Blueprint: Supporting Emerging, Ethical Designers

Forty Red Bangles

Several weeks ago, I visited BLUEPRINT an annual fashion trade show that showcases emerging and established Asian designers as well as international brands looking to enter the Asian retail markets. Obviously, my primary purpose was really to suss out new ethical labels that are making a difference to their communities and the world at large. I'm happy to report that I've found several stylish, sustainable brands gracing the 5th Edition of the event.

One of the brands I was looking forward to check out was Forty Red Bangles, a socially conscious fashion brand from India that sells a wide-range of products from organic apparels to upcycled accessories from the House of Wandering Silk as well as handmade toys. They also have an adorable kids line called Four Red Bangles that sells kurta pyjamas made from certified organic cotton and printed with low impact GOTS certified dyes. Since I have so many friends with young ones, I can foresee Four Red Bangles being a major source of gifts for their kids.

The story behind the brand fascinates me. Ramona Saboo, the founder of Forty Red Bangles, hails from Australia and migrated to India after marriage and has since moved to Singapore. The name Forty Red Bangles was inspired by the forty red and white bangles traditionally worn by Indian brides as a symbol of luck and safety. For Ramona, the bangles represent the connection between her past and her future. The brand was established as a way for her to showcase the beauty of India's craftsmanship and design with sustainability in mind.

Community development is a major part of Forty Red Bangles philosophy.They work with small artisan communities in India as well as non-governmental organisations. They are heavily involved in projects that focus on the empowerment of marginalised women such as the Sambhali Trust in Jodhpur and Gramshree in Gujarat. These organisations provide women, especially those from the lower-caste, with the means to achieve financial independence as well as preserve traditional skills and craftsmanship.

Clockwise, Zariin Jewelry, Betel Life and Kolombiana

Apart from Forty Red Bangles, several other ethical brands that also caught my attention at the trade show includes Zariin Jewelry, Betel Life and Kolombiana. Zariin Jewelry sells semi-precious jewellery fairly made by Indian artisans with a portion of the proceed for every piece of jewellery sold going to the SOS Children's Villages India. Betel Life from Taiwan, on the other hand, sells eco-friendly slippers made of betel leaves which creates jobs for Taiwanese farmers as well as Taiwanese aboriginal weavers. Meanwhile, Kolombiana sells tribal bags handmade by artisans from indigenous communities across South America to provide them with means of livelihood and allowing them to preserve their hand weaving traditions. Kolombiana also has a brick-and-mortar shop in Haji Lane so drop by their store when you're in the Kampong Glam district.

Fair Trade Finds: Boutiques at The Pit Building

Clockwise: AsiaAmour, Bisous La and Baliza Shop

Boutiques Singapore is a biannual shopping event geared towards the expatriate community. For its 2014 spring edition, it featured over 100 independent vendors that sell original designs as well as artisanal goods made from all over the world. Most importantly for me, it is probably one of the few boutique fairs in Singapore that feature a wide-range of fairly traded goods from apparels to home decor. Fair trade vendors present at the fair include: AsiaAmour that sells classic, tropical resort wear fairly made by Cambodian seamstresses; Bisous La that sells accessories and home decor items made by craftsmen across South East Asia; and Baliza Shop that sells Bali and Ibiza inspired resort wear.

Colourful tassels made by the children at Ladli. Photo courtesy of Baliza Shop.

Gema Santander, a spunky, petite Spanish lady runs Baliza Shop and she enthusiastically told me that all the products are made in Ladli, a vocational training program for street children in Jaipur, India. Children as young as ten assemble the tassels whereas older kids are tasked with the sewing. Without Ladli, many of these kids are left to fend for themselves and have to resort to begging, child slavery or prostitution. Ladli is run by i-india, an NGO that provides education, artisan training, nutrition, healthcare, counselling and accommodation for these street children. Baliza currently reinvests all its profits to develop and promote its production at Ladli.

I bought a kaftan from Baliza Shop for my upcoming Mediterranean trip (my sad wardrobe is mostly filled with work clothes) and I have to say I am very impressed by both the quality and unique design patterns, made through traditional techniques of hand dyeing and printing. The last time I bought a kaftan was over a year ago through the Victoria's Secret website and was very disappointed with the quality. It was flimsy and crumpled easily, only supermodels like Miranda Kerr can carry it off.

To buy from any of the above mentioned retailers, you can subscribe to their facebook pages to receive the latest news on their upcoming events. If you're lucky, you can also set up appointments to visit their showroom.

Fair Trade People: The Fashion Context

A Wall Street Journal Ad by Zady, an ethical online retailer

Last Saturday was like any other weekend for shopping obsessed Singapore. But in other parts of the world, various activities were organised to celebrate World Fair Trade Day, an annual event initiated by the World Fair Trade Organization. Closer to home, a competition was held at Mitra Bali Fair Trade to promote fair trade and better working environment.

This year's theme was 'Fair Trade People' and aimed to celebrate everyone involved in the social movement. So I thought it would be good to take this opportunity to delve deeper as to why I support fair trade and ethical fashion. 

I lived in Australia for close to a decade, initially to study and eventually to work before returning to Singapore at the end of 2010. The Singapore I left and the Singapore I came back to were world's apart. The scenery had changed dramatically, what with Marina Bay Sands and the Downtown Core permanently altering the skyline of the CBD area. 

Orchard Road, Singapore's shopping mecca, had also undergone a drastic transformation with new malls such as ION Orchard and Somerset 313 dotting the swanky, tree-lined streets and older malls, evidently threatened by the new entrants have undergone major facelifts to lure in well-heeled customers.   

