DDT Threatens Organic Cotton in Africa

In Uganda spraying of the highly controversial insecticide DDT has spoiled organic crops in Uganda. As Ecotextile News states in their report, over 11,000 farmers in Uganda are now stuck with cotton after it was rejected by buyers from the Dutch organic cotton firm BoWeevil due to DDT spraying in the area.

Marc van Esch from BoWeevil, who I met in Uganda last November when I visited organic cotton farms there (see my blog-report), said if the Ministry of Health continues spraying DDT where they have their programmes, they will close down their businesses and industries. “Many export commodities will not be able to find Western markets any more. The consequences will be enormous and disastrous,” he told All Africa. “Although we think that there are better alternatives than DDT. Eventually more people will die of poverty.”

In Europe and USA the use of DDT is banned since the sixties, when the book Silent Spring raised awareness on the disastrous environmental and health effects of pesticides. DDT has been banned worldwide under the Stockholm Convention, but usage in agriculture and malaria prevention is still a widespread practice in development countries. There are also voices to allow a careful use of DDT to combat epidemic spread of malaria. But meanwhile the use of DDT itself makes mosquitoes more and more resistant.

But who is actually producing and selling this DDT? Chemical companies who might not be too said to ruin the market of organic cotton. Because they are the same companies who have a large interest in selling their pesticides and insecticides on the global market. And who might even be involved in the medical industry, an industry still preventing Africa from getting affordable malaria medicines. What game is actually going on here?

Canadian Athletes to Olympics with Eco-Friendly Uniforms

The Canadian athletes going to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will wear sport clothing made from organic cotton, bamboo and Cocona, made from Coconut waste.
Not that all bamboo is always so environmental friendly (it consumes a lot of water and is hard to make only using chemicals), but it's a good step forward and can reach a large audience for eco-wear.

“I’m happy that Hbc took the time to consult with athletes on the design of the team uniforms and has created cool, eco-friendly outfits that will meet our needs in Beijing," said rhythmic gymnast Alexandra Orlando of Toronto, who has already qualified for the Beijing Games. Most of the pieces will be available for sale as replica wear through Hudson‘s Bay Company (Hbc) outlets.

Via: G-Spotting

Treches by JBR: New Organic Streetwear Label from Berlin

It's getting a hot spring for eco-fashion in Berlin. We choose a good time to kickstart our own label Pamoyo. Yesterday we where on the show of the new organic streetwear label Treches, a label by designerin "JBR", Jeanette Bruneau Rossow. Cecilia had contact with Jeanette since the Berlin Fair Fashion Affair, and now she launched her first organic collection on the Lido Kreativmesse.

Clothing and models where on the activist side of style, but since Nike is advertising with "Riot" on it's logo, that's business as usual. For all in Berlin. I always wonder how LOHAS* can be cool in a young, urban setting, as a real party lifestyle does not fit with Healthy stuff. The trend here is more LOPAS: Lifestyle of Parties and Sustainability.

*LOHAS: Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability

Behind the Photo Shoot of Organic Jeans Brand Kuyichi in Transilvania

Cecilia and me found the photo series of organic jeans brand Kuyichi of the last few seasons a bit too cheesy and easy. But now Kuyichi has made trip to Rumania, the label might show a different, more human face again.

I just stumbled over a report of the Kuyichi photo shooting in Transilvania for the fall/winter 2008 collection by Petrovsky & Ramone. I hope they manage to present their own collection as colorful as the local wear...

In the year 2000 the founders of Kuyichi, dutch NGO Solidaridad, wanted to introduce organic cotton in the clothing market. They found the cotton industry was causing a lot of pollution and poverty amongst indigenous Indians and factory workers.

Solidaridad decided to try and change this. At first they tried to convince the big players in the Dutch fashion industry to use organic cotton, in order to improve the living and working conditions in developing countries. Since none of the brands were interested, Solidaridad started their own fashion brand in response. This was the birth of Kuyichi.

