#WhoMadeMyClothes Fashion Revolution Week
This week we are joining Fashion Revolution Week for their annual campaign bringing together the world’s largest fashion activism movement for seven days of action! This year, from Monday 18th-Sunday 24th April 2022, we will collectively reimagine a just and equitable fashion system for people and the planet.
Made sure you follow events throughout the week at www.fashionrevolution.org
Our Brand Transparency
The UK consumes the most clothes in Europe, yet major British brands are falling behind their European counterparts in terms of transparency. So, we thought we’d share with you the journey of our products in full transparency at Anna Falcke. We want to show you where our fabrics come from and tell you a little more about the process.
We would love you to know the full journey of your Wristees® so you know where our hand-made designs come from. From how we source our fabrics, how we make them and why we are so excited about our new certified organic fabrics that are becoming an important part of our range. But most importantly to the small team of in-house sewers who make everything possible for us!
Our Fabric Story.
All materials have an impact on our planet, how they are produced, how they are used and how they are disposed of. We have been working hard to introduce new sustainable materials into our collections which for a small business is not an easy task. We have slow fashion collections but we are not currently a ‘slow fashion brand’.
We are known for our pleated fleece ‘Wristee®’- fingerless gloves which are made from 100% polyester and these have been our best sellers. The fabrics we buy from British Fabric wholesalers which we then put through a pleating process before being made up into our products. They are not disposable fashion, they are hardwearing and our customers wear our products for many many years.
Over the last 3 years we have designed a new range of Wristee® using more sustainable fabrics such as Organic cottons and velvets (GOT Certified) and going forward we are also looking at using more recycled fabrics in our collections. Our Organic cotton collection (GOT) has been received very well and we aim to increase this range and reduce the use of our regular pleated fleece collection in the best way possible so enabling the business to make the changes needed in a planned and permanent way.
For all our ranges we always stick by quality over quantity! (a motto encompassed by Anna). As an advocate for buying better-quality garments that will last longer, we live by fair values across the board from the treatment of staff and suppliers to the awareness of the process involved in producing our materials. We aim to become more sustainable as we go on!
We have a small team of local home sewers and our in-house sewer, the lovely Beth. Our home-sewers include two great sisters who like to work from their own homes and our dream sewer Jackie who is based outside of Bristol.
Having less people travel to and from the workshop gives our workers flexibility and allows them to fit our work around their busy life schedules. Julie or as we call her ‘Mrs Just’ is our Girl Friday and workshop supervisor. She can be seen sat at her desk working on orders, wrapping parcels at the packing table, sewing up special orders in the sewing corner, carrying and lifting raw materials, setting up shows, making the tea and generally keeping things running smoothly down at the Hive, we could not do without her!
Where do the Organic fabrics come from?
GOTS stands for Global Organic Textile Standard and it is an internationally recognized certification - you can read more about it here. https://global-standard.org/
GOTS requires that textile manufacturers follow very specific environmental criteria and social criteria. For example, no chemicals can be used which have been shown to harm humans or the environment at any stage of the production process. Also worker safety and worker rights issues are a top priority - no child or slave labor and a certain minimal level of safe working conditions must be met. To carry the GOTS label "organic" a textile must contain at least 95% certified organic fibres.
We recommend that when you are shopping for organic pieces, do your best to make sure that the product has a GOTS certification. This will help ensure that what you are buying is truly organic.
Looking to the future…
Long-term we are searching for new sustainable fabrics to use in our range.We have managed to source a wonderfully soft Organic cotton fleece (GOTS certified) that we are currently making into a very soft and warm NEW Organic cotton fleece (double-sided) Wristee® that will be available this autumn.
We are also replacing our double sided pleated fleece Wristee® with a New 50% polyester pleated fleece and a 50% Organic cotton fleece so reducing our use of polyester in the Polar Wristee® by 50%. Other NEW products for this year are: Organic cotton and fleece pleat hats - very soft to wear and look great. The fleece makes up 40% of the garment with 60% being made with the sustainable eco organic fabrics. These have matching Wristee® and scarves.
We also have plans to sell a special Wash bag that protects synthetic garments from releasing toxic microfibres into our oceans! (exciting stuff!).