Now, what has this got to do with fair trade you say? Along with the dazzling array of designer brands, many fast-fashion retailers including H&M, Forever 21 & Cotton On have also set up shop in Orchard Road. Working in Orchard Road, I often observe white-collar workers leaving the office midday for lunch and returning back with a shopping bag or two. Mindless consumption, that's what it has become. Because the apparels are so affordable these days that shopping is no longer consigned to a weekend workout but rather a lunch pit-stop. I myself, have been guilty on several occasions though luckily not frequent enough to be consumed by it.  

Coming back to fair trade,I used to buy fair trade products for the feel good vibe; knowing that somewhere, someone in the third world is benefiting from my tokenistic purchase. But as I sought to educate myself further on this issue, I was not only saddened by the exploitation within the retail industry but more horrified by the fact that we as consumers are perpetuating the socio-economic divide and environmental degradation solely through our consumption habits and lifestyles. 

You know how most of us complain about how the rich gets richer while the poor gets poorer? How our bosses are overpaid when we do most of the work? You know what? We're equally as guilty. By choosing to buy goods sold by high-street labels with little regards for human rights, we are making a decision to line the pockets of billionaires such as Zara's founder Amancio Ortega Gaona rather than ensure the poor farmers and workers are paid a living wage that enable them to buy nutritious food, pay their children's school fees etc. 

Now, I can fully understand how difficult it can be for consumers fed on a diet of fast-fashion to adjust their mindset and pay more for their apparels. I'm also painfully aware of the fact that there are many whose livelihoods depend on these retailers. My simple suggestion is that we could all strive to be more thoughtful and responsible consumers. Minimise any unnecessary purchases and question the ethics of the products at hand before parting with your money. Think quality not quantity. 

Revisiting Fashion Revolution Day and the incident that triggered this movement - the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh - shed further light on the plight of garment workers. 'The Shirt On Your Back', a moving interactive produced by The Guardian, uses video footage, compelling images and revealing info-graphics to create a powerful, multi-layered narrative on the human cost of the garment industry. A ticker tape runs throughout as a sobering reminder on the paltry wages of these garment workers as compared to the massive revenues made by UK retailers on the back of their labour. I took close to 28 minutes to watch the entire interactive and in that timeframe, Mahmuda (the interactive's protagonist) would have earned 48 pence whereas UK retailers would have made £2060k in sales.

Above is another short documentary featured in the New York Times called 'The Deadly Cost of Fashion'. It seeks to draw the connections between apparel brands sold in New York to the clothing tags found in the rubble of the Rana Plaza collapse. Connections that are all but lost to consumers when they purchase their apparels in well-lit, beautifully designed stores. Companies and brands link to Rana Plaza include Joe Fresh, Benetton and Mango. 

Even a year after the incident, many survivors and victims' families have yet to receive adequate compensations. Not only that, it seems that very little have changed in the working conditions of garment workers as exemplified by the mass fainting in Cambodia and continued instabilities in Bangladeshi factories. 

To show your support, you can sign the Clean Clothes Campaign petition to urge retailers to pay garment workers a living wage. And obviously, buy fair:)

Help Anna: Style It Forward

Have any gently-used designer apparel and accessories to give away? If so, head to the Hilton Hotel between 29 May and 1 June to donate them as part of Club 21 Cares initiative. The donations will be used to fund the Singapore Committee for UN Women's Help Anna campaign through its charity sale. The campaign serves as part of its wider initiative on ending violence against women across the region.

Lotus Culture: From Sexual Slavery to Seamstress

My Lotus Culture Purchase (Clockwise): Clutch Bag, Boho Bag, Door Stopper, Tote Bag

Lotus Culture's Brand Tag

Over the Labour Day holiday, I went to the 3rd anniversary sale of Lotus Culture, a social enterprise working to rebuild the lives of sex trafficking victims in Cambodia. Lotus Culture supports AFESIP Cambodia, an NGO that rescues and rehabilitates sex slaves, through three key areas - education, mental healthcare and social enterprise. The social enterprise component saw Lotus Culture fund a business called Kumnit Thmey that hires former victims to work as seamstresses. 

Lotus Culture is co-founded by Sylvia Lee who is also the founder of EmancipAsia, a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is to raise awareness and advocate action against human trafficking. She proudly told me that they managed to keep the overhead costs low thanks to the help of skilled volunteers as well as self-funded trips to Cambodia. This is to ensure that most of the donations go directly to the beneficiaries. The low overheads are also reflected in the price-point of their well-made products. The three bags I bought (at less than $100) remind me of the bags you can get at fast-fashion retain chains minus the abusive, sweatshop manufacturing conditions. 

                                                                       Singapore Committee for UN Women Gala Screening of 3.50 The Movie 

                                                                                               (Please excuse the terrible resolution!)

Shopping at Lotus Culture reminded me of a local movie I recently caught called 3.50 The Movie which spotlights the sex trafficking trade in Cambodia, in particular the lucrative virgin market. Due to abject poverty, young girls were sold by their parents or tricked by promises of well-paid work in the city, only to be forced into sex slavery. I can still recall a very disturbing scene whereby a victim's hymen was sewed by a dodgy doctor to make her a "virgin" again in order to raise her street value. I cannot even begin to imagine how it would feel like to be put through such pain and suffering. 

Social enterprises such as Lotus Culture work with aid organisations to provide employment for these survivors so they can rebuild their lives and create a better future for themselves. Products sold by Lotus Culture include an assortment of bags such as handbags, totes and clutches as well as home decor items. The enterprise also produce custom-made gifts for corporate clients. You can purchase their products from The Shop at The Arts House, online via Shop For Social or you can add them onto Facebook to receive notices on upcoming sales events.