If you are planning a wedding, there are lots of great ways to make your day as eco-friendly as possible without sacrificing on glamor and magic. Sustainable wedding dresses are just one of the greener trends that are turning the wedding industry upside-down, and these beautiful pieces can easily be styled for any type of wedding. Read on to learn about sustainable and ethical wedding dresses and how you can do good while looking stunning!

Why the Conventional Dress Just Doesn’t Cut It Anymore

Wedding dresses — by definition — are not sustainable. An intricate work of art that takes upwards of 20 feet of fabric and at least two weeks to make, a typical wedding dress will only be worn once before sitting at the back of a closet and ultimately heading to the landfill. Add to this the fact that most wedding dresses are made of pesticide-heavy silk and/or synthetic fabrics like polyester that don’t break down easily, and you have an environmental conundrum on your hands!

In recent years, values-based wedding planning is leading more and more couples to avoid fast fashion and choose eco-friendly options for their weddings — from recycled card invitations and plastic-free table settings to intentionally mismatched bridal parties and sustainable wedding dresses.

Ready to discover your perfect, eco-dress? Here are our top suggestions:

Embrace the Charm of Vintage Styles

Styles come and go, but fortunately, time can transform passé into vintage! Your mother’s or grandmother’s highly-prized bridal gown could soon become the perfect ethical wedding dress style when it makes a grand re-entrance on your special day. If the original owner is happy for you to make some changes, you can easily transform the dress with a few small adjustments to make it your own.

If dear granny’s dress isn’t your style, hit the thrift stores and e-stores to browse sustainable wedding dresses in an endless array of silhouettes. For something a little more modern, you could also buy a second-hand dress from a friend or online. Don’t shy away from low-back styles while you’re shopping, either. You can always add a bra directly to your dress so you don’t have to worry about straps showing.

Set the Pace with a Trendy Rental Gown

Another easy and budget-friendly approach to sustainable wedding dresses is to rent a gown and tux for the day itself. The ultimate closed-loop approach, rental gowns reduce your footprint to a fraction of the (environmental) cost and eliminate the question of what to do with the dress after you’re wed.

Make Your Dress from Recycled Fabrics

For the more crafty among us, making your own wedding dress gives you free rein on the design and can save you a lot of money in the process. If you have the time and are so inclined, consider making your dress sustainable by sourcing recycled fabrics that don’t cost the earth. Some excellent fabric sources for ethical wedding dresses include:

• Factory offcuts
• Used wedding dresses that are beyond repair
• White cotton bedsheets and lace curtains from friends or a thrift store
• Excess fabric offered through Freecycle or Craigslist

Depending on what you find, you can create an eye-catching piece that is either all one color (bedsheets!) or multi-tonal. Either way, some basic patterns for sustainable wedding dresses and a few days at the sewing machine could result in a one-of-a-kind dress that you’ll be proud to wear down the aisle.

Go for a Versatile Two-Piece

Another option for sustainable wedding dresses that won’t go to the landfill is a two-piece top and skirt combo that you can wear in the future. Buy a pre-matched set or shop around until you find a combination that works and top it off with a cream-colored shrug or fitted jacket (hello, future job interview outfit!)

Apart from saving on precious resources, investing in a set that you can wear again-and-again lets you keep this special part of your life forever and relive those precious memories time-and-time again.

Invest in a Dress that Does No Harm

A final alternative which we personally love is to shop for sustainable wedding dresses that are made to do good. The perfect solution for a traditional wedding gown that does good for your style and the earth, ethical wedding dresses minimize pollution and are sewn by workers who are paid fairly for their work.

These flowing dress styles available in bamboo and Tencel™ are the ideal replacement for conventional silk and feel wonderfully soft on your skin. Dresses made from organic cotton and linen are the best choice if you want a little more shape and stiffness to your outfit and can be woven to include stunning embellishments such as embroidered details and beading.

