Fairtrade Baby Clothes!!

So Fairtrade food is quite a big thing known and respected around the UK and its prominence highlighted because of Fairtrade Fortnight this year. But I wonder if some of you have considered the notion of ethical clothing?

It seems only a natural progression that from food to another essential, clothing - we will try to support the use of a fair and good price for the labour and manufacture of these goods.

One such company taking things into their own hands is Traces of Rock. An online store full of styled, cool, ethical and Fairtrade baby clothes that believe it or not are also surprisingly reasonably priced…

I’d got chatting to Chazza (the Founder) who told me about the company and the roots from which it started.
She said:

“I first got the idea of founding Traces of Rock when I wanted to buy some baby clothes as a present. The Fairtrade clothes that I found weren’t my cup of tea (think the usual pink and blue with princesses and dinosaurs) and cool clothes were expensive but carried no indication that they hadn’t been made in a sweatshop by a 12-year-old.

I suppose that one of the things that irritates me the most about high street clothes is this potentially huge difference between what it costs to make a single item and the eventual retail price.

I just find bizarre the ‘argument’ one sometimes hears that western companies are doing some kind of favour to the inhabitants of overseas countries by paying them a salary that is very low in comparison with, say, what it would cost to employ workers in a factory based in the UK. Globalised, multinational companies base their production overseas because it makes economic ‘good sense’, not because they are benevolent organisations looking to improve the unemployment rate in third world or developing countries. Some people say you can’t compare London salaries with the cost of living in Kenya. But that’s precisely the point: the profit motive has created a radical asymmetry between different parts of the world. Fairtrade is not and cannot be a problem-free solution to global poverty – but it is a step in the right direction and has already helped all sorts of communities achieve basic quality of life and human dignity through earning their own living on fair terms.

The other thing I find problematic is the way high street companies try to buy themselves a conscience by jumping on the ethical bandwagon. Big names get mentioned in the news for launching a green or fair trade line when the rest of their products are made outside the UK but do not carry the Fairtrade Mark, the implication being that the vast majority of their clothes may be made in ‘unfair’ conditions. It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and shout, but it seems hard to believe that businesses who operate on the scale of household names – and who can find the cash to run extensive TV campaigns with international movie stars and supermodels – would be unable to switch the whole or at least the majority of their stock to fair trade.

One of the things that is nice about fair trade is meeting and getting to know other small, independent businesses – but perhaps what’s really needed is for the big brands and companies to go out on a limb and make a public discontinuation of all stock that is not fairly traded. That’s why it was good to see Tate & Lyle recently switch all their products to Fairtrade.”

Check out her website for some wicked gift ideas or perhaps for your own little tearaway?!