Be original and think before you throw.

Do you want a more ethical wardrobe? but can't seem to find any 'ethically made' clothes that reflect your style or your wallet, well have you thought about remaking clothes you already have?

Instead of throwing old clothes away you could re-fashion them and give them a new lease of life. Want a new jumper? then dig deep into your wardrobe and find one you already have and give it a new cut? colour? or design?

Would you consider doing this? or does the thought of a pair of scissors and your favourite jeans in one hand bring on a sweat? Well, you don't have to worry about ruining clothes by re-fashioning them yourselves. Traid are running workshops that you can join and learn how to embelish/cut and redesign old clothes. It's a good way to reduce landfill, shrink the carbon footprint and cut down on the use of new materials. Plus you get bask in the glory of knowing nobody will be wearing the same clothes as you!

So think before you throw and head down to Traid now. They are running FREE workshops that take place the second Thursday of every month, 6pm and 9pm at Traid Camden, 154 Camden High Road, London NW1 0NE. Book your place by emailing sewgood@traid.org.uk

H&M - Greening up their Act

Recently I came across an H&M advert in the paper – an eye catching yellow dress for only £14.99...and made from recycled polyester! How very eco-friendly their current sustainable style range is and there is something for both girls and guys! Keeping up with being green, their Spring Conscious Collection will actually be very white in colour.

When we think of eco-friendly materials, I for one automatically think organic cotton. H&M have been using organic cotton for a while and their aim is to increase the amount they use by 50% every year till 2013. They’re even committed to supporting cotton farmers to make the transition of using more environmentally friendly and sustainable methods of producing cotton, rather than to use fertilizers which are harmful to the environment and to health. But it’s great to see that they are using unconventional materials like recycled polyester made from PET bottles. Who would have thought you could get a dress from a plastic bottle!

Looks like H&M have made a u-turn since last year after a string of bad publicity for unethical practises. First of all they were in the news for cutting up unsold merchandise, next they were exposed for organic cotton fraud and, just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, a Bangladeshi factory that was supplying H&M caught fire killing 21 workers due to poor fire safety equipment.

Despite all of this, H&M seem to be making an effort to respect and help protect the environment. Though, I do wonder how they keep the costs of their clothing so affordable...let’s hope they’ve learnt their lesson and that I don’t have to blog about their labour practises in the future.

Image Credit: Tnarik on Flickr at Creative Commons

The perfect fit or a load of rubbish?

Let me tell you about a recent shopping experience of mine. Last week I tried on a pair of jeans in my usual size and they were a tad too tight around the waist (after effects of Christmas!) No big deal. I try on the next size up and they are too loose around the thighs. And to top it all off the person in the dressing room next to me has tried on the same pair of jeans and it was as if these were made for this person!

So, aside from the fact that I walk out of the shop a little defeated, the point is that mass produced and one size fits all clothes may produce a lot of waste, not only in the production stages, but also from piles of unsold clothes left behind as they aren’t a perfect fit for most people (like me!)

On the other hand, many of us are tempted by cheap prices and we are buying a 1/3 more clothing than we did 10 years ago! With trends like harem pants and baggy styles with lots of bits of material hanging off, even more material is being destined for a slow death in landfill, not to mention the dyes seeping through and the toxins being released, all damaging the environment.

But there may be hope! Designers are looking at ways to use new technology to design out waste. What does this mean? Basically, designing clothes so less material is wasted and that means less going to landfill. You can explore these new technologies and methods, such as made to measure clothing and making fabrics that are environmentally friendly, and whether they can be used to create style without waste at the ‘Trash Fashion – Designing out Waste’ exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

For more info on other exciting events, internship opportunities and the latest on ethical fashion, visit the news and events section of the Fashioning an Ethical Industry (FEI) website.

Chuddies* - Not just a piece of cloth

From February 2011, market traders in Ghana will be banned from selling second-hand underwear. Understandably there is the issue of hygiene to consider, but some of the market buyers insist that the underwear is disinfected and that shoppers will inspect the goods first. Click here for the full story.

Now I’m struggling to figure out where I stand on this. On the one hand I’m not entirely sure how I would feel about wearing used underwear, assuming they had been washed. But on the other hand would my opinion change if I just couldn’t afford to buy fresh new underwear? Or even a second-hand pair? What if I couldn’t even get hold of a clean sanitary napkin? Are you starting to cringe just thinking about it? Well think of how taboo the subject of female biological processes is in a place like India. During menstruation women in India resort to using all sorts of rags and this has serious health implications, including reproductive tract infection and other pelvic diseases.