Source: Kuyichi , Kuyichi blog

German social fashion label Armed Angels launches new collection & website

Social fashion - for the label Armed Angels this means more than organic cotton and fair trade production. The label also involves their online community in deciding over the models, print designs, and to which charity the 3,33 Euro per sold
item goes to. Based in Cologne, the label is rapidly growing, being one of the few young green fashion labels in the whole country. Watch their new collection and website, they are promising...

Over 20 Supermodels Support the EJF Organic Cotton Campaign

More than 20 top models, including Irina Lazareanu, Coco Rocha, Catherine McNeil, Caroline Trentini, Siri Tollerød and Behati Prinsloo, have now been photographed in EJF’s ‘Pick Your Cotton Carefully’ campaign t-shirts. Most of the pictures were are taken by fashion photographer Eric Guillemain. The successful campaign by the Environmental Justice Foundation for cleaner cotton production has been gaining attention worldwide.

The organic cotton t-shirts are designed around the theme of “childhood, lost innocence and hope” to represent more than a million children around the world forced to labour in cotton production.

The shirts are for sale and support the EJF cotton campaign www.ejfoundation.org/shop

Rapanui: organic surfwear from the Isle of Wright

Rapanui is an organic and sustainable clothing company based on the Isle of Wight, using organic, natural and ethical fabrics. Rapui is set up by surfing brothers Rob and Mart Drake-Knight, 23 and 21. They say they were motivated to influence environmental change after becoming ill and even getting scars from surfing in polluted waters.

Their garments are manufactured in Fairwear Foundation audited factories and made of
sustainable bamboo, organic cotton and convergence cotton. The clothing is made from a strong environmental position: “We want to use the influential power of fashion to provoke change.”

It is great to see so much young people getting involved in the environmental issue in a creative or entrepreneur way. Especially of course because they often stay close to who they are. In this case surfers. Check out their surfers weather forecasts...

Reports from the BioFach: in search for organic cotton

Everything organic on the BioFach? Maybe for food it mostly was. But visiting all the textile related stands on the BioFach, I had some remarkable encounters. At a stand where they had a good looking offer of organic cotton materials, I asked if they only did organic cotton. Immediately the lady took a large box from under the desk, and presented me proudly all their non-organic cottons. At another stand I was overwhelmed by the large offer of sportswear and caps, but wondering if they were organic, it turned out that about ninety percent was not at all.

Okay, the BioFach is not supposed to be a leading fair on organic textiles, but there shouldn't be sold just conventional textiles either. Especially because there is still a lot of confusion on what organic textiles are. Luckily these were exceptions and I had a lot of good experiences as well, meeting nice people of small ethical brands, producers, and shop owners, representatives from MadeBy, Solidaridad, Pesticide Action Network, etc.

How to label sustainable clothing?
I visited also the discussion forum "Organic cotton - how to label sustainable clothing?". A rather complex question, with no answers yet. Alexandra Perschau from the PAN Germany described the problem of the labeling towards the consumer: there is hardly any recognition with the existing labels, there are too many different ones and the consumer does not have any clue on them. They have more knowledge of brands than on labels.

The central problem around how to label sustainable clothes was described by Jenns Soth from Helvetas. You can have a certified organic fibre, but what about the end problem? There is a legal gap in labeling organic textiles because you can not yet label non food items as organic in
Europe.

One quote from Helvetas sticked to my ears. They claim that in the organic cotton sector the partnerships are stronger than in the conventional, resulting in a higher loyalty and responsibility from the farmers. Logical, because there is more time and energy spent on training the farmers, and often worked with social programs, support of forming collectives, etc. But my conclusion is, that this could mean that actually the organic cotton production model in the end could be a more reliable business model.

Helvetas announced on the forum, they are working on Emission Certificates for textiles. What sounds like a good initiative of reducing carbon acid, also came with a lot of questions: does it reduce the miles a textile is transported? Is it right to give an emission certificate not for the whole chain but only for the production process?

Track & Trace your clothes origin with Made-By
The most interesting in the quest for a good labeling of sustainable textiles was the presentation of the Made-By initiative, who are expanding this year towards the UK, France, Germany and Sweden. According to research, for most companies reputation is most important when it comes to CSR. But for companies investing in CSR it is crucial to understand that CSR should be their business principle, and not only a strategy to produce a better image.