Brands Matter

When shopping for sustainable wedding dresses, be sure to do your homework and find the brand that best suits your values. The best brand will be one that has a transparent supply chain, economizes on energy, and uses materials that are pesticide-free and fully biodegradable. You can even keep the good vibes going by donating your dress to a charity you cherish.

Shopping for the Honeymoon and Beyond

Once you’ve thought about how to shop sustainable wedding dresses, don’t forget to prepare for the honeymoon! Eco-chic, ethical lingerie, and comfortable organic sleepwear are essentials for enjoying your first moments as a married couple, and remember a few flattering organic dresses and jackets, too, for strolling around your destination!

Choosing to shop ethical wedding dresses and clothing for your wedding and beyond will not only inspire your guests but will get your family off to a great start with values you can live out in your home. Explore our collection of eco-friendly formal dresses to find your perfect fit, and say “yes” to the dress today!

Many people considering the relationship between fashion and sustainability for the first time will be immediately discouraged by the higher price tag of an organic tee or eco-friendly winter coat. But what is behind the cost of the clothes you wear and is there really such a thing as cheap sustainable clothing?

Read on to discover the factors behind garment pricing and discover the best way to shop for eco-friendly and ethical women’s and men’s clothing you can feel good about!

The Value of A Garment: Can Sustainable Clothing Be Cheap?

You walk into a boutique retail store at the mall and see the skinny jeans, leggings, and blouses hanging in neatly arranged rows, each with a brand-name tag and detailed wash instructions. Prices range from $50 to $100 with a few items on sale for $25. A few stores down, the discount fashion store also has racks of colorful clothes, but the garments are offered for dirt-cheap prices starting from a mere $5.

If you’re looking for cheap sustainable clothing, you might be wondering if it’s better to choose the first store just because the prices are higher. However, a higher price doesn’t necessarily mean better quality or that the garments are more sustainable. Here are just some of the factors that influence garment pricing in fashion and sustainability.

Fiber Production

Every garment begins with the soil. Whether it’s wool that comes from a grass-loving sheep, cotton that comes from the thirsty Gossypium shrub, linen that comes from the flax plant, or fabrics from bamboo and wood pulp cellulose, they all begin with the ground.

If you’re looking for sustainable clothing, it’s important to keep in mind that organic cotton will cost more to produce because of the costs of organic certification and the higher price of organic fertilizers and non-toxic pesticides. Likewise, organic wool from a free-range sheep that feed on fresh grass and high-quality hay will cost more than conventional wool that may be a product of cruel and unhealthy factory farming.

Spinning and Dyeing

The spinning process for all fabrics is pretty similar. However, the dyeing process has a big effect on the price of the final piece. The cheapest dyes used in fast fashion clothing are made from petrochemicals and can poison local waterways as well as irritate your skin. Sustainable clothing that isn’t as cheap typically uses non-toxic setting treatments and vegetable dyes that cost more to produce but are gentler on your skin and the environment.

Cutting and Sewing

The next stage in the garment manufacture process is cutting and sewing — which is the point at which we find the “sweatshops” so often mentioned in articles about fast fashion. Workers in these garment factories (often located in China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Bangladesh) may be paid less than minimum wage, and the lack of appropriate safety standards means that the lives of the garment workers can be put at risk — even when manufacturing cheap “sustainable” clothing from organic materials. So pairing ethical production or Fair Trade standards with your sustainable materials is imperative.

Retail Salaries

Once garments reach their destination country, their price will be affected by the salaries of retail workers as well as the profit margin of the fashion label. An organic cotton T-shirt may cost $10 to buy wholesale but may be sold for anything from $20 to $50 depending on the profit margin of the company. Where does this profit go? Some of it goes towards the brand’s marketing budget, but the rest is often pocketed by the CEO.

