Lalesso was launched in Cape Town in 2005 by co-creators Olivia Kennaway and Alice Heusser after a holiday to the remote island of Lamu, where the pair became captivated by the traditional attire of the local women of these coastal regions.

The brand’s designs are inspired by the ‘khanga’ or ‘lesso’ with intrinsic patterns and vibrant colours worn by Kenyan women, though its interpretation is distinctly modern and wearable.

The clothes form a comprehensive collection of brightly coloured dresses, kaftans, shorts and skirts, and are exactly the kind of togs you dream of wearing when you board the plane to lands of heat and sun.

Having retained its traditional feel, Lalesso garments can’t profess to fall under a trendy category. But despite this, the vibrant colours and flattering cuts mean that the dresses and kaftans will suit almost every body shape. What’s more, the designs have the perfect mix of relaxed yet elegant bohemian style and eye-popping colour to make them fashionable without being totally ‘on trend’.

With its own workshop in Diani Beach, Kenya, and a strong Fairtrade ethic which benefits the workers immensely, this is the kind of Fairtrade fashion you will be desperate to wear in the summer months.

Lalesso’s only downfall is that we are unlikely to be able to wear these light and floaty fabrics in the metropolis, but hey, we can only blame the weather for that.

1. Topshop

Although Topshop’s mightily successful People Tree commission at its flagship Oxford Circus store is the retailer’s most famous Fairtrade range, Topshop’s own Fairtrade collection is worth writing home about.

Take this bright red cotton zip back vest for instance. Cooler than Sienna Miller in an igloo, the top is loose enough to hide winter excesses, while its panelled front gives just enough shape.

You can team this with leggings and plimsoles for a casual look, but it would also look fantastic tucked into a contrasting coloured tulip skirt.

At just £22 you can’t go wrong with this top – and its bold colour and versatile style means that you will want to wear it long after Sienna’s boho look has melted along with her igloo.

Next page: Annie Greenabelle gets shirty

Dialog is a Hong Kong-based accessories label set up by Cassandra Postema and Dong Shing Chui shortly after the Tsunami in 2004. It is dedicated to helping poor communities in Asia.

Having first met at Central Saint Martins, Cassandra and Dong had followed markedly different paths until their chance meeting in Hong Kong at the time of the Tsunami disaster.

After witnessing the devastation caused by the Tsunami, Cassandra and Dong launched Hope Tees, a graphic T-shirt company which raised money to help rebuild lives. It now also supports other Asian initiatives, from a Day Care Nursery in Ho Chi Mingh to sewing workshops designed to empower Montagnard villagers in Vietnam.

Tulip necklace, £21

The inspiration for their signature look came from the traditional Malaysian four-fold tuck rug, small origami squares of mixed fabrics, which features heavily in Dialog’s bags and purses.

Dialog’s designs fuse traditional Asian craft with modern styling and all bags feature their signature four-fold recycled trim.  Based on fair trade networking, Dialog focuses on creating high fashion products that are glamorous, bohemian and fun at the same time.

Having proved a huge hit at London Fashion Week with its impressive array of textured and exotically compiled clutches, romantic handbags and ethnic carriers, the brand is quickly gaining a following for its designs as well as its ethics.

The majority of the trimmings for Dialog’s accessories are made by a sewing group in Viet Nam, others are made by Love Multi Culture, a Pakistani group of migrant workers based in Hong Kong, and some bags are now produced at a factory in China which employs disabled people.

By working with groups who already produce clothing, Dialog ensures its trimmings are all from recycled off-cuts. The girls have also now started working with another group of women in Pakistan to make the components of jewellery that will be designed in Hong Kong.

Gillian overnight bag, £55

Cassandra says: “We really enjoy spending time with people at a grass roots level – it is more meaningful. The emphasis is on the meaning we create with the product – rather than the superficiality that comes with being in the fashion industry.”

Check out our Top 10 Fair Trade accessories to see the Dialog bag that has got us all a flutter.

