Ethical Jewellery?

When travelling around South America a couple of years ago I, like most backpackers, loved collecting gorgeous and unusual trinkets along the way – even better if they were gorgeous and dirt cheap. Before I reached Bolivia I’d heard stories about how cheap the silver was and how beautiful jewellery could be picked up for less than a cup of coffee, and when I reached La Paz I wondered through the markets and shops in awe, picking up ornate earrings and huge statement necklaces with change left over from a tenner.

But, whether it’s the cocaine you shove up your nose in Peru or the shells you buy from a child in Thailand, it’s all too easy as a tourist to just see the smiling local’s face as you hand them the money and not think about where your purchases have come from. And when I reached the mineral mines in the town of Potosi I witnessed what my jewellerey was really made of. Children as young as eight work for up to 14 hours with little or no health and safety systems, equipment form the dark ages and no breathing aparatus – meaning many workers die from lung cancer in their 20s after years of breathing in the toxic fumes. As our guide took us through the honeycomb structure, my breathing tight and my eyes prickling at the fumes and dynamite smoke, he showed us a mural to the thousands who had perished in the mines over the years. Later that evening I tried one of my necklaces on with a new dress and it fell against my chest heavy like lead, it’s cold touch making me feel sick. I put it back in my rucksack pocket and didn’t take it out.

Around the globe it gets worse. As well as the staggering numbers of mining deaths, diamonds and other precious minerals have funded wars and genocide in Africa, as shown in popular culture by the film ‘Blood Diamond’ and Kanye West’s ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’.

So how can you be sure that the jewels you want to treat yourself to are not tainted with blood? Well, there has been a huge surge in the number of fair trade and ethical jewellery companies in the past few years, many selling funky and unusual pieces – I particularly like MADE boutique’s collection, which includes a range by Alexa Chung. And Fifi Bijoux has some super-cute pieces adorned with kitsch bird and acorn figurines.

Even though they may be out of my student budget at the moment, it’s good to know there are guilt-free trinkets out there!

Recycled with Love

When I showed my friends Helen Smith’s super-cute, kitsch accessories from her Recycled with Love label there were squeals of “Oooooh!” and “I want them all!” Characters from our childhood adorn many of her handbags, with Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony and Alice in Wonderland all making an appearance, and pop art fruit and flower prints decorating her fun clutches and purses.

But these cheery images hold a deep-seated irony. Helen makes all her accessories from second-hand fabrics, and deliberately chooses familiar pop culture prints as a protest against mass-produced consumer goods.

After finishing her textile design degree Helen found a job working for a ‘fast fashion’distributor, where she was appalled at the poor quality of the garments, the wastefulness of packaging and the unnecessary transportation. “The world is far too full of mass-produced, faceless design and with the current planetary crisis we need to be aware that we can’t go on producing as much as we do and that we should be re-using perfectly good items,” she says.

Her interest in pop culture imagery goes back to her specialism in screen-printing and surface pattern whilst at fashion college. “My work was concerned with Americana and the mass-produced world,” she says. “I am heavily influenced by pop art – the bold colours and ironic statements always fascinated me.

“I love the idea of giving old fabrics new beginnings and this is what more of us need to be doing – sustainable design that is fresh and still fashion-forward. This whole ‘ikea generation’ needs to be outcast, set aside for a bespoke design future.”

Primark’s ‘ethics’ unclothed

Hello there…. Sorry for my absence but  I was sucked into a ferocious whirlpool of essays, exams and deadlines. Anyway  I have now escaped,  and am back (reasonably) unscathed and  (almost) in one piece.

I’m guessing you’ve heard by now about Primark suppliers employing illegal workers for £3.50 an hour.

Primark issued their own response, claiming to be “absolutely committed to ensuring that the factories who sell to us treat their workers fairly and equitably”, but really, who is going to believe them now? We’ve already had the child sweatshops in India, and now this.

But hypnotised shoppers wizz around the store, high on the promise of 20 T-Shirts for a tenner,  those low low prices a kind of ecstasy for the soul. People are even campaigning on facebook for stores to open in their hometowns. And as long as this continues Primark’s ‘ethics’ will not change.  The only language they speak in is money and as long as they’re making it things will stay the same.