So, when you find a piece of cheap “sustainable” clothing for sale online, the company may have found ways to keep their costs low through sticking to online sales and a low-profit margin. Then again, the brand might be making a profit while keeping those benefits from being passed downstream to the garment workers and cotton farmers who produced the clothes. Prioritizing your budget on smaller fashion brands that focus on sustainability in addition to profit usually results in the best overall value.

Making Fashion and Sustainability More Budget-Friendly

Even though many of us would like to choose eco-fashion for everything from bamboo socks to sustainable jackets, the cost of fairness (and quality) can still be a little out of reach. Here are a few tips to save money on fashion while avoiding the pitfalls of cheap “sustainable” clothing brands that aren’t giving you the full story.

Shop Pieces That You Can Mix and Match

An organic tee by itself is great, but a tee and a pair of organic women’s pants that go with all of your T-shirts are even better. Shopping sustainable clothing on a budget means being smart about style and going for classic cuts in basic colors that you can build into a minimalist capsule wardrobe  and mix-and-match to your heart’s content.

Calculate the Cost by Cost-Per-Wear Rather than the Up-Front Cost

A $10 tee or $2 cami looks great on the rack, but how many wears will it likely last? Even if it has been made under fair conditions, cheap “sustainable” clothing of low quality will end up costing you more if it only lasts for a few months before you have to replace it. In contrast, a $50 garment might look more expensive at the outset but could end up costing you only a few cents per wear if its strength and quality last for years.

Help Your Clothes Last Longer with Proper Garment Care

Our next tip for combining fashion and sustainability is one that we’ve learned the hard way: Follow the care and wash instructions! Fast fashion has got us used to throwing everything in the washing machine and hoping it comes out ok.

After spending a larger amount of cash upfront on authentic (not cheap) sustainable clothing, you’ll want to make sure that you keep your eco-friendly clothes in the best condition for as long as possible. This means respecting directions to wash-by-hand, to wash in cold water only, and to drip dry or dry flat rather than throwing everything into the dryer. Things like woolen coats that are quite expensive at the beginning can last a lot longer if you wash them by hand only when truly necessary.

Shop Genuine Sustainable Clothing for Less at Faerie’s Dance

Our final tip for enjoying cheap sustainable clothing? Shop the most responsible eco-fashion brands when their garments go on sale (like in our great clearance section!) If you know someone who would love some organic and sustainable clothing but might struggle to afford it, you might also consider giving them a Faerie’s Dance gift card that covers everything on our entire site.

Want to know more? Browse the rest of the articles on the Eco-Fashion Philosopher blog and shop our curated fashion and sustainability brands.

After two decades of throw-away “fast fashion” and wardrobes stuffed with pieces that are never worn, the concept of the “minimalist wardrobe” is coming back into vogue. This means fewer clothes, higher quality, and an increased focus on endless combinations. Here at Faerie’s Dance, we have tips to develop a minimalist capsule wardrobe that is great for the planet and looks fantastic!

So What Do You Need For a Minimalist Capsule Wardrobe? 

Basics Can Be Beautiful

The first step to going minimalist with your wardrobe is choosing pieces in classic cuts that always look good and never go out of fashion. Here are our top picks for basics that you can wear through every season!

Leggings

Soft, stretchy, and comfortable, leggings are a mainstay of any minimalist wardrobe. Wear them under an organic tunic for work, with a sustainable dress and boots in winter, or switch it up with capri-length leggings for added confidence under a summer dress or short-length organic cotton skirt.

Black is the most popular shade for leggings due to its unparalleled versatility, but you can also fill your minimalist capsule wardrobe with leggings in basic tones like blue, burgundy, navy, or coffee-brown.

Camis

Next up we have the classic camisole. A trendy take on the singlets our mothers made us wear as children under basic tees, these minimalist wardrobe staples transition easily through the seasons — providing an added layer of warmth in winter, modesty under V-neck tops in spring and fall, and functioning as a standalone piece for hot summer days.