Dialog’s current range includes cute horse and fish purses (£15-£18), bags (£50-£95), and necklaces (£18-£25). Look out for Dialog’s expanded range including cushions and dresses shortly.

Dialog

]]> http://www.greenmystyle.com/fairtrade-focus-dialog/feed/ 0 http://www.greenmystyle.com/fairtrade-interview-equa-founder-penny-cooke/ http://www.greenmystyle.com/fairtrade-interview-equa-founder-penny-cooke/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:37:35 +0000 greenmystyle http://www.greenmystyle.com/?p=7219 Islington-based ethical boutique Equa has been stocking fairly traded fashion labels since it opened in 2005. Already a destination store for stylish shoppers with a heart, Equa is about to add two new fair trade ranges for Spring Summer 09, and is celebrating with a special one-day-only 20% discount. greenmystyle.com editor Sarah Woodhead gets the gossip from founder Penny Cooke. Greenmystyle.com’s Fairtrade Fortnight content is sponsored by Equa.

Sarah: Hi Penny. I hear you’re adding to your fair trade ranges. That’s excellent. How long have you been supporting fair trade fashion?
Penny: Equa opened the Islington boutique in September 2005, and our online boutique launched a year later in October 2006. We have always had an ethical buying policy.  Equa was the first ethical boutique of its kind in London offering ethical fashion on the high street.

Sarah: Which fair trade ranges do you have? Do tell us a little about them
Penny: All of the labels we sell have been produced under the principles of fair trade. Our most well know fair trade label would probably be People Tree, which supports many different fair trade groups and cooperatives in the developing world and uses a lot of Fairtrade Foundation-certified organic cotton in its pieces.  People Tree is dedicated to using local skills and traditional methods to produce many of its collections.

We also have a relatively new label called Annie Greenabelle, which we have stocked since Autumn Winter 2007. It’s one of our best-selling labels, and uses a lot of Fairtrade Foundation-certified organic cotton and reclaimed fabrics in its collections.  It is a great label appealing to many different age groups and its prices (between £30 – £100) means it is very affordable.

One of my favourite labels is La Lesso for the Summer.  It produces the collection in Kenya using local skills and the fabrics are inspired by traditional African prints.  La Lesso’s collection for Equa will be available in store and online from the middle of April.

Aura Que large shopper

Sarah: So what about these new ranges we’ve heard about?
Penny: Well, we are very excited to be getting in Ivana Basilotta and new accessories label Aura Que.  We have sold vegan handbags from Matt&Nat for a long time now and they do sell incredibly well, however there are those people who really do want a leather handbag and nothing else will do.  Aura Que has answered this need producing beautiful leather handbags made under IFAT regulations in Nepal.  All the bags are dyed in an environmentally-friendly way and the leather used is a by-product of the food industry, minimising waste.  We’ll be getting three styles in from the end of February and I personally cannot wait to get my hands on one.

Sarah: What makes them fair trade? How will shoppers be able to tell?
Penny: As a starting point everything Equa sells has to be produced under the principles of fair trade. This means decent working conditions, at least a living wage and working benefits such as access to unions and paid overtime.  Fair trade also means that the work undertaken has a positive effect on the community as a whole.  A group in Nepal that People Tree work with called Kumbeshwar Technical School (KTS) allows the underprivileged ‘pode’ class to learn skills and earn a wage.  The group now employs 240 people (six years ago it was 15), who are able to send their children to the KTS primary school (50% funded by People Tree), this in turn empowers the whole community not only by giving an education to those who may not otherwise have been able to afford it, but also has a trickledown effect to the rest of the pode community.

Ethical is a very broad word and can be confusing as it means so many different things.  Every piece of clothing hanging up at Equa has one of our Equa swing-tags that not only tells a shopper what the size and price is but also states which ethical criteria that piece adheres to.  All collections produced under the principles of fair trade are labelled ‘Fairly Traded’.

It is also important to remember that poor working conditions in factories isn’t just limited to the developing world.  Where our collections are produced in the developed world we label these items as being ‘Ethically Produced’. This means that the factories in which they are made meet fair trade guidelines for working conditions, and many of the factories have or are working towards ISO certification (International Organisation for Standardisation).

