Rag Trade Reporter: Michael UsherProducer: Phil Goyen This is a story our major retailers would prefer you didn't see. 60 Minutes has just been inside the third world factories where thousands of workers are making the cut-price clothes that we wear every day. Getting our cameras into the country, and then into the factories, was not easy. The government of Bangladesh is on edge after more than 1000 people died in a factory collapse in April. But once inside, what we saw was eye-opening and makes you think twice about where your clothes come from. Statements: To view Oxfam Australia's statement, click here. Kmart has also issued a statement. To read a statement from Best & Less, click here.
Oyster Magazine. The Detox Catwalk the detox catwalk It’s time to find out which clothing companies are walking the talk to a toxic-free future. Over the past 24 months hundreds of thousands of activists, fashionistas, bloggers and consumers came together to call for fashion without pollution. From record-breaking strip teases to social media storms, people power brought about Detox commitments from 18 major textile companies. Take a look down the runway at the story so far. Now it’s time to see who is acting on their commitments, setting a new Detox trend in the industry, who is holding us back with nothing more than ineffective paper commitments and greenwashed promises and who is lagging behind the pack, unwilling to kick their toxic addiction and commit to Detox. Leaders - Detox committed companies leading the industry towards a toxic-free future with credible timelines, concrete actions and on-the-ground implementation.
Ethical fashion in Australian chains - Fair trade clothing | Not So Naked The elephant in the room is stirring. It angrily awoke when 1,129 people died, and thousands more were injured in a fashion factory in Bangladesh. It flared its nostrils when a shoe factory that supplies Asics collapsed, killing six. It stomped its feet as 23 people were killed in a Cambodian factory producing clothes for H&M. The ethics of fashion production is demanding our attention. As human beings, we have a responsibility to support the rights of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. That's not why I investigated the matter, though. Armed with my background as a newspaper journalist, I thought they would be eager to show consumers how responsible they are. Not one would comment. ASOS was the only retailer to provide any resource to demonstrate its ethics. I'm not here to point fingers. I'll continue to look for ways to reconcile fast fashion and human rights. Where to from here?
10 Marketing Masterworks Jumping-off point: Felix Baumgartner breaks the speed of sound for a Red Bull campaign. On the morning of Oct. 14, 2012, Austrian sky diver Felix Baumgartner strapped himself to a helium balloon that carried him 24 miles above Roswell, N.M., to the edge of space. Then, with just a spacesuit and parachute, he made a nine-minute, supersonic jump that catapulted him into history books as the first person to break the speed of sound in free fall--at 833.9 mph, or Mach 1.24--without mechanical intervention. This multimillion-dollar stunt wasn't funded by NASA or SpaceX. But marketing efforts don't need to change history to be effective. Band-Aid Augmented-reality app Image courtesy of Band-Aid Johnson & Johnson hired powerhouse New York City marketing agency JWT to create the augmented-reality Magic Vision app for Band-Aid's Muppet-theme bandages. Lesson: Incorporating cool, on-point technology helps you stand out in a crowded market and woo tech-savvy consumers. Help Remedies Mellow Mushroom Ikea
British Fashion Council - Estethica - About Estethica - Introduction to esthetica The British Fashion Council founded Estethica to showcase the growing movement of cutting edge designers committed to working eco sustainably. Estethica has evolved to become the hub of London's ethical fashion industry. The success of this initiative, the internationally strongest of its kind, is evident in its rapid growth. Estethica will showcase 9 cutting-edge designers for autumn/winter 2014 at London Fashion Week [^] in the West Wing of Somerset House. All Estethica designers adhere to at least one of the three Estethica principles of fair-trade and ethical practices, organic and recycled materials and are selected for both their ethical credentials and design excellence. In 2011, Estethica celebrated its 5th Anniversary as the industry’s leading showcase of ethical fashion. Estethica is co-curated by Orsola de Castro, founder of green label From Somewhere, Filippo Ricci and The British Fashion Council.
How ModCloth Went From a College Dorm to $100 Million a Year ModCloth founder Susan Gregg Koger has had a long love affair with thrifting and vintage clothing. In 2002, with the help of her then-boyfriend (and now husband) Eric Koger, she launched ModCloth, a simple online shop where she sold the finds she could no longer fit in her closet. She made a sale on her first day. Today, ModCloth is one of the fastest-growing fashion and home ecommerce ventures to emerge in the past decade. The business has expanded from the Kogers' college house basement at Carnegie Mellon, where they employed a student part-time to help with packaging and shipping, to 450 full-time employees across offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. Growing ModCloth in such a short span has been no easy feat. Eric Koger, CEO and Co-Founder, ModCloth. Let's start from the beginning. The story of ModCloth begins when I started a web development business in 2000. With ModCloth, and my job, [we were able to] support ourselves to a large degree throughout college.
Ecouterre Where is the Organic Clothing Market Headed? If the trends already in evidence play out by the cold logic of the marketplace, we can expect the organic cotton market to grow as much as organic food has. In a strong indication of what may happen,Apparel Magazine has already offered the feature article: -- "Organic Clothing: It's Not Just for Tree Huggers Anymore". And boy, won't that tickle the Think Tanks who have long despised us TreeHuggers for treasuring anything organic! It's actually a seminal article...call it a must read...that is both disturbing and refreshing. We've all seen the street level evidence. By the numbers, it looks like a niche market about to break into the mainstream. Maybe TreeHugger will end up doing reviews of organic clothing designs at Wal-Mart.