MadeBy offers clothing companies a way to clean up their production process, they give practicle support and monitor the results. Also the brands get a blue botton stating that the piece of clothing is produced under the MadeBy criteria. A very up to date part of the project is a Track & Trace tool, where consumers can check where exactly their clothing are being made, under which circumstances, and even see the people who made their piece of clothing. Just by entering a unique code from your jeans you get all this information, including the locations your jeans have been on google maps.

Hopefully there will come a more clear labeling for organic textiles soon, what will help the consumer a lot in choosing the right product. But meanwhile there are a lot of interesting initiatives, and it stayes, labeling or not, very important is that brands work on their whole chain transparency.

Actually the best experience was to meet our organic cotton deliverers from BoWeevil. They made it possible for us to visit several places along their production chain in Turkey and Uganda, and I find the way they work very sympathetic.

German social fashion contests by Armed Angels and Fairwear.de

Armed Angels are a young, trendy social fashion label from Cologne. They are conquering Germany with just a few simple shirts. Only selling over the internet, or through friends and friends of friends of friends. 3,33 Euro per piece of clothing goes to charity. For their innovative business concept, Armed Angels recently won a German innovation price. Check these guys out, we will hear more of them!

Angelface 2008
Armed Angels organize open contests on both their designs and models. More than 200 models have already joined. It's actually quite fun to have the chance to choose a model for a clothing brand. They also have style-of-the-month voting, where people can send in their designs and vote two shirt prints per month into the webshop. I just wanted to comment that they should also put a vote for their charity projects, but they already do...

Streetwear & social activism
Also the crew of the German ethical fashion webshop Fairwear.de organize a shirt print contest. You can send in your print design, graphics and creative impulses until the 8th of Februari 2008. The best designs will be printed, the deisgners get 50 Euros and discount in the webshop. I like the Fairwear guys because they connect their site to both streetwear styles and social activism, and seem to stay close to their ideals. They have a nice mix of fair fashion labels including Kuyichi, Tudo Bom?, Epona, THTC, Machja, and No Sweat. Just on question, where are the German ethical fashion brands?

picture: Armed Angels

Organic Exchange opens office in Amsterdam

Organic Exchange is opening office in Europe! Organic Exchange is a charitable organization from the United States that aims to promote organic agriculture with a special focus on fibers such as cotton. They support brands and organizations in the field. Their new focus on Europe will be another push for the rise of cool, ethcial fashion, because they have the capacities to also support larger brands to green up their production process...

With an office in The Netherlands, they are going to cooperate closely with Made-By. They will be supported by dutch development organisations ICCO and Solidaridad. In 2008, OE will offer three types of services to help brands and retailers develop their organic business as well continuing to provide their member services. These services include four basic training events, which are open to anyone but are targeted at retailers and suppliers. They will take place in Amsterdam, Germany, the UK and Sweden.

source: Eco Textile News

Act local, find local

A mysterious group called I-local campaigned in The Netherlands with a radical activist approach, the slogan "act local! find local!" and statements like "globalization is over".

They spread more than 10.000 of their orange balaclavas, extreme YouTube videos and all around the country they glued slogans at the outward roads of villages and cities, calling car drivers to go back home. With the background idea: most things you can find in your own neighborhood. So why go somewhere else? A rather radical but interesting reaction on the enormous traffic jam problems in this overstuffed country.

Off course, this mysterious action group of radical anti-globalists turned out to be an internet company offering a local search engine, now good for 1 million visitors a month in the Benelux. Guerillia marketing is still on it's rise, but this example is remarkable. Especially for a country that lately has been in the picture for it's anti-European sentiments. And for the real anti-globalists this might be a bit of an image-problem. I wouldn't be surprised if the I-locals will infiltrate anti-G8 and WTO demonstrations with their orange balaclavas and slogans like: "Act local! Ami go home!"...

Fairliebt in Nairobi

Fairliebt is a fine, young ethical T-shirt label from Hamburg in Germany. They use fair trade shirts from organic cotton and sustainable screen print techniques. The shirts are recognizable by their clear, playful designs.