Sarah: Why is it important for style shoppers to think about fairly traded fashion?
Penny: This is one of the most important things for fair trade fashion.  The style-conscious consumer is the hardest nut to crack as they have such high standards when it comes to what they wear.  But it is this customer that is most likely to really change things, they are the ones who not only follow trends but also set them, if they don’t like the ethical fashion on offer they simply won’t buy it, which in turn means that mainstream shops and boutiques won’t sell it. Online magazines such as greenmystyle.com are really helping to move fair trade and ethical fashion into the mainstream arena by showing consumers that there really is an ethical option out there that doesn’t compromise on style.

Sarah: How do you find new fair trade fashion collections?
Penny: Finding new labels that will really work at Equa can be a challenge.  London Fashion Week has its ethical section Esthetica, and Pure launched an ethical area at this year’s show and we went to both of these shows to find new labels.  It is a never-ending search and we’re always on the look out!

Sarah: What are the biggest challenges for fair trade fashion as you see it?
Penny: Since Equa opened in 2005 fair trade fashion has really moved on.  It is incredible to see the number of labels out there actively supporting fair trade principles and really doing their best to make a difference with their businesses.

The real challenge, and I know this has been said a number of time before, is to make fair trade not the exception but the norm in the fashion industry.  To do this, mainstream fashion houses need to work towards improving their production and supply chains.  This is why I am really excited about Made By which is being launched in the UK during London Fashion Week.  Made By is an umbrella group that works with labels to get their production into shape. Fair trade labels such as Edun and Kuyichi work with them, but they are also working with other mainstream labels such as Alchemist (stocked at Equa) and Jackpot.  Both of these labels are dedicated to improving not only working conditions but also using more and more environmentally sustainable fabrics in their collections.  Alchemist uses organic cotton for its basics range and this season we are getting in some of its new bamboo pieces.

Sarah: Is Equa doing anything exciting during Fairtrade Fortnight?
Penny: Our new Spring Summer collection will be coming in throughout Fairtrade Fortnight, including our new labels.  We are also going to have an evening at the boutique where our customers can come along and shop over a glass of organic wine and receive a 20% discount on all new season collections that evening.  This will be on Wednesday 11th March from 5 – 8pm, and if you can’t make it to our Islington Boutique then the 20% discount will be available online all day on the 11th when entering the code EQUAFTF09.

1. Filigree round earrings, CRED, £POA

CRED makes utterly gorgeous fair trade fine jewellery that you will cherish for a lifetime. These filigree inspired long-drop earrings have been designed for CRED by Arabel Lebrusan and are inspired by her homeland of Spain. They are made in fairly traded Oro Verde 18ct yellow gold. We say leave behind those disposable toy jewellery purchases and save up for some fine fair trade chic. See them at CRED here.

At a time when it is often tricky to trace the source of fabrics and verify their sustainability, Amana has arrived on the ethical fashion scene as a breath of fresh air.

Literally meaning ‘delivered in trust’ in Moroccan Arabic, Amana’s clothes are not only beautifully designed and exquisitely elegant, but have also set the standard for ethical production practices and have got us at Greenmystyle.com more than a little excited about the approaching fashion season.

Having set out with the goal of combining their ethical beliefs with their love of fashion and desire to source suppliers whose mission is to create fabrics that have minimal negative environmental impact, Helen Wood, designer extraordinaire, and Erin Tabrar, the brains behind Amana, have ensured that the result is a collection of garments hand made from beautiful organic cottons and silks and luxurious hemp mixes fit for any forward thinking fashion lover.

This accessible brand, which hit the fashion scene by storm in 2006, works on a fair trade basis with artisans in Ain Leuh, a small village in the Middle Atlas Mountains in Morocco, making sure that good working conditions and training contribute to producing garments that are fully ethical. The results of a happy workforce are clear to see.