We need to make people stop shopping there. So for those who don’t care about sweated labour (“is that what you call Gordon Brown in the gym?”),  here is my definitive list of the other reasons why Primark is officially SHIT.

1. The clothes are badly made and will just fall apart, probably when you’re on a hot date. Just imagine, the entire crotch of your skinny jeans gives way and he can see you’re between waxes and have a massive spot on your arse.

2. The stores are a complete mess. Stripey blouses lie in piles, prom dresses dangle from ceiling lights, you wade through a sea of crappy knickers and broken belts just to scrape a finger on that trench coat you’ve been eyeing. One of these days you will trip and fall head first into the landfill site of clothes never to emerge again, lost forever somewhere between last year’s chunky knits and 2005′s peasant skirts.

3. The stores also smell. Really badly. Walk in there, suck it up your nostrils, then walk out.

4. Primark Oxford Circus at midday on a saturday turns people into murderous, bloodthirsty sub-human beings with red eyes and frothing mouths. It even inspired a film, 28 days later, which is actually quite good and wasn’t made in a sweatshop.

5. Most of the clothes are actually really horrible.

The Re:Fashion awards: The world’s first ethical fashion awards

Nowadays ethical fashion is just as likely to be seen on the backs of glam fashionistas as it is middle-aged hippies, as the Re:Fashion awards proved. ‘It’ models such as Daisy Lowe and Pixie Geldof sashayed down the catwalk in Vivienne Westwood pieces, up-and-coming labels were praised and companies that focus on sustainability as well as style were rewarded.

The Guardian reports:

“Ethical fashion has seen huge growth in the last few years. According to the Cooperative Bank’s Ethical Consumer report, sales of Fairtrade and organic clothing grew by 70% to £52m in 2007, and this year is scheduled to see still further growth, despite the credit crunch.

The Ethical Fashion Forum also cite changing attitudes among consumers: in 2007 a survey by TNS Global found that 60% of under-25s said they bought what they wanted, regardless of where or how it had been made. This year that figure had dropped to 36%, suggesting that exposes and child labour scandals have made their mark.”

Check out The Guardian’s gallery of the event here

My guilty fashion conscience, or the tale of how this blog was born…

I am obsessed with clothes.

I love them. I love pouring over them in magazines, hunting through markets and second hand shops for them, putting them together, taking them apart, re-working them, accessorising them, dressing them up, dressing them down.

I suppose it’s a pretty shallow hobby to have, obsessing over what I’m wearing and what I look like. But every one of us has a relationship with clothes of some kind, often a a very complicated one. Each time we step out the door we’re choosing to say something to the world through what we’re wearing. And besides, clothes are fun! Dressing yourself is creative – it’s like playtime, like being a kid again.

The issue that concerns me with my clothes obsession is its ethical implications. In these credit-crunched times, us recessionistas will inevitably be cutting back on the pricier brands and turning our eye to bargain fashion. Women’s magazines are featuring ’credit crunch fashion’ specials packed with garments costing little more than a packet of crisps. But who’s made those Primark dresses which are so easy to pull of the rails without a second thought? And where do these dresses go when they inevitably start falling apart or out of fashion – on a landfill site most probably. We could always buy second hand or make and customise our own clothes but let’s face it, most of us don’t have the spare time to always do this. And when you know you can get that must-have item on the high street for only a couple of quid more than it’ll cost you to make it at home, then why bother?

So this is my aim: to blog on DIY, environmentally friendly fashion that doesn’t compromise on affordability, convinience, and – most importantly – style. I’ll be alerting you to ethical labels and boutiques that aren’t full of hesian sacks, passing on customising tips and DIY skills, as well as the normal trend-spotting and commenting.

And in an attempt to soothe both my recession-bitten purse and my ethical conscience, I am challenging myself to survive on NO new clothes – only ones I have made myself or re-worked second hand ones, the results of which I shall be sharing for your viewing pleasure. Wish me luck and follow my blog!