Day-to-Night Wear

Now that you’ve got the underlayer covered, it’s time to add the “defining pieces” to your minimalist capsule wardrobe. These are the garments that make your outfit and set the tone for your entire look. If you’ve gone for neutral tones with your leggings and camis, your “defining piece” can be the colorful or bold patterned piece that matches all the other items in your wardrobe and transitions easily from day-to-night.

A dozen tunics, shirts, blouses, and short- and long-sleeve tops in different weights should see you through the seasons in style. For daytime wear, combine your top with some subtle jewelry and a pair of work-ready flats; dress things up for an evening out with boots in winter, stilettos in summer, and an extra-shiny layer of stylish eco-friendly jewelry!

The Warmth Factor

No minimalist wardrobe would be complete without a select few jackets and coats to keep you warm. Organic cotton cardigans and wraps are fantastic for day-to-night wear. Drape over a blouse or organic cotton tank for long days in the office, or pull over a little black sustainable dress for date night.

Ethical winter coats are essential for the cooler seasons and can be styled in several ways. For jackets, we recommend classic styles that fit well into a minimalist capsule wardrobe and won’t go out of fashion with the season.

Accessories

This is where you can bring in the greatest diversity to spice up a minimalist capsule wardrobe. Even if you recombine the same few tops, pants/skirts, and jackets, a change of accessories can make it feel like a whole new outfit!

We suggest three complete sets of contrasting jewelry, inspired by the following categories:

• Small and dainty
• Colorful and pretty
• Large and statement
• Whimsical and fancy-free

The exact jewelry you choose will be influenced by the color scheme of your clothes and should ideally cover two or three different tones. That way, you have something for every mood while still keeping your wardrobe minimalist!

Seasonal Variations

Some modern eco-conscious women prefer to put together a minimalist capsule wardrobe for every season, while others cycle through the same clothes all year long. Whichever approach you prefer, you can easily add some seasonal variation with a couple of feature pieces for the four main seasons.

Spring

Bright colors, florals, polka dots, and stripes all give a spring feel to your minimalist wardrobe. For a spring-time look in three easy pieces, try a colorful organic skirt with a basic organic tee and complete the look with sandals and some colorful jewelry.

Summer

The warmer months give us the perfect excuse to feel pretty and feminine in a flowing, fair-trade summer dress. You can create a one-and-done minimalist capsule wardrobe with a different dress for each day of the week or dress up your spring skirts with a colored cami and contrasting summer poncho for variety!

Fall

Your minimalist wardrobe for fall is all about the color. Browns, yellows, oranges, and reds are our go-to’s for fall that transition easily into winter with dark boots and a jacket. You can also carry over a few of your summer dresses for fall weather with the addition of boots, some cozy leggings, and those cardigans we mentioned above!

Winter

A minimalist capsule wardrobe for winter can actually be easier to put together than a minimalist wardrobe for summer. Why? Because people rarely catch a glimpse of the inner layers! A few warm long-sleeve tops and leggings or a dark-wash pair of pants can form the core of your winter closet, with easy variations added with sweaters, jewelry, and an elegant knee-length jacket for good measure.

Holidays

Feeling festive? We’ve got you covered! Holiday organic socks, hand warmers and knitted hemp sweaters in green and red keep you holiday-ready with a few easy garments you can pull out at multiple events.

Complete Your Minimalist Wardrobe Today

At Faerie’s Dance, you can find almost everything you need for your minimalist capsule wardrobe. The best thing? It’s all made ethically from environmentally-friendly fabrics and low-impact dyes. Browse our eco-friendly women’s clothing today and enjoy the long-term savings of a minimalist wardrobe that you can combine and recombine to your heart’s content!

In 2009 we started The Eco-Fashion Philosopher with this very question. By 2019 the terminology has gotten more complex rather than less. Is “eco-fashion” the same as “sustainable fashion”? What about “Ethical Fashion” or “Slow Fashion”? Ten years on, and the need to clarify is more prevalent today than when we started. Let’s take a look at these terms and what they all mean.