Amana’s latest collection shows a stunning array of tailored separates in neutral tones and organic fabrics. This is an enviable mix of structured separates which can easily be translated into day and evening wear.

Amana’s desire to experiment with different fabrics is evident in the Aya blouse which was made from organically produced peace silk, meaning the silk worms come to the end of their lifecycle naturally before the cocoons are harvested.

This gorgeous round-neck blouse with a small front pocket epitomizes the style of this brand. Clean cut and fresh with intricate details, it serves as the perfect ambassador to demonstrate the dynamic and transparent approach that Amana has taken with Fairtrade fashion at all levels of the production process.

With a timeless collection of wearable pieces and an abundance of ethical charm, you’d be more than forgiven for getting ever so slightly obsessed with this brand. We already have! And just to help things along, the kind people at this luxury brand have got a mind-blowing sale on – be quick to nab your bargain.

Amana

Don’t miss:

Beauty brands that are Fair Trade

Top 10 Fair Trade fashion collections

Jo Wood and People Tree: Hot new charity alert!

To understand the story of CRED, the source of fair trade fine jewellery, you first need to understand its founders and designers, Christian Cheesman and Greg Valerio. These are two individuals with the kind of passion and commitment to a cause that the rest of us can only watch and be inspired by.

After a trip to India in 1998, during which they witnessed women and children working in inhuman conditions, Greg and Christian felt compelled to help improve the plight of similar workers in the jewellery trade that CRED was part of. Their goal was to create a totally transparent supply chain for jewellery. This would mean customers like you and I could understand exactly where our treasured wedding ring, diamond earrings or gold necklace came from, and trust that neither person nor planet were exploited in the creation of it.

To give a sense of the scale of this task, Greg and Christian would be taking on industries that are centuries old, with strongly ingrained practices, deep cultural mores and caught in a web of conflicting politics and power. They were ridiculed at first.

Christian writes: “When we started CRED we wanted to create a company that reflected a set of values that we were passionate about: values such as environmental sustainability, justice for the poor and the upholding of human rights. As we embarked on our journey in 1996 we wanted to get to the heart and source of where all our jewellery and raw material was coming from. Transparency in the supply chain became the Holy Grail that we sought after.”

Simultaneously upholding the principle of great design, the business partners have toiled hard to bring about transformations in the ethical jewellery supply chain in the last decade. While creating a range of utterly covetable pieces, and collaborating with emerging design talent, CRED has also been instrumental in creating the fair trade jewellery industry.

Realising that perhaps the greatest victims of an unethical jewllery trade are the small scale miners, CRED became a founding member of the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM), and has played an active and foundational role in the creation of what is now the world’s first ‘Fair Trade Gold’ standard.

CRED also facilitated the introduction of Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO) to ARM, conceived the idea of The British Ethical Jewellers Association and are signatures to The Golden Rules (www.nodirtygold.org).

The story of CRED is also the story of beautiful design. Working with recycled silver, fair trade Oro Verde gold, fair trade platinum, conflict-free diamonds and fully traceable gem stones, CRED designers work with artisan manufacturing to produce simple, elegant and timeless pieces – from wedding jewellery to every day items – to complement stylish living. See our five favourite pieces here.

You don’t need to wait to get engaged or married to indulge in CRED, though if you are about to take the plunge we can’t think of a better option. We recommend that you think about buying fewer pieces of fashion jewellery and instead invest in a longer-lasting CRED piece. Wear CRED every day and you’ll be showing the world that you appreciate beautiful things created with care and kindness.

Now see:

Five beautiful CRED items, five inspiring stories
Exclusive interview with co-founder Christian Cheesman

Visit CRED’s online store

Promotional feature

The 10am start was a bit of a push, it being London Party Week and all, but Greenmystyle.com wouldn’t have missed this event for all the world. People Tree has long been a pioneer in establishing ethical fair trade pathways in the fashion industry, bringing fair trade clothing to the high street. Its new People Tree Foundation is the next glorious step.

