If London is emerging as a leading ethical fashion centre in the world, it’s partly due to the fact that the city’s fashion stores are able to source fairtrade products from India and its neighbourhood.
It’s borne out by high street dotting stores with names like By Nature, Green Baby, Eka, Arthaa, Namaste, Bombay Bedspread Company and the Chandni Chowk chain that source products ranging from textiles, garments and accessories to home furnishing right from Auroville to Delhi.
Celebrities like Paul McCartney’s daughter Stella McCartney and Bono’s wife Ali Hewson are also adorning the fairtrade marketplace. Even Amitabh Bachchan made it a point to visit an Oxfam shop in Westbourne Grove, London, which is known for selling fairtrade products along with clothes and books, on the eve of the International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFA) awards earlier this year.
“The demand for fairtrade products is increasing among consumers in developed countries and Indians are just tapping into this growing market,” says Shyam S Sharma, president, Fair Trade Forum India.
Fairtrade requires employers to provide healthy working conditions to workers, including paying them fair wages, ensuring gender equity at the workplace, avoiding child labour and protecting the environment during production, trade and other income generating activities.
Mainstream and niche media cover Indian stories regularly. The reasons are obvious. “Indian fairtrade products get covered mainly because a lot of the stuff comes from the country and surroundings,” explains Adam Vaughan, editor of newconsumer.com.
Store owners are engaging in the alternative trade for reasons varying from the personal and the political to the business. When Jill Barker had a son, she started looking for natural products. Unable to find anything easily, she started her own company Green Baby in London 1999, stocking it with baby garments produced under a fairtrade label in Karnataka.
“I spend a lot of time with my supplier in South India and also have a production manager who makes sure that standards are maintained.”
Today Green Baby retails organic washable nappies, disposables, baby basics, furniture, gifts and toys. It boasts of celebrity customers like Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Roberts.
Similarly, Annabelle Randles started By Nature in London two years ago out of frustration of not finding ethical products that she would have liked to buy for herself. Stumbling upon suppliers dealing in organic cotton and fairtrade toys and recycled photo albums helped her connect with their Indian manufacturers.
She says, “Organic cotton is much better and healthier for cotton growers when compared to GM or conventional cotton, which uses so many pesticides and herbicides that growers are more likely to develop cancer.”
Similarly Nature Collection in Bath, UK, has been promoting fairtrade and ecofriendly products, including organic cotton and accessories, for more than a decade to enable traditional communities to link with competitive markets and generate more income.
Al Tepper, head of marketing at Nature Collection, says that they research and select each item carefully to promote ecological and sustainable manufacturing practices. He adds that Natural Collection believes that small positive choices by the many can have a tremendous impact on our collective ethical evolution.
For Rajesh and Janet Redij-Gill, it was predominantly a business proposition to set up Middlesex-based Bombay Bedspread Company. When their Indian gifts of bedspreads to family and friends in London met with an enthusiastic response, they sensed a business opportunity and plunged into it.
Says Rajesh Redij-Gill, “We have been always interested in fairtrade and traditional Indian crafts and products. So it was a natural progression for us to start a business based on the principles of fairtrade and ethical business practices.”
Cambridge-based Ekas Gilly Seagrave had different reasons to reach out to India. Says Seagrave, “My personal ethics do not allow me to trade with China. So I looked for another country for a manufacturing base. A friend in contact with Auroville in India got her into the loop in 2004.” She also tried other Indian manufacturers, but stopped short because she was unsure of their ethical credentials.
The cultural township of Auroville is well organised in that respect since its stated purpose is to live in harmony with nature and the environment. Says Dezul Joseph Benny of Auromode, a fairtrade outfit in Auroville, We produce goods conforming to European standards of quality.
Though most of Eka’s customers are Europeans, the webshop supplies people worldwide. Her shop in Malibu, California, also stocking the collection this winter. She says, “There are many professional snowboarders wearing my hats (this is one of my target markets) and I also have a few hats on models around Europe!” Apart from headgears, her collection comprises laptop sleeves, iPod cases, cotton bags, scarves, neck scarves/bandannas and underwear.
The United States is also a picking up as a popular destination for Indian fairtrade products. Washington-based Marigold supplies fashionable fairtrade clothes sourced from Mumbai-based Creative Handicrafts to stores all over the US. Says Beth Provo, “We work to make the decision to buy fairtrade products an easy one by selling garments made from stunning fabrics and in fashionable designs. The garments are vegetable dyed and handblock prin-ted to attract environmentally and socially responsible consumers.”
Follow Your Bliss in Houlton, Maine, also sources fisherman-wrap pants, skirts, and mens and womens shirts from India. Says owner Tanya A Pasquarelli, “I work hard identifying and obtaining fairtrade merchandise. We utilise fairtrade and fair labour practices as a paramount benchmark for our selectively chosen buying partners, artisans and craftspeople.” The company is continuously on the look out for sourcing products from community projects, individual artists and womens groups In India.
Fairtrade products are at a disadvantage in the market, though. They come at a higher price tag. Still Rajesh Redij-Gill of Bombay Bedspread Company try to price their products to suit the producer as well as the buyer. Elaborates Rajesh, “We believe that by introducing a high quality product at a fair price we will enlarge the market and a smaller price difference will tempt the consumer who wants to support fairtrade but has been so far priced out.”
Different stores try different means, though. Says Randles of By Nature, We educate our customers to make them understand that cheap fashion comes at a high price to growers and workers in developing countries.
Adds Seagrave of Eka, “The products do cost a bit more, but customers get a lot more for their money. When they buy into an ethical brand, they make a statement of conscientious fashion.”
Their efforts seem to be paying off. Customers dont seem to be complaining of higher prices, but of lack of enough ethical products in the market, says store owners. Big players are already taking note of it. Smelling green bucks, top end shops like Top Shop, M&S and Next too have ventured into the ethical segment.
Lack of a system of fairtrade labeling could become an issue in the future, though. Presently, the quality is ensured by suppliers and buyers themselves. Adidas Jacob of Mumbai-based Asha Handicrafts, which has an ISO 9000 certificate, says that they do self-assessment of their supply chain.
Devika Sonar of Kolkata-based Sasha, which is a member of the International Federation for Alternative Trade and the Fair Trade Forum, Asia, also says that they are guided by self-assessment. Most of the buyers too conduct their own scrutiny.
Sensing that a subjective system may not survive the test of coming stringent times, Fair Trade ForumIndia is planning to develop a third-party certification system for fairtrade garments. The sooner, the better!
Source: The Financial Express
Published on 15 October 2007