However, one organisation in India is doing some amazing work with materials such as old underwear. In their initiative ‘Not just a piece of cloth’, Goonj recycles old cloth and rags lying around in the city and household clothing waste to produce clean and reusable sanitary napkins, amongst other things, for marginalised women in villages and slums. Environmentally friendly and sustainable! Click here to find out more about this fantastic scheme.

Let’s admit it, having fancy chuddies may probably be just as important as having the latest trainers and, perhaps, wearing second hand underwear may be unthinkable of. But for many around the world, when unwanted undergarments are recycled properly, it can be a sustainable and affordable option and, most importantly, it brings some dignity to their lives.

* Chuddies is an informal way of saying underwear in Gujarati

A different idea for a holiday

As the end of the year fast approaches (can you believe its already November??), think about getting a gift that makes a change to the world.

The Guardian published a great ethical fashion directory which lets you choose what to buy, and the best news? Its all ethical! Its from 2008 however, and lots of new names are popping up... do you know of any?

Let us know and we will give them a shout out...

Let your holidays be different this year! (Yes, we are already thinking of our holidays)

Green is the new Black

Here is a video I came across the other day, it features BBC radio presenter Nihal who had some very shocking statistics about chemicals and pesticides, which made me think, how many of us know where we buy our clothes from?.

Is the t-shirt you’re wearing made from organic cotton? If it’s not then you might be wearing a t-shirt laced with 150 grams of pesticides and fertilisers. If those pesticides and fertilisers get through to your skin then you stand a very high chance of dying! Who knew non-organic clothes could cause you so much damage?.

But it’s not just you being harmed. The video was shocking in that they said every year 20,000 people in the developing world were dying from being exposed to those toxics.

Watch this and tell me if you, like me, feel the price we pay is unfair based on what it means for the world.

Image Credit- Cividep India

Blog Action Day.

Today Naitika is taking part in Blog Action Day. This is an annual event that unites bloggers in posting about the same issue on a single day. Blog actions day's aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion about an important issue that impacts people around the world. This year's issue is water. Let's see how fashion is having a negative impact on water.

"We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world,"
- Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University.

We consume 145 litres of water a day which is enough to fill a large bath tub. Plus nearly everything we uses water. Everything from our jeans to our beer is made using water. 10,850 litres of water to be exact! 2 and half months worth of baths is how much water goes into making a pair of jeans, that you’ll wear a handful of times. And 2,700 litres goes into making a t-shirt.

Why is this a problem? Because the jeans and t-shirts that we wear come from developing countries that are running low on water resources. Some people in developing countries don’t even have access to clean running water, yet the countries are exporting large amounts of water out of their lands into ours and other developed countries, through goods like coffee, food, and clothes.

What we have to think about is what effect will this have in the future?

According to the BBC website “The world's population is expected to rocket beyond 8bn in 20 years time and the global demand for food and energy is going to jump by 50%, with the need for fresh water rising by 30%”

Are we going to have enough water left? Are people in developing countries who aren’t wearing jeans and t-shirts going to have to pay a price for our “Had to buy that” shopping habits?

A BBC report says “Developing countries are already using up significant proportions of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West”
This is why it is important to realise where our clothes are coming from and how they are being made. The more resources we use now the less we will have in the future.

Just think if we bought a pair of jeans to match every new trend how much water we would be depriving a developing country of and more importantly, jeopardising our own futures.

Help cut down on water usage by buying according to what you need, not what you want!

Say goodbye to £4 jeans

Looks like you may have to say goodbye to those cheap jeans and t-shirts whether you like it or not.

Recent floods in China and Pakistan have had a severe effect on crops. 4.25 million acres (25% of cotton crop) of land has been destroyed. This has raised the price of cotton from $0.1 to $0.83, the highest it has been in 15 years; forcing major retailers like Primark and Next to raise their prices.

To keep prices low a lot of retailers are going to start selling clothes made of man-made fibres. These include anything with ‘poly’ at the beginning of it. The resources and toxins that are released in this process produce ten times more energy than when producing a tonne of glass. Not only that but once you’ve finished with it, what will happen to it? It will go to landfill and release Methane for millions and millions of years!