The Foundation is essentially a charitable fund with clear goals to alleviate poverty, protect the environment and educate shoppers to the benefits of buying fair trade fashion. Jo Wood, founder of Jo Wood Organics beauty products, mum to Leah and wife to Ronnie, is onboard and ready to door-knock herself to raise the cash the Foundation needs.

Jo and Safia, who’s People Tree label is stocked at Equa and Topshop amongst many others, took a trip together to Bangladesh recently, so that Jo could see for herself the difference that fair trading makes to communities involved in garment manufacturing.

“When Safia mentioned a trip to Bangladesh, my first thought was ‘Yay, Bangladesh!,’ said Jo. “I really didn’t expect to see what I did. It was a real eye opener. It really made me think about where my clothes were made.”

Safia (pictured above, centre) first took Jo to see Swallows, an organisation in Bangladesh which supports garment industry workers, mostly women, with a fair wage, a creche and schooling for their children while they work. Swallows keeps families and lives intact.

Jo then went to visit a slum only five hours away in which garment industry workers live and work for less than half the local monthly living wage of Tk 5333 or £44.82 (the amount it would take to reasonably live), in terrible conditions and for as many as 80 hours a week.

“I was amazed at what better a life the Swallows women had,” said Jo. “There are schools and the women are with their children. It makes you want to put Swallows everywhere. The slums were awful. At first I thought it wasn’t so bad, but we weren’t even there yet. It got worse and worse. But these people were so dignified. I had a lot of respect for them.”

Jo and Safia want us to think about the clothing we buy, where it’s from, how it was made and whether the people that made it have been paid a fair wage. They also want the Government to introduce legislation to make businesses accountable for inhuman working conditions along their supply chain.

“It’s time for a change,” said Jo. “We need to make people more aware of where there clothes are made. If I didn’t have any idea, chances are other people don’t either. We want them to think ‘hold on, who made this?’. And go buy a pair of fair trade knickers too!”

More from Fairtrade Fortnight on greenmystyle.com
Fairtrade Fortnight starts today with a fashion fix
Fair trade showcase: CRED fine jewellery
Events: What’s on during Fairtrade Fortnight
Fair trade Daily Style Steal

Greenmystyle: We love Fairtrade chocolate and Champagne, and of course, mugs of Fairtrade
coffee, and now we have Fairtrade jewellery to get excited about too. When did CRED begin?
Christian: We started CRED jewellery back in 1996 as a way to generate income for the CRED foundation. As such the ethics and impact of the business was paramount to us. We began researching this impact and the journey of looking for alternatives…

CRED was formed in 1996

Greenmystyle: Wow, that’s quite some time ago now. What on earth was it like to get a fair trade jewellery range off the ground then? Difficult, I imagine.
Christian: You could say that. At first, and when we thought we were alone, it was impossible. We wanted to create jewellery from a transparent supply chain and were faced with an industry that was very conservative and had a tradition of secrecy. We wanted raw materials that were certified to social and environmental standards, however no standards or certification existed. Thankfully we met some kindred spirits along the way and began to make progress with producers, then miners and refiners. In 2003/4 we were able to create our first pieces of jewellery with fair trade gold.

R.Buckminster Fulller, social architect, engineer, visionary and inspiration

Greenmystyle: What were you doing before CRED , and what brought you to create the range?
Christian: As a design graduate I was convinced that designers have a social responsibility and that this was often ignored or restricted by the way design is harnessed in consumerism. I was inspired by the theories of alternative designers, like Buckminster Fuller and Papenek. I was engaged in various responsible design projects, one of these was with CRED. We focused on wedding and engagement rings as symbols of love, believing that out of all jewellery these must be pure.

Greenmystyle: You describe yourselves as the ‘source of fair trade jewellery’. What does that mean?
Christian: We see ourselves as the source of fair trade fine jewellery because we are offering the general public and jewellers traceability to source. We have been, and continue to be, instrumental in creating the industry behind the jewellery. CRED is driven by the desire to see artisanal mining communities benefiting from the jewellery trade and people given the chance to own jewellery that is traceable and socially and environmentally positive. Having pioneered our supply line and chain of custody with CRED Jewellery we now distributing fairly-traded metals and gems to other jewellers and jewellery companies.