“Eco-Fashion” Explained

Eco-fashion describes clothing produced with minimal environmental impact.

When people talk about “eco-fashion”, they are generally referring to the ecological impact that fashion has in the world. At Faerie’s Dance, we look at four factors when determining if a garment meets the “eco-fashion” label:

1. How was the input material grown or made?
2. Are toxic chemicals required for the transformation of the input material into fabric?
3. How much production waste is generated?
4. Which dyes or finishing agents are used in the final garment?

Just to be clear, though, conventional fashion is a dirty business. Exactly how dirty is hard to quantify because fashion touches so many different things such as water chemical pollution, ocean plastic pollution, soil pollution, carbon emissions, petroleum usage, desertification, and on and on. Entire movies have been made about fashion industry pollution. Check out this documentary preview on river pollution for a quick look into some of the main issues with the fashion industry.

“Ethical Fashion” Unpacked

Ethical Fashion ensures the well-being of the farmers and factory workers.

The creation of fashion is extremely labor intensive. Sewing machines are about as high-tech as things get in the fashion industry, and there are actual people who operate them. The USA once had a booming clothing manufacturing industry. In 1960, 95% of clothing sold in the U.S. was manufactured in New York’s Garment Center. With rising wages in the USA, companies started outsourcing clothing manufacturing.

Initially China was the place to go for cheap labor and minimal regulations. Sweatshop working conditions and child labor became the norm with profit margins skyrocketing for western companies that could still charge a premium. As the world became focused on the plight of the Chinese garment worker, conditions slowly improved and wages started to rise. In some ways, the problem became worse. In the never-ending “race to the bottom” western companies started leaving China to set up garment manufacturing in even poorer areas, with even fewer regulations. Fashion industry workers were increasingly being paid less and less for working longer and longer hours.

In 2013, the Rana Plaza garment building in Bangladesh collapsed killing 1134 people who were making clothing for western companies. The building was not zoned for manufacturing. The upper floors had been built without permits. Worst of all, the workers had been threatened with job lose and pay withholding if they did not come to work even after cracks were spotted in the building. This disaster really shone a spot-light on the plight of the garment workers around the world. The Fashion Revolution was started to counteract this type of worker abuse.

Today, the hashtag #WhoMadeMyClothes is used as a call to action to ensure people in the fashion manufacturing chain are treated with dignity, while Fair Trade standards and certifications ensure they are paid fairly and receive living wages.

“Slow Fashion” Sorted

Slow Fashion emphasizes quality over quantity and lasting appeal over trendiness.

Once fashion production was moved to places with cheap labor, the industry realized that more money could be made by offering lower quality goods, thus reducing prices even further. Moreover, if prices were cheap enough, producers could sell significantly more. The pace of fashion trends picked up significantly in the 1980s and 1990s. Instead of collections coming out seasonally, suddenly new items were being introduced monthly, and then weekly. The strategy was to get fashion from the catwalk to the consumer as fast as possible.

Planned obsolescence became the standard for fashion rather than quality. A shirt no longer had to last season after season. Wearing an item 2-3 times and then tossing it became the norm. The term “fast fashion” was born to describe this new model of production. And the pileup of fashion waste increased exponentially.

After a few decades of rampant “fast fashion” the toll on the environment, the buildup of landfill, and the emotional weight on people owning all this “stuff” became too much. Books like Marie Kondos “The Life Changing Magic of Tyding Up” became international best-sellers as people have become bogged down in a sea of over-consumption. An entire industry of decluttering grew out of the mess. Frustrated consumers and fashion designers are fostering a new movement towards “slow fashion,” in an attempt to find a path back to quality, timelessness and sanity in fashion.

So What is Sustainable Fashion Then?

Sustainable Fashion is the all-encompassing term for fashion that is ecologically sound, ethically produced, and high quality. In other words, both environmentally and socially sustainable as well as well-made and stylish.

