Paris Ethical Fashion Show September 2010: D4 – Best of Brands - Pamela Ravasio

Yesterday: Paris Ethical Fashion Show September 2010: D3 – The colours of technology
Tomorrow: Paris Ethical Fashion Show September 2010: Conclusion – What is the make-up of successful ethical brands?

No B2B trade show can go without discoveries, either of known brands but that unknown to me, or of novelties. The fact that quite evidently the UK and French (continental European?) market do not know much about each other makes such discoveries even more interesting, and an ocean of learning, new insights, great designs and fascinating ideas.

Here now, very subjectively, MY favourites among the Paris Ethical Fashion Show exhibitors.

Chinese Designers by Eco Chic Fashions: http://www.ecochicfashions.com/
Eco Chic Fashions is actually an off-spring of the Hong-Kong registered charity Green2Greener. In Paris, they were present with designs by 5 young ‘green’ Chinese designers (yes, that does exist in China!). Eco Chic Fashions organises eco-fashion catwalks all over the world, however, their focus clearly set upon Asia and the fashion industry in strong manufacturing countries. Unfortunately, neither any of the designers or a member of the organistion was present. Yet, they’ve opened my eyes even wider to the fact that sustainable fashion is a global issue – and so is the community of designers that face the music and do their bit about it.
Dresses by the following designers where on display: Mary Ma, Johanna Ho, Lu Kun, COCOON, Stella Chen, Dorian Ho.

Deux Filles En Fil: http://www.deuxfillesenfil.fr/
Made of reclaimed leather (off cuts from various manufacturers), the bags, purses, business card holders etc, are ‘made to be self-made’. What would that mean? The two owners of the brand have developed an innovative approach whereby the piece of leather is re-cut and equipped with straps, latch holes etc, that all needed for it to become for example a bag is – reading the instructions. Or a bit of Origami skill.
The bags [purses, card holders, …] come in a range of colour. Each colour is a limited edition – as all is made of reclaimed leather, colours change with the supply of incoming leather. Brilliant design, reasonable prices, and each item in their product range thought through and practical.

Sakina M’sa: http://www.sakinamsa.com/
Sakina M’sa – the designer of her own label – is in many ways just one more of a group of relatively well known young designers in the French Fashion scene. Until recently.
In a collaboration unique to the French market, she received worn as well as yet unused blue factory work jump suits, and remakes them – using a patchwork approach – into dresses, skirts, jackets, vests, purses, cushions, bags and all sorts of other things. Nothing, not even the torn bits get wasted – every square inch of a blue jump suit is used for one product or another. And to be honest: Cool stuff throughout.

Veja: http://www.veja.fr
Veja makes – so one would think – a simple product: Sneakers, made of cotton or leather, with rubber soles.
But rather than to do it the cheap way, they use organic cotton, FT organic rubber, have the shoes made in a small FT factory in Puerto Allegre in Brazil. What’s more important – they do compensate their higher production costs by trying to be ‘good’ throughout, and have hence decided to not do advertisement.
And: they’re hugely successful with their designs. They are on sale all over the place in France, as well as from Scotland to the South of England. In London, Selfridges sells them, The Three Threads does, Albam in Beak Street, Diverse in Upper Street and Aqua in the Camden Passage. Notably: They have now a UK business branch, located in Shoreditch, East London.
Bottom line: Their shoes are really comfortable, and tick all the boxes when it comes to design – clear Wannahaves.

Sadhu http://www.sadhu.co.in
Like Ahilya at EstEthica, Sadhu was one of those insightful moments. The designer works with natural materials such as silk, bamboo, cotton and wool on the one hand, but more interestingly is his Pashmina range. Pashminas are by definition shawls that are hand spun and hand-woven in the Himalayas from Cashmere wool. In the present, only few artisans still know how to weave traditional patterns – a process that can take from 10 days upto a whole month, including the preparation work, for a single item. I loved Sadhu’s colour designs that he wisely knew how to combine with the traditional weaving patterns. And the soooooooftness of the shawls.