :beer:

TheScarletPixie

I like to think what I do is ethical regarding the creation of my own clothing, I used to do this full time for a living but due to poor health only do it for myself now - simply re-cycle/up-cycle clothing into something better, at least you are saving items from landfil and then each garment is an original.