The campaign is part of a larger campaign called Sweatfree Communities. It’s brilliant, and here’s why: it calls on municipalities, states, religious denominations, school districts–basically any large body–to use large-scale purchasing power to create a sea change in the garment industry.

Why is this important? As a small designer trying to manufacture ethically, all I can do is avoid sweatshops and support contractors and suppliers who are already manufacturing ethically. While doing so helps me to sleep better at night, I realize that on my own, I lack the financial leverage to pressure large contractors to pay cutters and stitchers fair wages and to make large scale changes in the garment industry. Likewise, as a consumer, I choose to avoid brands that use sweatshop labor and instead purchase clothing from ethical brands, or buy vintage/thrift items, or make my own clothing. But the loss of my disposable income alone is not enough to cause big brands like Walmart, Gap, etc, to monitor contractors and ensure that workers are paid a fair wage, that no child labor is employed, and that workers labor in a healthy and safe environment.

While I can’t stress enough the cumulative power of small, individual choices, I know that we can do even more to create change when we organize and work collectively. For example, our tax dollars fund multi-million dollar uniform contracts. We form our respective cities’ tax base, so we get a say in how that money is spent. And a multi-million dollar contract is quite a carrot. Now, thanks to the passage of the Sweatfree Ordinance, uniform vendors who have contracts with the City must comply with new rules in order to keep these lucrative contracts. First, they must agree to make their supply chains transparent. In the garment industry, where opacity and a race-to-the-bottom in terms of wages and labor rights is the norm, transparency is an enormous step! Once we know where our cities’ uniforms are made, we can draw on reports and investigations from the Workers’ Rights Consortium and the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium. If contractors are found to be violating basic health, safety, or labor rights, then they are given a list of recommendations to correct any issues, and time to implement changes.  If they choose to not comply, then they will lose these lucrative contracts.

Testifying in favor of the ordinance along with fellow Chicago Fair Trade member, Pushpika Freitas, Owner/Founder of Marketplace of India

We live in a globalized world where currently 98% of our garments are made abroad, often in abysmal conditions. To adapt to in this globalized world, we must continue to support globalized movements like Sweatfree Communites, like Fair Trade. These movements not only help to end entirely preventable tragedies like the Rana Plaza factory collapse, but also help to level the playing field for ethical business, and to raise the floor for all workers and their families, both at home and abroad.

So please, join CFT this Thursday to celebrate with fair trade wine, locally made beer, snacks, and the company of CFT’s visionary, inspiring members!

New studio/showroom in Logan Square

Production Mode  is a collaborative endeavor, drawing on the strengths of the art, design, and activist community here in Chicago and beyond. The first collection, a capsule line of screenprinted leather pieces which will launch in August 2014, draws on the illustrations of Paula Wilson and the cutting and sewing skills of fair trade group Intercrafts Peru. Paula’s work was  designed as part of her residency at Cannonball Miami, using the facilities of Turn Based Press.

Paula Wilson preparing screens for printing the leather for the Production Mode launch

The collection will be made of vegetable tanned leather rather than the chrome tanned leather typically used in the fashion industry. Although the vegetable tanning process takes much longer than chrome tanning (3-5 weeks versus a few days) and is thus typically more expensive, vegetable tanning is an eco-friendly process using natural tannins derived from tree barks whereas chrome tanning is a highly toxic and water intensive process which produces waste that can develop into carcinogenic chromium and contaminate water supplies, especially when leather tanneries are located in countries with lax environmental regulations.  In addition, vegetable tanned is more easily and safely recycled or disposed of than chrome tanned leather. 

 Vegetable tanned leather swatches

 Also important to me is who made the leather and where did it come from? The leather for the collection is from Horween, a local, unionized tannery known for its high quality that has been processing leather here in Chicago  since 1905. Horween receives the leather from horses raised in France.  Ethical concerns aside, the fact that vegetable tanned leather is gorgeous and soaks up ink beautifully was not lost of me.

Leather printed by Paula Wilson and ready for sampling

Currently I’m sketching, making patterns, and sewing samples of a men’s jacket, a woman’s jacket, a handbag, cuff, and necklace for the launch collection.Next I’ll bring samples to Lima and work with an expert leatherworker there that I am connecting to via my friends at Intercrafts Peru, with whom I worked this past January on a product design job funded by the fair trade brand SERRV.

Once launched, the collection will sell for only 30 days, and will be sold prior to manufacture. That way I know exactly how many raw materials to buy and how many items to manufacture. Once items are cut and sewn in Lima, and inspected by me here in Chicago, I will ship items to customers. This business model is a win on many fronts. I can offer high quality, limited edition, artisanal products at a much more competitive price, while still paying suppliers and contractors living wages. Additionally, I will manufacture only what is sold, meaning that there is little to no waste ecologically or financially. This model allows me to take greater design risks and to build more direct relationships with customers.

