Ben and some of his pants

It all began with an idea at Live8  in 2005.

Then their Pants went to Glastonbury and within a day 3,000 people had bought them including Joss Stone, Goldie Looking Chain and even the great Michael Eavis himself.

It was all the brainchild of the very outspoken and rather gorgeous Ben Ramsden, Daisy Green’s June Green God and owner of Pants to Poverty.

Ben, what size are your pants; small, medium, large or extra large?!

Our range of pants cover everything from a small to a large, but I personally tend to fit snugly into a medium.

Tell us about your journey to Pantstopoverty. Why it is so essential?

I began my journey towards pants in the Jungles of Guyana in September 2001. I had just quit my job in Telecoms headhunting and taken up a job working with the Patamona and Makushi tribes on the borders of Brazil and Venezuela. That was the beginning of nearly three years of living and working in the ‘majority’ world.

By the time that I came back most of the preconceptions that were driven into me growing up were shattered and replaced with the realisation that our world and her wonderful people, are in serious trouble. And many of the problems started at home. The biggest challenge as I saw it – and still do – is that we simply don’t realise what is happening in our world and the amazingly powerful and important role that we each can play in putting things right.

Pants, to us, are not simply a fashion product, but a metaphor for what is right and wrong in our world. Through the Pants to Poverty value chain we link some of the poorest people in the world to the richest and use our pants as a form of expression to change the unjust systems that, in the words of Nelson Mandela ‘keep hundreds of millions of people trapped and enslaved in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free’.

Our pants, by the way, are also exceptionally better than other unjust brands about half the price and, in my opinion, the best thing you could do with a tenner.

Your target is to rid the world of bad pants. How far along the quest are you?

On the 2 July, we will be four years into our quest but we haven’t even begun yet. We are now working with and supporting over 6,000 famers in and around Vidarbha, India and so far have sold approximately 40,000 pairs of pants. However most people still wear and support bad pants. Pants that are infested with pesticides and support unfair labour conditions.

Conditions that force about 5,000 farmers each year to commit suicide in just the area from where we source our cotton. So our journey is just beginning, and we hope to bring as many people (and all who read this) along with us. It will be hard, but we will make it fun.

You have a penchant for stripping to your pants. Did this start in early childhood? How many people joined you at London’s Royal Exchange on 11 March to support Fairtrade and Trade Justice.

It is true, that I do love a good pant flash! I could wax on for inches about all the reasons behind it but the main one is that it is a great way to get media attention about issues that used to be ignored by the media and mobilising people in fun and exciting ways!

There’s nothing like a great pair of pants and a shot of whisky to liven up a crowd! Our first pant flash was on Arthur’s seat in Edinburgh on the eve of the Make Poverty History demo, then the Royal Exchange celebrating the launch of Fairtrade cotton, then the Houses of Parliament as part of the world can’t wait for mobilization, then the ICC in Birmingham to support drop the debt coalition and, most recently, on Guinness World Records Day to support our work with the tribal farmers in India. In total about 500 people have joined our flashes!

To be included in the Guinness Book of Records is an amazing achievement. Tell us about it.

A friend from when I used to work at Amnesty International pointed out that no one had ever won the record for the most people ever gathered in their pants (strangely enough!) and so suddenly we decided that it was part of our destiny to get in the big book! A few phone calls later we got the paper work done and sent out the rallying call to our favourite pant lovers.

We arranged to do it at Kings Cross International and just hoped that everyone would turn up. Huge press coverage was guaranteed and we were a little nervous whether everyone would turn up! But turn up they did and a fresh pair of pants and a shot of whisky later we were all lining up in front of a media frenzy! A mental day with global media coverage… friends of mine from all over the world said they saw us running around in our pants! Amazing!

Joss Stone looks great in your pants? Which famous ladies would you like to model Pantstopoverty?

We think everyone looks great in our pants and would love anyone to model in them. It’s not really about the celebrity but the fact that people are buying them, using them and getting involved with the brand that counts. Of course there are a lot of famous ladies that could look really great in our pants, but I’d love to start with all the people who read this article!

We want people to model them so much that we are running a competition for the best photo in our pants with the winner coming with us to India to meet, and party with the farmers who grow the cotton in our pants! Famous guys and gals will be in our pants soon though! Something for you all to look forward to!

Do Pantstopoverty still have direct contact with Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa? How is that going?

I first came into contact with TAC while working with Amnesty in South Africa. They do some utterly inspirational work in some of the most complex and challenging situations imaginable, an HIV/Aids pandemic that is unimaginably terrifying for people here. And don’t just fight the spread of the disease, they win. We are still selling our condom pocket pants to raise £1 per pair to support their work in KwaZulu Natal and we have plans to further expand we do in this area.

The main focus of our work now though is with the farmers who grow our cotton. And this work is going from strength to strength.. much more news on that in the near future though!

What’s next ?

There’s so much on its way that I couldn’t possibly say, however on our 4th Birthday (2 July) we’re launching a new super hero and a brand new campaign to support the amazing work of organisations like the Pesticide Action Network and the Environmental Justice Foundation to ban one of the most evil pesticides on the planet: Endosulphane.

We’re also going to be launching new ranges of pants, a brand new website and rolling out the world’s first child labour free golden supply chain funded by our Peace and Love range… and that only takes us up to September! Come Christmas we’re going to be doing something that will amaze and enthrall… but you’ll have to wait til then… in the meantime, come see us online, sign up to the mailing list and buy yourself (and your friends) some of the greatest pants on the planet!