We’ve learned a lot since we opened our little online fashion boutique in 2005 with just 70 or so styles. We continue to educate ourselves about fashion, style, ethics and sustainability. Our research into new garments and manufacturers is extensive, and our verification methods have become increasingly sophisticated. Today FaeriesDance.com offers more than 1200 items, each one curated to be sustainable from every point of view.

One of the questions we get A LOT is about organic clothing manufacturing in China.  There is a belief that garment manufacturing in China automatically means low wages and lots of pollution.  Many of our customers avoid anything made in China at all.  However, some sustainably-minded companies are still manufacturing organic clothing lines in China and it’s time to take a closer look at why they are.  For one thing, garment industry wages in China are increasing rapidly.  “Cheaper” clothing lines are actually leaving China for Africa and East Asia, where wages remain ridiculously low.  Additionally, organic clothing manufacturers are working with third party certifiers such as the Global Organic Textile Standard, OEKO-TEX, and Fair Trade International to ensure their Chinese-made goods are meeting environmental, safety and ethical employment standards.  Many of our USA made goods actually carry fewer certifications.

We caught up with Jane Nemis, owner of Echo Verde clothing for an interview on why they still manufacture in China.

Faerie’s Dance: What influenced your company to manufacture in China?

Jane Nemis:  I had been working in China when it was the only producer of eco/organic fabrics (18 years ago) and formed relationships with factories that I still have to this day.

FD: How long have you worked with your current factory in China?

Jane:  We have several factories – depending on sweaters or cut/sew knits – some are new 2 years and several are 6 years – 2 are 15 years.

FD: How often do you travel to China directly to meet the people who make your clothing?

Jane:  Twice yearly.

FD: Can you tell us about your relationship with the folks who make your clothing?

Jane:  There is still wide-spread opinion that sourcing and manufacturing clothing in Asia-and more specifically in China is a desire for cheap labor and that the conditions under which people work is not good. The truth, though, is much more complicated and nuanced, or just plain not true!  Our Chinese manufacturers have become experts in working with organic and eco textiles and they produce some of the highest quality goods at competitive prices. All of our factories are reviewed for workers’ conditions and all must show proof of third party monitoring of social and environmental conditions. We have formed relationships with these factories from our years of visiting them in China and their owners and many of the ladies that work there are now our friends!

They have also listened to us over the years and instituted changes which have bettered the living and working conditions of their staff.

While the work ethic in China may not seem “perfect” to our standards, it is considered to be a skilled trade now to be a garment worker.  They bring home a middle-class income and many factories now have health care.  Many of the workers support their families and send their children to school based on the money they earn cutting/sewing and finishing our goods. The factories we work with are all family owned and smaller operations that employ workers from the surrounding areas. This means we are able to support families staying together. There are many sweatshops all over the world including specifically in New York and LA. It is important to us that we can personally monitor conditions and we have a partner that respects and listens to our requests for change.

Our workers are honest, hard-working, and family oriented and doing the best that they can to make a living. They depend on us for this. When we visit the factories, the ladies laugh and joke with us and teach us new words in mandarin. They are free to come and go to the bathrooms, they have tea and water available at all times and they are free to stop work and share a chat with their friends. The food they are served is the same as I eat when there (free lunch tokens are given out) and it is good and balanced and they have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. One of our factories has even built a small meditation garden where workers can walk during their breaks and get some fresh air and enjoy the greenery. Both our knit factories have adopted stray dogs from the local area and care for them like family pets.

These ladies make our clothes!

FD: Do your factories have any certifications (WRAP, GOTS, OEKO-TEX, etc.) and can you explain what that entails?

Jane:  Yes, one factory has WRAP the other has a European version of WRAP and the very small ones cannot afford the costs so I just make sure they are following the same standards.