Stay tuned for info on the line as it develops and the upcoming launch late this summer!

Why is this important? As a small designer trying to manufacture ethically, all I can do is avoid sweatshops and support contractors and suppliers who are already manufacturing ethically. While doing so helps me to sleep better at night, as a small designer, I lack the financial leverage to pressure contractors to pay cutters and stitchers fair wages and to make large scale changes in the garment industry. Likewise, as a consumer, I can avoid brands that use sweatshop labor and instead purchase clothing from ethical brands or buy vintage and thrift items, but the loss of my disposable income alone is not enough to cause big brands like Walmart, Gap, etc, to monitor contractors and ensure that workers are paid a fair wage, that no child labor is employed, and that workers labor in a healthy and safe environment.

Reading my statement at Chicago Fair Trade’s May 28th press conference

While I believe that our individual choices are very important, clearly we can do more to create change when we organize. Our tax dollars fund multi-million dollar contracts. It’s our responsibility to insist that these dollars are given to ethical manufacturers. The multi-million dollar contract is quite a carrot. In order to keep it, uniform vendors who have contracts with the City must agree to make their supply chains transparent. Further, other municipalities who have already passed similar ordinances, such as Los Angeles, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Seattle, have also included investigation mechanisms in their ordinances. For example, the city of Los Angeles created a position within city government for the monitoring of uniform purchases. In addition, these cities have also joined the Sweatfree Purchasing Consortium, an organization that pools and shares resources. Ethical contractors are listed on their websites, and new vendors who want to be approved as sweatshop free are inspected by the Consortium. If they aren’t yet sweatfree (meaning that they respect basic health, safety, and labor rights and allow workers to anonymously report complaints to the Consortium), then they are given a list of recommendations to correct any issues, and ample time to implement changes.  If they choose to not comply, then they lose the lucrative contract. A globalized world of trade calls for robust international monitoring and enforcement mechanisms. The Sweatfree Communities allows us as individual consumers to band together and use the power of our tax dollars to call for the end of sweatshops and help to ensure that entirely preventable tragedies like the Rana Plaza factory collapse never happen again.

The ordinance is currently in the review process. Let’s pressure the City Council of Chicago to include monitoring mechanisms in the ordinance. Ideas on how to do so are here.

My living room

In January the Chicago Reader’s Andrea Bauer came by to photograph my apartment and talk to me about furniture, style, and the history of the neighborhood. My favorite things about the article was that it gave me an opportunity to learn more about the history of my apartment from my fantastic landlady, Vicki Logan. It turns out that her grandmother, who bought the building in 1939, was a seamstress and an activist in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ union. Freaky! Video and article here.

Last November just prior to the UNIFORM project show, WBEZ’s Alison Cuddy interviewed  me about the UNIFORM project show and the upcoming launch of my line, Production Mode.

It’s a real gift to be interviewed by such a pro. It pushed me to think critically and to speak articulately about my work, and I loved the way that she contextualized the UNIFORM project and Production Mode.

Read the interview here.

We discussed Chicago Fair Trade‘s campaign to pass an ordinance in the City of Chicago to ensure that uniforms and other apparel procured by the City be manufactured without the use of sweatshops. The ordinance includes monitoring and enforcement mechanisms which require vendors to: (1)  make their supply chains transparent; and (2)  submit to labor audits ensuring that work is performed by adults, that workers are paid a living wage, have the right to organize, work in a healthy and safe environment, and have access to anonymous reporting mechanisms to report any labor rights violations.

Listen to the broadcast here to learn more about the campaign and the fair trade business community in Chicago!

Besides my inability to pronounce the word “procurement”, I think we did a good job explaining the importance of the ordinance and the fair trade movement in general. Next time I go on the air I’m going to practice this tongue twister: “Peter Piper procured a peck of puce pullovers.”

Announcing!

Past Perfect: UNIFORM fashion & gallery show.
Saturday, 11/2
7 pm opening, 9 pm runway show
Dance Party immediately following with Deejays Damon Locks, Wayne Montana, & Major Taylor

Location: Marshall Brown Projects
3621 South State St., Ground Floor, Chicago IL 60609
1 block south of Red Line 35th/Bronzeville/IIT station

For this show fashion designer Jamie Hayes collaborated with 28 different participants to design a uniform or uniform-inspired piece.

The gallery show will feature essays written by each participant, and photos and artwork of each participate created by Alix Lambert and Damon Locks.

For the runway show, participants will model their uniforms, and Kim Soss will emcee.

Uniforms have a rich history to be mined. They are built to work and built to last, and often quite beautiful. Uniforms can be used to classify, identify, segregate, or control people. Uniforms can create hierarchies but conversely, can also erase individuality and difference. Creating personal/customized uniforms taps into the long tradition of artists and activists who have re-appropriated and subverted uniforms as institutional symbols of authority and conformity. The true subject at hand is the social meaning of clothing and fashion, and uniforms are the vehicle of exploration.