Now is the time we start asking ourselves “do I need this” and reducing the excessive demand for clothes. When we cut down, the brand will worry and will be forced to put their prices up anyway. We can’t let the retailers start selling clothes made of man made fibres.

The more demand we create for clothes like this, the more our planet will suffer and takes us down with it!

Give your used plastic bag a purpose and turn it into a laptop case.

I’m sure all you dedicated Naitika followers will remember an article I wrote about how plastic bags are the enemy. I am sure you all got the fabric bags out after that, didn’t you!

Anyway if you haven’t then I suggest you go grab all of them because I have a great video that will show you how to turn that plastic bag into a laptop case!

The environment is suffering and to prevent our world from turning into a boiling hot star we should start by cutting down how much waste we send to landfill.

Plus who wants to have a laptop case that looks like everyone else’s? Go gaga on the laptop case and who knows you might even get the courage to do the same to your clothes!

A sari goes a long way

Ecouterre recently reported on women in India using their saris to filter water and protect against cholera.

We all know saris are long, bright, colourful pieces of cloth that extend up to 10 meters in length. What we didn’t know was that the same sari can save lives!

Cholera is a severe bacterial infection that can affect humans through contaminated water and food. The symptoms of Cholera include vomiting, diarrhea and can lead to death!

Folding the sari eight times over makes it better at catching dirt and disease that exist in pond water. A study found that over a 5 year period the cases of cholera were reduced by 25%.

Now that’s resourceful!

Fashion Passion event

As you know Naitika has been working with youth groups in and around the Leicester area, and one of those youth groups is the Rushey Mead girls group. They have spent the last few months learning about garment workers, the environment and ways of combating these issues through recycling. After many ideas and script changes they are finally ready to show the world what they’ve been up to.

The girls are going to be strutting down the runway with their recycled skirts and tops in two weeks time, when they finally get to perform their catwalk/drama show.

Shane Solanki a London based multi talented actor has channelled their talent, wit and charms into a performance which promises to be humorous and thought provoking at the same time. The girls are giving it all that they’ve got and WE are ALL expecting to see you there!

Come see this one-off fashion extravaganza, on the 1st of July at the Highfields Centre in Leicester, FIND OUT WHAT young people think of ethical fashion and get involved yourself!

For more details contact the Naitika office on 020 7065 0790 or you can drop us an e-mail at naitika@affp.org.uk

Here's a map so you know EXACTLY where to go!

Organic cotton? What’s the point?

When I’m looking for ethical clothes online, I tend to find a lot of shops selling organic cotton. But why is organic cotton more ethical?

I found that non-organic cotton uses a quarter of the world’s pesticides while organic cotton only uses 16%. Pesticides contain toxins that contaminate air and water, putting the farmers who have to use them at high risk of falling ill or dying. That’s not all...

• The largest producer of cotton is India, and according to the Environmental Justice Foundation in Andhra Pradesh, India, over 100,000 children have been documented working for 13 hours a day on cotton farms for not much more than peanuts.

• 7 of the top 15 pesticides are more than likely to contain carcinogens, which are known to cause cancer.

• Have you noticed that sometimes a non organic cotton wearer’s skin can get irritated and cause eczema? One of the reasons is because the chemicals in the garment are reacting or chaffing against the skin. People with sensitive skin have to be especially careful. So if you have found your skin getting drier and itchy, the finger of blame could be pointed to your t-shirt.

So why IS organic better than non-organic cotton? Non-organic cotton is bad for our skin, our environment, our health and the health of the people involved in the process.

So then, why do we use it? The answer to this is simple and the same answer we give for everything else, it is cheaper and faster to grow. Clothes are now in higher demand than in the last few years, but we forget that cotton does not grow as fast as we consume the clothes.

Should we continue the way we have been going, or do you think slowing down fashion and letting nature catch up with our thirst for more is worth it?

Perhaps this will help answer the question...

Frankie says Relax

Do you remember the “Frankie says relax” t-shirt? Well Katherine Hamnett was the brains behind it.

Her politically charged slogan based t-shirts have been high in demand ever since she introduced them in the 80’s.

When she discovered that conventional cotton agriculture was responsible for 10,000 deaths per annum from accidental pesticide poisoning, she decided to try and change the fashion industry from within. She launched the “Clean up or Die” collection which incorporated organic cotton into all her designs.

