The new fashion bratpack
The bright young crowd pushing ethical style to the fore
Let’s be honest. Ethical fashion will only become mainstream if it looks fantastic.
So it’s great to see that there’s some gifted young talent out there committed to making clothes and accessories that are both stunning and fairly made. Meet the new fashion bratpack.
Vivien Johnston, Fifi Bijoux
Vivien designs and sells ethically-made jewellery through her company Fifi Bijoux. They say you have to suffer for beauty, but Vivien Johnston would disagree. She has set up Fifi Bijoux, an ethical jewellery company, with the express purpose of ensuring that all the precious metals and stones she uses in her pieces are sourced from countries where human rights are respected and the environmental impact of mining is minimised.
In 2006 Fifi Bijoux launched its first collection which was showcased at London Fashion Week in 2007. Although Vivien refuses to class herself as a success as yet, the range has generated a great deal of media interest and she is on the road to achieving her long term aim of making Fifi Bijoux the ethical equivalent of Louis Vuitton.
Pictured below: From Little Acorns Pendant (10% of profits to Child Sponsorship programme, Entebbe Womens Association, Uganda) £240, Bahia Cuff Bangle, limited edition £10,000
Available from www.fifibijoux.com or contact them for stockists across the UK.
Sarah Lucy Smith, Green Knickers
GreenKnickers was started by best friends Sarah Lucy Smith and Rose Cleary-Southwood in 2005. Mentored by Anita Roddick, they were passionate from the start about making their pretty undies as ethical as was humanly possible which was once upon a time a tricky task.
From fair trade, to organic, to low impact fabrics and dyes, not to mention low carbon local manufacturing, Sarah and Rose had a real challenge educating customers about the multitude of ethical consideration that had gone into their knickers. But GreenKnickers has always been about inspiring change rather than guilt tripping so design and humour have always been the preferred tools of communication.
Nowadays customers are much savvier and even in an economic downturn GreenKnickers customers are still looking for pants to tick all the boxes ethically. With brand new zero carbon knickers on www.greenknickers.org they won’t be disappointed.
Pictured below: Mens Global Warming boxers £10, Womens Silk/Hemp knickers £15
Available from www.greenknickers.org
Lucy Tammam, www.tammam.co.uk
Founded by Lucy Tammam, Tammam is an ethical fashion label. Every item is labelled with its fibre content, dye process and place of production. Tammam are trying to help people achieve the perfection of ethical trading but it is an long process tied up in a lot of red tape. All products are made in factories working under fair trade conditions.
Factories are either IFAT (International Federation for Alternative Trading) or FLO (Fairtrade labelling organisation) certified, or working towards achieving this status (because of cost and processing times Tammam will work with uncertified companies, while helping them achieve Fair trade status, after inspection by a Tammam employee.)
Pictured below: Fay banana scarf £50, Rita trousers £130
Available from the high end section of thenaturalstore.co.uk
These entrepreneurs are all Ambassadors for Enterprise UK, the national campaign to increase entrepreneurial behaviour amongst people in the UK. The entrepreneurs are all supporting the Make Your Mark Challenge on November 16,an enterprise competition for 14-19 year olds. Visit www.enterpriseuk.org for more.