Guests are encouraged to wear a uniform (real, ideal, imaginary) to the show and to have their uniform documented by Damien Thompson.
____________________________________

Thank you to all the participants: Alix Lambert, Annemarie Strassel, Annie Reese, Aziza Mahmoud, Betty Eo, Damon Locks, Doug McCombs, Dyanna Charles, Eve Fineman, Heather Kenny, John Brearley, Julia Olsen Spataro, Kate Sheehy, Leslie Lockett, Marshall Brown, Maya Sidhu, Melina Ausikaitis, Paula Wilson, Rachel Caidor, Richard Warfield Smith, Rob Roy Mackinnon Campbell, Sarah Aulie, Terence Swafford, Tisha Tucker, Vanessa Reilly-Bates, and Wayne Montana.

New to my blog will be articles and features on ethical fashion businesses. I plan on posting not only about fellow design/manufacture businesses like Ishi Vest, but also on the suppliers that I’ll be using once I develop my line, Production Mode.

My goals are to:

1. Help promote design and clothing manufacturing businesses that create high-quality products in an ethical manner, in hopes to increase their sales and to help create a market for said products.

2.  Increase transparency in the fashion industry. The biz is highly secretive. I get that companies need to protect trade secrets, but the norm in the industry is to contract out cutting and sewing and to wash one’s hands of the labor practices of one’s contractors. Not only do we need to take responsibility for who manufactures the products that we buy and sell, but also we need to applaud and support contractors and suppliers who do follow labor and safety laws so as to keep them in business and level the playing field.

So my first shout-out goes to local Chicago rising stars, ishi vest.

Ishi grew out of founder Harishi Patel’s organizing and advocacy in India, where he worked with cotton farmers. Cotton farmers in India, a leader producer of cotton, have had it very hard as of late. Essentially, many have switched from traditional, organic farming practices to conventional practices that rely on heavy use of insecticides and pesticides. While the switch to conventional cotton farming typically leads to increased yields at first, it is typically followed by lower yields, higher debts, and often severe health problems due to exposure to pesticides and insecticides. Farmers often end of losing their lands, and farmer suicides in India have been rampant as a result.

So Harishi decided to create a market for organic cotton products, and created the ishi vest line with the help of several other collaborators. I think their business model is very smart–they started with one product, a man’s vest, and honed and perfected it. Ishi not only uses organic cotton, but also uses natural dyes to color it, since synthetic dyes are also hugely detrimental to the environment, as well as connected to a rise in health problems for workers exposed to the dyes. (The EPA actually forbids the use of many of dyeing chemicals in the US. While that’s helped to greatly improve the quality of our air and water, the fashion industry has simply outsourced the use of these toxic chemicals to countries with laxer regulatory measures, rather than eliminating the use of toxic chemicals). Ishi also promotes transparency in its supply chain, so you evaluate for yourself the quality and source of their product: their fabric are sourced from an ethical business called Aura , who also cuts and sews their products.

ishi vest Founder, Harishi Patel,  sporting an ishi vest and scarf

Another smart move on the part of ishi vest: they are launching their line through a Kickstarter campaign. Personally, I’ve got a bit of Kickstarter fatigue. But when it comes to fashion, I still think it’s a great model for the following reasons: (1) most contractors won’t cut and sew small orders. (2) contractors require payment for their services when complete–often long before a brand is able to sell their product. Basically, if you’re not flush with cash, it makes it very difficult to start a fashion line, especially since, even in the feast years of the US economy, very few financial institutions lend to fashion startups. Now that we’re in lean times, it’s near impossible to obtain funding. (3) Ishi’s already successful Kickstarter campaign has shown that there is a niche market for their vest, which can only help the ishi folks with sales/expansion down the line.

So if you’re looking for a high-quality, unique, ethically made vest, check out the Kickstarter page and place your order. Ishi is way underselling these at $55/piece. I’m sure those prices won’t last, especially as they sell their products wholesale (vs. direct to customer) down the road.  I’ve seen the products in person and I really dig the Nehru collar, the long, slim cut, and the naturally-dyed fabrics which are richly variegated. If you’re not in need of a vest but still want to support, ishi scarves, notebooks, and pins are also on offer.

graphics by Damon Locks

In anticipation of the uniform project, here’s a peek at Doug McCombs’ Swiss Army Blanket Jacket. Those of you who know Doug or who have seen his piece for the Vietnam project know that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of early 20th century workwear. This jacket builds on that tradition and that of old hunting jackets. It’s unstructured and unlined, but made from a very dense and durable Swiss Army blanket.  Built for use and built to last, and a very smart way to re-use less-than-perfect blankets and army surplus. Thanks to Doug again for sharing his knowledge of men’s wear with me.