Katherine has lobbied hard for changes in the manufacturing process for all clothes to be ethical, but has struggled to bring about change. She too believes that the change needs to be demanded by the people who have the buying power. So her clothes carry messages that will hopefully trigger something that will make consumers change their ways.

“Shocked by what she saw in Africa, Katherine decided she had to be the demand for organic cotton and drive the demand, thereby helping farmer’s trade their way out of poverty”- Katharine Hamnett

As consumers we are always in control of what we are buying and it’s important to not forget that. It’s only when the public shows they care about the environment, will brands integrate the ethical philosophy into their products.

Do you think a political slogan on a t-shirt can influence change?

Image Credit- Fighting With Spoons on Flickr at Creative Commons 

Confused about what to do?... I am!

Spot the difference

Left: Finisterre Hoodie £90, Right: Topman Hoodie £20

As I started my day today at work, I did the usual: checking emails, reading the news and answering the phone. In between all that, I thought I would take a 5 minute break and see if there were any ethical online shops selling men’s blazers. Well, half an hour later I didn’t find a blazer but I saw this hoodie on Finisterre.

Finisterre were founded in 2002, the UK-based company has always tried to produce high quality athletic gear with the least amount of ecological impact. So they’re an ethical brand. This hoodie retails for £90. Here’s the shocking part. I have seen a similar one in Topman for £20!

They are almost similar in look, except the £90 hoodie on the left has been made with Finisterre’s philosophy of trying to make sustainable clothes to help preserve the world we live in. It is made from organic cotton / merino wool fabric.

And the Topman hoodie on the right is made from 50% polyester and 50% cotton. Polyester is a plastic, and manufacturing polyester burns large amounts of hydrocarbons and a significant amount of CO2 is released into the atmosphere. This is creating the greenhouse effect, and in turn spurs climate change on.

So there’s a dilemma, do I buy the cheaper one or the one, that will not have as much of a negative impact on the environment and is of better quality?

Which would you choose?

Nike: Ticks the right box

Not only has England actually made it to the World Cup this year but a very important issue has become a part of the great sporting event. Nike has produced environmentally friendly uniforms for the upcoming 2010 football world cup.

The kits are going to be made from discarded plastic bottles collected from landfills in Japan and Taiwan.

When I first read on Ecouterre about this, I was a tad confused. “How on earth are they going to pull that off?” Well the plastic bottles get melted down into yarn first and are then spun into fabric.

Each shirt is made from 8 plastic bottles. Apart from just saving on raw materials, Nike managed to reduce 13 million plastic bottles from the landfill which is enough to cover a football pitch 29 times over!

Nike seems to have grown a corporate conscience since the late 1990’s. It feels like just yesterday that a photo of a Pakistani boy stitching Nike footballs started making its rounds...

Image Credit- James Temple on Flickr at Creative Commons 

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

No one can pretend they have not heard of the ash cloud that disrupted our air travel, the repurcussions of which are still being felt. If all air flights one day got completely banned what would happen to our clothes? Garment export accounts for 80% of export earnings.

There is 1000 tonnes of Bangladeshi garments sitting at Dhaka airport. Should we be relying on another country for such a large amount of goods? What if air flights were banned forever, where would our clothes come from?

So many of the UK’s manufacturing services are outsourced. In the last ten years we have seen nearly every big company move call centres and factories off shore in an effort to drive down costs. It seems they accounted for every cost except the environmental cost.

Garment factories have been indicated as a good source of development for a poor economy. But in this vulnerable and volatile climate age should we be looking at other methods of development?

What do you think? Should we start making our own clothes here in the UK and let the people in India and Bangladesh make clothes just for the people in their country. It seems unfair that they have to make so many tonnes of clothes which they aren’t even going to wear. Let us hear your opinions.

Quench that thirst...before the water runs out!

"We must take account of how our water footprint is impacting on the rest of the world,"
- Professor Roger Falconer, director of the Hydro-Environmental Research Centre at Cardiff University.

We consume 145 litres of water a day which is enough to fill a large bath tub. Plus nearly everything we uses water. Everything from our jeans to our beer is made using water. 10,850 litres of water to be exact! 2 and half months worth of baths is how much water goes into making a pair of jeans, that you’ll wear a handful of times. And 2,700 litres goes into making a t-shirt.

Why is this a problem? Because the jeans and t-shirts that we wear come from developing countries that are running low on water resources. Some people in developing countries don’t even have access to clean running water, yet the countries are exporting large amounts of water out of their lands into ours and other developed countries, through goods like coffee, food, and clothes.

