Designing with the Chol Chol Foundation;
January 15, 2010
A Contemporary Fair Trade Mapuche Product Line
double wrap belt in textile and leather
thick belt in textile and leather
textile purses
textile purse on form
black and white quartered cowl
large-buttoned cowl with fringe
wrapped scarf with button and fringe
looped shawl with fringe
crocheted sweater
dress with floral pattern
*Ruana designed in 2006 by Fundacíon Fundesarte (Fundacíon para la innovacíon de la artesanía)
These designs are in production and will be available to the public in 2011. (Except the ruana, which is available now.) For wholesale or retail inquiries, please contact the Chol Chol Foundation at info@cholchol.org.
The Fair Trade Nexus
August 19, 2009
Q: What is a fair trade product, anyways?
A: A fair trade product is one that has been cultivated, grown, or manufactured to comply to a unified set of standards regarding just treatment and payment for producers and workers. The standards are mandated and regulated by a group of organizations called “FINE”: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, World Fair Trade Organization, Network of European Worldshops and European Fair Trade Association.
As I delved deeper and deeper into the fair trade culture in America through talking to those ranging from figures in the movement to shop assistants, I began figuring out what exactly made something a fair trade product, how those products go from material to artisan/farmer to shelf, and the social entrepreneurship that accompanies these creative business models. Also fascinating is how webs of fair trade organizations, suppliers, vendors, and festivals all collaborate; these products are exchanged pretty differently from corporate products, and sold mostly in the “festival booth,” “Whole Foods,” “small new age,” “foreign import,” or “fair trade shop” venues. Stores don’t usually work with artisans directly, and most artisan groups are served by organizational intermediaries who “translate” their designs, marketing presentation, and/or literally language, to “contemporary markets” aka “capitalistic markets” aka “places that people have disposable income and spend it on pretty things.” Mostly these organizations are non-profit.
Fair Trade Social Action Group
But most people still equate Fair Trade with coffee and chocolate (thinking with their stomachs)(Alter Eco Fair Trade Study 2008). Even so, a new fair trade fashion and accessory design movement is well under way, growing to significant proportions. And “modern” product designers have been a secret ingredient to advancing fair trade products for at least a decade. (Aid to Artisans was the first organization to start bringing product designers to impoverished artisan communities to show them how to make more marketable products).
I assure you my research has been thorough – yet I have yet to see fair trade fashions or accessories that do much more than make me say: what a gorgeous Nepalese/Mexican/African/Colombian [thing], oh, and also a good cause. Granted, for me, and many other consumers, that is enough to convince me to buy it. But usually, if a consumer already has a traditional Indian scarf, they won’t buy another similar looking one. And if an Indian fair trade scarf looks the same as a non-fair-trade Indian scarf – neither will a shop owner: if it’s not unique they can’t afford the price difference.
All the leading fair trade fashion + accessory brands put their humanitarian message first and design second: see for yourselves: (Global Mamas, Aid to Artisans, Manos de Madres, Mama Shaman, Spiral Foundation, Maya Botanika.) Unfortunately, people don’t buy with their brains. Read the rest of this entry »
Research Begins, Bay Area, California
July 28, 2009
Bettina, SF, storefront
How does the fashion industry work?
Who buys clothes, and who sells them?
What do people like to buy and sell in stores?
What different types of boutiques, shops and fashion corporations are in California, and how do they differ?
How do you make clothes and fashion accessories?
What makes a product “Fair Trade” and how are those products traded and sold in the world?
“Hello, my name is Jasmine, I will be working for a fair trade organization of indigenous weavers in Southern Chile to help them design a line for contemporary boutique audiences. May I ask who buys for your store, how I may contact them, and how they choose the products here? And by the way, what do you look for in design?”
Ecoboutique Ladita, SF. Eco-friendly fashion.
These are some of the mind-bogglingly large questions I asked as I began walking down bustling sidewalks of the San Francisco Bay Area shopping nexus. My little sketch book had a map-like checklist of all of the shopping streets I had come to memorize growing up as a girl here. To the South there was the Peninsula: University Avenue Palo Alto, Castro Street Mountain View, Santa Cruz Ave in Menlo Park, Saratoga. The East, there was Berkeley: Fourth Street, Telegraph, College Avenue, and Oakland and Emeryville coming up now. To the North, Marin: Mill Valley, Sausalito, Larkspur, Tiburon, San Anselmo, Fairfax, downtown Novato. Even further North, the wine country: downtown Sonoma, Napa, St. Helena, Calistoga. And then of course San Francisco: Mission/Valencia, Castro, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights, Hayes Valley, Union Street, Filmore Street, Haight Street, and Union Square if I dared.
The goal was to traverse as much of this territory and meet as many people as possible in two weeks, figure out how to design products that would sell in this community, and learn how to get my future fair trade products distributed in the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
