Putting a Face to Fashion: New Zealand and Ecuador
As you have read in some of my previous posts, I am an advocate for supply chain transparency. I believe it is imperative that fashion brand companies share with customers how, where, and by whom their products are made. And I love it when I find companies that do what I think is a fantastic job with this – telling their stories in ways that authentically put a face to the fashions we buy are wear. With this posting, I’ll share a couple of companies that I feel are very effective in telling their stories.
The first company is Icebreaker, a New Zealand-based company of merino wool base layers, sportswear, and outdoor wear. On each Icebreaker product is a label “trace me” along with the directions “simply type the unique Baa code on the green tag inside your garment into icebreaker.com”. You will get information about where the wool came from and “meet the growers who raised them, and follow the production process through to the finished product”. Videos of the wool growers are absolutely delightful – real people and real places!
The second company is Winter Sun. I wrote about Winter Sun in an earlier blog as a company that designs and produces hand-painted fabrics and women’s apparel using fair trade practices. The Winter Sun factory is located in Ecuador. On their website are wonderful photographs and a video that shows the location of the factory in the Andes mountains of Ecuador along with the artisans who create the hand-painted fabrics and the sewing operators in the apparel factory. I have personally visited this factory and can vouch for the authenticity of the photographs and video. The beauty of the place is amazing!
I wish every fashion brand provided this type of transparency particularly around the people who raise the animals, pick the cotton, design and create the styles, and sew the fashions we wear. In both of these cases, we can see who is involved with the making these brands -- these are the faces of fashion!
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