What we have to think about is what effect will this have in the future?

According to the BBC website “The world's population is expected to rocket beyond 8bn in 20 years time and the global demand for food and energy is going to jump by 50%, with the need for fresh water rising by 30%”

Are we going to have enough water left? Are people in developing countries who aren’t wearing jeans and t-shirts going to have to pay a price for our “Had to buy that” shopping habits?

A BBC report says “Developing countries are already using up significant proportions of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West”
This is why it is important to realise where our clothes are coming from and how they are being made. The more resources we use now the less we will have in the future.

Just think if we bought a pair of jeans to match every new trend how much water we would be depriving a developing country of and more importantly, jeopardising our own futures.

Help cut down on water usage by buying according to what you need, not what you want!

Thought of the day

It’s you’re birthday and you’ve seen a dress on the high street that is £30 and another similar one for £60. Which one do you go for?

Now what if I told you that the £60 dress has been ethically produced; the workers who made it have been paid properly and under safe and comfortable working conditions. But the £30 dress is being modelled by your favourite actress and has bypassed ethical concerns. Now which dress do you choose?

Ethical fashion is quietly becoming a top priority for shoppers. Even Tesco has started making clothes from end of line stock that would have gone to the landfill and affected the environment. Clearly the demand for ethical fashion is rising.

But studies still find that having image based campaigns are more popular than those that use being ethical as the main selling point. Take American Apparel for example. They began using ethical fashion as their unique selling point but had to switch to a more image based racier marketing strategy because it brought in more revenue. People do care about being ethical but what priorities come before being ethical? And how can we change this?

How much does your happiness cost?

20% of the world's population consumes over 70% of its material resources, and owns over 80% of its wealth.

That 20% is us! We buy, we throw and we buy again. We don’t ask ourselves where we are buying from or where we are throwing to. Is this because we are a nation who are constantly being told the only way to be happy is to keep spending?

I went to Oxford Circus the other day for gloves and came back with 3 t-shirts and the urge to go back and buy a pair of jeans. What makes me spend all this money and think about buying something I don’t really need?

It could be campaigns like Coca Cola who market products with slogans such as ‘Open happiness’ suggest that if we don’t use their products we won’t be happy. Stores such as Selfridges use slogans like “Buy me, I’ll change your life” make us think that buying their products will make us happy and content. As a result we are buying excessively without seeing the repercussions of our actions.

In 1997 the average woman bought approximately 17 items of clothing a year which is a little over one item per month. In 2007 the average woman bought 35 items of clothing a year. With the figure growing it is worrying to wonder what impact this demand will have on the people producing the goods. Did you know it only takes six weeks for clothes on the catwalk to be bought on the high street. Think about the pressure the workers must be under to be producing so many clothes so quickly.

We as consumers need to pause before making a purchase and ask ourselves:

1. What effect the production had on individuals making it?
2. How the environment was effected to make and distribute it?
3. Who influenced your decision to buy it? Poster? Celebrities? Friends?
4. Are you buying it because it is a necessity or a luxury?

We need to start thinking for ourselves and buy only what we need to live not what we might think will make us happier.

Image Credit- Ell Brown on Flickr  at Creative Commons

Plastic bags are the Enemy

At the supermarket do you see people coming in with their own bags and you can’t be bothered to take your own, so you just use new ones each time. Well with every new bag you use you could be putting planet Earth in danger.

WE USE 17 BILLION plastic bags a year, that’s 350 a year for every adult! And the shocking thing is, each bag is used for only 10 minutes before being thrown away. The whole point of a plastic bag it seems is to go straight to landfill. Plastic bags account for 2.8 million tonne of plastic waste produced in the UK every year. Some of this waste ends up in the sea which has resulted in every square mile of ocean containing an average of 46,000 pieces of plastic, endangering sea birds and other species.

The maximum "plastic density" was 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometre-BBC

Another plastic bag downer is that they are not biodegradable. They stick around on the planet for hundreds of years, contaminating the soil on which we live and the water which we drink.

One way to control the situation is to make a fabric bag this will also help reduce the amounts of clothes ending up in landfill. If you have a spare t-shirt, jumper or curtain you can just cut it up and make a new bag from it. This will reduce how much you contribute to landfills, hitting two climate change issues with one bag for life.