Their T-shirts are made by Lamu Lamu in a factory in Nairobi, and certified fair trade. During my visit in Kanya I coincidently visited the factory. My photo's of this visit are lost, but here a short impression: it was rather stuffed in the factory. They started with only about twenty workers, now every corner of the working place is used. In one corner sewers were busy for a local Kenyan clothing brand, full of colors and patterns. On the other side I found the shirts of Lamu Lamu. As they also produce non organic basic T-shirts for the local market, I could compare the quality. Indeed, the organic cotton felt much, much nicer and softer!

As I wrote already in another article, it is hard to see the fair trade aspects in a factory if you are not trained for it. The area is really industrial, dirty and rough. For someone with a lot of beautiful ideas about sustainable production this can be rather disappointing, but the reality is off course that we also have to create better working conditions inside the dirty industrial areas. And respect for those sweating to realize this on every day base!

The cotton from the Fairliebt shirts comes from Phenix in Uganda, please read the articles below if you want to know more about this organic, fair trade cotton from Uganda.
Fairliebt are selling their shirts online to keep prices low. A succesful concept for them, and a good example for others. Thanks to Fairliebt for your positive spirit!

*** I wrote this article shortly before the unfortunate happenings in Kenya of the past weeks. Let's hope that peace will return to this lovely country. Frans

See one of the Fairliebt clips on MySpace:

Eco-fashion is getting hot in Stockholm

Stockholm is becoming a meltingpot of hot, organic fashion and anticorporate blackspot. Thursday we went for a few hours eco-fashion hunting in Stockholm, in search for future Pamoyo selling shops and for general interest off course. First we visited Red & Fairy, a shop who opened their doors just five weeks ago. The clothes they sell are completely organic and fair trade. Red&Fairy prefer labels that produce fairtrade in the South. They sell clothes from two Swedish labels, Righteous Fashion and Dem Collective, and furthermore Kuyichi. A small but very nice shop, and we hope they will make it and grow!

Next stop was the Ekovaruhuset in old town Gamlastan, very well located between arts and crafts shops and chique fashion boutiques. The Ekovaruhuset, with a second store in New York, has a large offer of fashionable clothes, shoes, and accessories. On the one hand they sell fashion, on the other hand a selection of organic cleaning detergents, ethical living magazines and chique organic chocolates. Considering all the Christmas rush, the personal was very calm and spreading a peaceful atmosphere with a lot of attention and love in creating one-of-a-kind packages. One of the women in the shop said that the skepticism against ecological clothes had been hard, but that they now notice a change of attitude. They sell a selection of very wide range of cool, well known ethical fashion brands and local Swedish ethical designers like American Apparel, Anja Hynynen, Bergman Sweden, Birgitta Ericsson, Blackspot, Camilla Norrback, DEM Collective, Demin, Gossypium, Günay Kulbay, Howies, Johanna Hofring, Lovisa Burfitt och Stina Johnson, Kuyichi, Misericordia, Modiga barn, Nana Baah, Peau-Ethique, Pelle Backman, Loomstate, Steward&Brown, Solius, ThreeAsFour, Tor Söderin, Zion Clothing, Åsa och Taneale and Veja.

On our way to hipster area Söder we accidently passed Sarabia, the agency office of Kuyichi, Misericordia, Edun, and Steward & Brown. Unfortunately closed, but showing a nice location and good windows to look in through. Just afterwards we spotted Adbusters’ Blockspot sneakers in an ordinary, large Swedish fashion store, which made us believe that ethical fashion is really getting hot in Stockholm. As young people in Sweden generally are well dressed in style and seem to spend a little budget on fashion, there might be a good market for ethical fashion as well, with still quite a space to grow. Considering that the new cool Swedish ethical brands are focusing on the young generation in particular, with designer fashion like Camilla Norrback, and a range of smaller, upcoming labels, ethical fashion might in Sweden work best being style conscious. But as ecological and social awareness in Sweden is relatively progressive, it sounds logical that the ethical side will also market itself here upnorth, which is recently proved by the succesfull exhibition “Fair Fashion?” in Göteborg last autumn.