Greenmystyle: When choosing fine jewellery, why should we think about buying fair trade?
Christian: At its root it is the same logic that sends you reaching for the Fairtrade option in the supermarket/deli, but as you are buying something you will treasure for a lifetime we believe it is all the more important to make a positive choice. By buying fair trade you assured that everyone who has been involved in the creation of your jewellery has benefited and your purchase creates the demand that enables the process to grow.

Greenmystyle: These are pieces to treasure for a lifetime aren’t they?
Christian: We hope so, our focus is on creating jewellery that will punctuate people’s life stories and be valued as such.

Christian's platinum Flat Court wedding band, £460

Greenmystyle: Tell us about the jewellery you’re wearing right now.
Christian: I tend to keep my jewellery quite minimal, I am wearing my wedding ring, a flat court band and one of the silver torques from the Harigini co-operative we work with.

Greenmystyle: Does working in a fair trade way affect the design of the pieces?
Christian: The only restrictions we have on our designs are due to the supply, there are some semi-precious stones that we do not have traceable supplies for and so can not use. We have created some pretty wild design as private commissions for people. I do not think there is much we can not do.

Greenmystyle: You’ve worked with Central Saint Martins design graduates. How did the collaboration come about?
Christian: One of the students, Alice Holloway, contacted us to give a presentation to the undergraduates on ethical and fair trade in the jewellery industry. Following this presentation CRED sponsored the third year ethical track to their degree show. This was a collaboration initiated by the students themselves.

Wave Ring, by St Martins Graduate Laura Strand for CRED, in recycled silver satin, £185

Part of it was CRED running a competition for the degree show that selected the three designers who in the opinion of CRED demonstrated the most design flare and commercial possibility. The winners would then have their work made from materials within CRED’s unique ethical supply chain. It was not only a success from the perspective of the degree show, it has also opened the door with Central St Martins to further explore the dynamic interface between excellence in design and fair trade and ethical sourcing. It is our belief that it is this critical relationship that will shape the future of our industry.

Greenmystyle: Is the fair trade challenge met now, or does Cred have more goals to meet?
Christian: We definitely have more goals to reach. There are only two certifiable fair trade products available to the jewellery trade; gold and platinum. If our mission of making it culturally unacceptable to buy a piece of jewellery that is not socially and environmentally certified is to become a reality we must continue to pioneer in the supply chain. We need coloured gemstones, diamonds, silver and of course all the jewellery findings that will allow the whole industry and all its creative genius to reach back to fair trade sources. With key partners like FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisation) and ARM (Alliance for Responsible Mining) now working together, this dream is another critical step closer.

Now see:
Showcase: CRED, fair trade fine jewellery to covet
Five beautiful CRED items, five inspiring stories

Now visit CRED’s online store

Promotional feature

Mali necklace

CRED seeks to create fair trade jewellery that you can treasure for a lifetime. While achieving design excellence, each piece has a story about how it was created, and that makes it all the more meaningful. You can also wear CRED proudly in the knowledge that it hurt nobody and nothing in the making, and infact helped communities to carve themselves sustainable businesses and brighter futures. In this gallery, Greenmystyle.com has picked five beautiful pieces, with five inspiring stories.

1. Mali Necklace, £115

The Mali necklace pictured here is an intricate and striking 40″ length chain with satin finish links made from recycled silver. It is part of the Mali collection, designed by Sir John Cass graduate Annabel Panes, a winner of  CRED’s Responsible Jewellery competition. A bracelet and earrings complete the range.

Annabel says: “The collection is inspired by the West African country of Mali. The pieces tell the story of the river Niger which brings life and hope to the barren landscape. The links map the patterns found as the river descends to the sea and the river splits into a web of tributaries that make up the Niger Delta. This bird’s eye view of the river is what inspired the line and shape found in each link that makes up the collection.”

Next item: The Wave Bangle