All our factories are small – we paid for one factory to get WRAP certification but while many big businesses can list an impressive amount of certifications – the reality is this is out of reach for most small family owned operations.  Cost for WRAP was around $350 USD for a small factory of 23 employees.  So it is impossible to do this for all our little factories even though they use the same standards (or higher).  Bigger companies can afford to pay for WRAP and FLA (Fair Labour) is even higher $1200 USD which is to be paid as a yearly fee.

FD: Do the fabrics you work with have any certifications?

Jane:  Yes, bamboo is 100% certified organic, cotton is 100% certified organic, wool is produced using humane farming practices and non harmful chemicals to process it.

FD: Some of our clients are concerned with Chinese factories “faking” certifications or claiming certifications they don’t actually hold.  Is this a real concern? 

Jane:  Yes, I would say this is more related to large scale operations – they can afford to bribe the certifying body – I have heard about it but have never experienced it first hand.  I would say it is a real concern with anything that is produced on a large scale for low cost… organic is expensive – as are good working conditions.

FD: Can you tell us a little bit about what modern Chinese facilities are like?

Jane:  Here are some pictures – they are like any factory I walk into here in Canada or USA.  Some are much better kept actually.  Very  neat, all windows are open in summer and doors.  Well ventilated, lots of natural light and each worker has their own chair/light/table.

FD: What other information can you give us to assuage the negative connotation that is still often associated with garments that are Made in China?

Jane:  Another reason that we manufacture in Asia is because all of the eco textiles originate from Asia, and one of our goals is to have our production facilities as close as possible to where our fabric, hardware and fixtures originate, this has been proven to reduce the environmental impact of shipping.   Did you know that much of the cotton produced in the US is sent to either China or India for milling before coming back into the states?  So really, if you go to the root of the garment – it is possible almost every piece of clothing has come from China in some way.

I would add is that I find it frustrating that there is such a negative connotation with Chinese goods.  The US has spent the past few decades growing trade with China and helping to bring the work up to standard, pay etc.  This is primarily why all the cheap brands have moved to countries without any work conditions in place (Bangladesh, US Samoa, Cambodia, Areas of Africa) – I also think other big industry has not kept pace and there are still horror stories of people falling asleep making cell phones and getting little to no pay for extremely poor work conditions.  So unfortunately, I think this is the impression that is given in the media – these are the things that make the headlines – not the goods news.

FD: Is there anything you’d like to add or would you like to bring up any points we may have missed?

Jane:  Just to stress that we have worked a long time with our factories and they rely on us – that’s how they make a living.  So although we may do some production locally, we will continue to support them.   It is impossible to do the sweaters we make in US or Canada.  The machinery just does not exist anymore.

Fast Fashion and the Destruction of Developing Countries

One of the questions we get a lot is where our products come from. Many people are adverse to purchasing items made from third world countries because they are concerned about working conditions, sweatshops, child labor and basic human rights.

Despite public outrage over the last few years, that concern may indeed still be valid at some big-box retailers. However, at FaeriesDance.com, I personally check on the credentials, certifications, auditing and labor standards of every new manufacturer we add to our line up. Not only do the farmers and factory workers who create the products we carry earn living wages in decent working conditions, but in many cases our manufacturers are directly responsible for improving the lives and conditions of the people.

Probably the very best example of this is the manufacturer Pants to Poverty. Their specific goal as a company is to employ the poorest people of the world in a completely sustainable business model in order to stamp out poverty and hunger. They currently employee over 6700 tribal farmers in India with long-term contracts, enabling those farmers to feed and care for families and raise their overall standard of living.

All of our manufacturers have an honest commitment to being socially conscious as well as eco-friendly. Environmental sustainability is only viable if the efforts are also socially sustainable.

Of course, deciding whether to buy something that is made in an emerging nation versus in the USA is a more complex issue than just Human Rights. There are economic, political and even environmental issues (such as the environmental cost of transportation) that must also be considered. I plan to address some of these in future posts, though they are not always very straight-forward. But in this one area of Human Rights, I’m proud to say that our products are actually helping people world wide.