After all, the most ethical fashion is to be found in Söder, where lampposts and traffic signs are dressed in handmade knitwear. An original form of street art taking care of the freezing street furniture and the stubbornness of bypassers...

Ethical Fashion in Kenya

Last weeks Frans visited Kenya and Uganda and visited several projects there. The trip started with the workshop Africa Inspires in Nairobi, organized by the Ethical Fashion Forum, an international platform for ethical fashion brands and initiatives, and the ITC. The workshop provided a program of visits to social projects, fair trade initiatives, recycling, etc. If you are working with ethical fashion or are a fashion designer interested to do so, the projects of the Ethical Fashion Forum might be of interest for you as well!

We visited projects in and around Nairobi and the Rift Valley. They included breadwork and weaving, shoe and bag production, etc. TO BE CONTINUED SOON...

Ethical shopping in Berlin

Where to shop clothes in Berlin when you want to get it ethical? Lately we get a lot of questions where to get organic textiles or where the ethical fashion shops are in Berlin. Now when we went shopping for ourselves, discovered it still is a rather difficult question. There is not a specialized shop, but if you do your best, you can find really cool stuff fair trade or organic.

Off course there is American Apparel. However cool they might be, they are not really organic or fair trade, but always the number one in the media when there is written about ethical fashion. Fair trade jeans brand Kuyichi is to find in several shops, although the collections are often rather small, we found only one male jeans, which is rather disappointing. There is the Berliner label Slowmo, great organic streatwear with limited collections. Okay, actually there is really a lot, you just have to make the efford to find it. Either chique labels like Noir, Misericordia, activist shoes from Vegetarianshoes or Blackspot sneakers at the Veganladen or eco-hemp clohting from the Hanfhaus in the Oranienstrasse.

We first went to Prenzlauer Berg and found a few rather priced down clothes from Patagonia, who integrate organic and recycled materials in their products. We also found a pear of sneakers from the French shoelabel Veja, pretty stylish sneakers from organic materials. We went to Mitte and searched for Howies, but we did not succeed. In stead we found a nice organic jeans from Lee. We believe it is best to buy from brands that are truly ethical and not only selling a few organic items to greenwash their image, nevertheless it is also great that one can find organic clothing from quite a lot of mainstream brands. And not to forget to notice, the great organic recycling label Pamoyo is coming to be sold in Berlin really soon!

Searching for a lunch place we passed the LPG at Kollwitzstrasse, claiming to be the largest biosupermarket of Europe. The concept of the LPG is that every costumer can become a member and shop with discount. Two flours of organic
products, with large meat and cheese counters, big nonfood area, childrens corner, and even a moving staircase. For dedicated bioshoppers this is quite a shock!
Geheimtip: on the first floor there is a soft, read couch where you can relax and drink a free cup of coffee. The canteen next to the entrance sells fresh soups and meals for 3-6 euros. We had a pasta with spinach-Gorgonzola sauce, a Broccoli grattin with salad and lemon whater for 10 euros, not too bad for Prenzlau. A popular place, and it does not seam to disturb any bio-shopper that all the Furniture is from Ikea. Something we found disappointing was to find cotton clothing in this biosupermarket without being controlled organic. Some work to do!

In genral one can say: organic is coming! In food we just stumble over the new biosupermarkets, take-away-shops, etc. For clothes it will come, and 2008 will be the year that ethical fashion getting more available in Berlin.

Visiting a natural textiles store (naturtextilien) we asked if they sold organic textiles. We were treated as if we asked for Satan. That organic is a religion, that it is all nonsense, that all their materials were natural, etc. Just when we left in full shock, we saw the cross hanging on the wall. A religious conflict just over organic cotton? It made us think, and when we later where in the bookshop Pro QM we had the idea to make a book about the connection between cultural creatives, LOHAS, and worldviews.

Fair Fashion Affair: impressions by Karmakonsum

KarmaKonsum made a nice short video impression of the Fair Fashion Affair and also published an enthusiastic report and some pictures through his blog. Anyway an interesting blog for German readers
who are interested in topics such as ethical consume, sustainable living and the rise of the LOHAS.