Who made your fabrics?
Do you know where the fabrics you sew your clothes in come from, and why it's so important to know? We take a closer look at textile production and talk about our supply chain.
Who Made My Fabric?
The campaign "Who Made My Clothes" was started by the organization Fashion Revolution in the wake of the Rana Plaza collapse that occurred in Bangladesh in 2013. The campaign was to shine a light on the global clothing industry's value chain and make it more open and ethically responsible, and help create better working conditions for textile workers.
Fashion Revolution has recently expanded its work with the "Who Made My Fabric" campaign, to ensure even better transparency and accountability in the clothing and textile industry.
Why is this so important?
At Rana Plaza, thousands of people worked sewing clothes for Western countries for very little money. Over 1,100 of them died and more than twice as many were injured when the building collapsed. This accident could have been avoided, as the management was aware of the poor condition of the building, but pushed the workers to continue working to reach "deadline". Textile workers in Bangladesh and other disadvantaged countries have a lot of competition for the jobs, and Western countries that have their textiles produced there push prices down so that wages are very low. We who trade textiles and clothing do not want to contribute to creating these poor working conditions, but when we do not know where it is produced it is difficult to avoid. By demanding that clothing brands and suppliers make their supply chains public, we can gain more insight into production and make it more difficult to run the textile industry unethically.
What can I do?
To contribute to the campaigns, you can ask clothing brands, textile stores and manufacturers where they get their goods from - where the clothes are produced, where the fabrics are produced and where the fibers are grown. All these links should be traceable, but there is still little information available.
Where do our fabrics come from?
In a sustainable textile industry, it is not only important which materials a fabric or garment is made of, we also have a social responsibility. One of the most important things for us when we select fabrics for Indigo is to know how the fabric is produced. In the best case, we find fabrics that have a completely open production line from fiber to finished fabric - then we know where, for example, the cotton is grown and spun, and who has woven the fabric and possibly dyed it.
It is not always so easy to trace, and often the labeling on textiles can be misleading. It is often just "the finisher" who stands as producer, but it is not necessarily these who have woven the fabric. The fabric may be woven in one place, dyed in another and washed or given another form of finishing in a final place, and then this is often listed as the origin of the fabric. Our goal is to be able to trace the entire production line of all the textiles we sell, be open about this, and in that way be able to contribute to making the clothing industry more ethically responsible and sustainable.
We buy as much fabric as we can directly from the country of origin when possible, in order to reduce transport emissions. Since we are a small shop, it is not always possible due to the scale in which the manufacturers often sell, so we have to go through a supplier. Below you can see an overview of where our fabrics travel before they reach you.
Our supply chain
India (Handwoven Fabrics) – Direct. Here we get fabrics from an Indian supplier who works directly with the weavers and can trace the fabrics right down to each worker. The cotton is also grown locally.
The Netherlands (Woven wool) – Direct. We have just brought in wool fabric and wadding that is locally produced and traceable all the way back to the sheep!
Lithuania (Flax) – Indirect via England, but also somewhat direct, and here the aim is to get more directly from the producer who uses locally grown flax.
Turkey (GOTS certified organic cotton) – Indirect, via the Netherlands, Switzerland or England. Turkey is one of the largest producers of certified organic cotton, and with a factory and plantation in the same country, the fabrics are as short-hauled as you can get cotton in Europe.
Japan (Indigo-dyed and other Japanese fabrics) - Direct. When we are looking for something very special, we usually find it in Japan. They have long textile and craft traditions, and produce textiles of high quality. We have a real sense of the style of clothing and the textiles that come from there, they often have a special texture or finish, and colors that are hard to find elsewhere. The cotton is usually grown in India, while the silk is produced locally (in the fabrics we have, recycled silk is used).
China (Hamp) – Indirect via the Netherlands. We are very fond of hemp textiles, and China has long traditions with the plant as a medicinal herb and still grows hemp locally, also for textile production.
Finland (Knitted wool) – Direct. The wool they use is Argentinian and is spun in Italy.
Source: fashionrevolution.org
