Historically, fair trade has pitch to and sold thanks to consumers' guilt. A grave mistake as the currently ongoing consumption trends show. Quality, exclusivity is what has survived the economic downturn best.
Recently, my colleague Ilaria Pasquinelli and I had the opportunity to participate in a, generally speaking, consumer facing product showcase and trade show.
For the purpose of this research, we built an interactive task which required the visitors to cut off one of their garment labels (i.e. the washing instructions), and then pin it to a map attached to a cork board according to 2 dimensions:
– ‘Made in‘: Where the garment was manufactured.
– ‘Made from‘: What the primary material the garment was made of.
On May 24th 2020 Rio Tinto blew up the Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Australia, which ancestors of the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people occupied over the course of 46’000 years.There are a multitude of lessons to be learned from the entire process that lead to the disastrous blast of a site of such archaeological importance. But also from how the scrutiny in its aftermaths and the have been.
Here a selection of just a few to think about.
A phenomenon: National borders segregate markets. Ethical fashion brands don't know much about what is happening abroad.
2nd of 2 part posts, incl. event listing.
Ture Cost Accounting (TCA) requires the quantification of not only the environmental services of our ecosystem, but also the social benefits corporations rely their activities on. With Puma's Environmental Profit & Loss Accounts, the EcoIndex Beta, and the Higgs Index, the apparel industry is at the leading edge in this area.
Mid last year, an interesting campaign piece was delivered to my mailbox: London based Offset Warehouse launched a capsule collection of T-shirts retailing at £4.99 (app. Euro 6, plus P&P). Now, the point is, that even if these T-shirt were sold through a major retailer, they would hardly have retailed at more than £10 - and this at a vastly superior quality then is often case.
As I write this, it is late April.
And our lessons from the last few weeks in Corona lock down and the impact of the pandemic on our communities and societies, all over the world, have thrown an even harsher light onto some of the realities we either assumed as a given, or worked hard to change for years already.
And the lessons have been truly tough medicine.
In the last post I wrote about one of the most historic inter-governmental landmark decisions: At the ‘Biodiversity’ COP (COP15) 200 countries had agreed on 4 Goals and 23 Targets.
It goes without saying though that the interesting piece is the enforcement and implementation mechanisms of the mentioned agreement.
Hence, the focus of this article is: How exactly – if at all – will the goals and progress measures reached in December 2022 be enforced and tracked?
Since the moment that Burma's opposition Leader, Aung San Suu Ky, was released from her decade of house arrest it was clear: Nothing would remain the same.
In Europe, SMEs make up 99% of all companies, and provide 67% of employment a much higher percentage of jobs in developing countries.
Research has shown that they generate around 50% of the private sector’s turn over, and that SMEs contribute at least 80% to the national GDPs.
Yet less than 20% of policies, government investments etc. are made with them in mind.
When will Corona 'be over'? never. There are historical moments when the future changes direction. We call them bifurcations. Or deep crises. These times are now. Matthias Horx discusses what that means concretely.
Strategical setting, structure and goals of the Uniqlo-Grameen joint venture.
6th of an article series that analyses Uniqlo and why it joint forced with Bangladesh's Grameen Bank.
The world ‘at the other end’ of the Corona tunnel could never be the same as before. It could be so much better than ever – with a real opportunity to put it on the rails that will make it the place we desire it to be.
Or: it could be same, but indeed worse place then ever. Where past misbehaviours is ignored at best, OK’ed at worse.
The design stage is usually the longest, most expensive and riskiest part of the chain. Additionally, research has shown that at least an estimated 80% of a product's environmental (and to a lesser degree also social) impact is locked at the design stage into a product. By integrating the product design with the supply chain, companies can compress non-value adding time and costs in their supply chains, increase responsiveness and mitigate supply chain risks – while simultaneously managing (improving) their sustainability performance without added costs or efforts.
As part of a workshop given at the Textile Exchange 2013 conference, we ran a small survey among workshop participants in order to find out more about their perception of and experience with Scenario Planning. Here the survey results.
Nigeria’s textile industry used to be – possibly still is – the African continent’s third largest after that of Egypt and South Africa. For one reason or another, the first two are fairly well established among brands of all colours and types as potential – and actual – sourcing destinations. Egyptian cotton is well renowned, as is their industry for jersey goods. Also ‘Made in South Africa’ is not uncommonly found in clothing labels.
2045: scenarios for the textile and fashion industry: How will the industry look like in 5, 10 and 30 years time? Scenarios offer research-based insights, and potentially can show how realistic a world is, that looks rather quite different from what we're used to. What if Asia become today's Europe? What if we did not buy to own? What if everyone was a maker?
Does sustainability, or not, impact share price? Does it, or not, make for a profitable bottom line business case? Does it, or not, help increase efficiencies? Here the insights from research, and what they mean.
When looking underneath the surface of the Japanese fashion industry, a fundamental shift is taking place: Production is shifted back to the Japanese home land.
With Sao Paulo Fashion Week just closed I am here to write (again) about Brazilian fashion.
This time it is about an interesting project I got to know of personally, Projeto Contem, a private and independent initiative.
Projeto Contem is both a brand and a network of entrepreneurs working in textile and fashion as well as in food, beauty, design, arts, music and cinema.