Fair-Trade Celebrities Play Their Part.

By Liam Bailey

Most of you know about fair-trade. Some may think it’s a fad or a new way to jump through hoops in the name of political correctness or commercial gain, well, we could be wrong. Fair-trade to the third world as mandatory law, aside from debt cancellation on a massive scale, could be the largest step ever taken towards ending third world poverty, and for a fad it’s going from strength to strength. Fair-trade premium may well add 40p to the cost of a packet of tea, but most of us are happy to pay extra for the knowledge that the developing world’s tea farmers aren’t being exploited.

As for the food market, the ethicality in production and distribution had become so hot in 2004 that Tesco launched their own fair-trade brand in March of that year, and the Co-Op tripled their line. Available in Tesco’s own new fair-trade brand are things like, orange juice, mangoes and roses, as well as the chocolate, tea and coffee it has kept in stock for many years.

In the same year, 2004 Fair-trade fashion hit Britain and started becoming popular, with major American companies like American Apparel opening their first store in London. American Apparel is an ethical breath of fresh air, in a greedy fashion world with too many sweatshops. American Apparel had no sub-contractors and no sweatshops, which meant they were one of the first companies in London to give customers the freedom to make the ethical decision. People-Tree, a popular fair-trade label, quickly followed, by opening concessions in London’s Selfridges. This sparked more and more labels to enter London’s hot new fair-trade fashion market, but most importantly more choice for people keen to buy fair-trade’s hottest clothes.

Some of you might still be wondering where fair-trade came from, as to some it just seems to have blown up out of nowhere. This is not the case, some organisations have been working on creating and sustaining fair-trade for decades. The fact that it is now “hot news” is in large part due to people like Bob Geldoff, now Bono and live-aid bringing the subject to the front of people’s minds. Celebrity help in these matters doesn’t end at singing in a concert for charity. We live in a world filled with glossy magazines, with celebrities’ clothes, opinions and personal habits aired enough to influence.

American Apparel’s front-man, Dov Charney, is actually anti-celebrity, saying in previous interviews: “Celebrities suck, I’m not interested in using them to promote us.” but this doesn’t stop celebrities such as Ewan McGregor, Hilary Clinton, Jude Law, and Robert Downey Jr being big fans of the clothes and popularising them through magazines.

Then you have People-Tree, which welcomes celebrity wearers. It’s founder Safia Minney, reportedly said: “Well, ideally I’d like Madonna, but I don’t have gap-sized budgets. We don’t spend a lot on glitzy promotion because we’d prefer to spend it helping our Bangladeshi fair-trade suppliers recover after the floods.” People-Tree’s celebrity fans include Sienna Miller, Minnie Driver and Chris Martin. So as you can see, these two labels and their celebrity wearers generate a lot of enthusiasm and popularity for fair-trade clothing through glossy magazines. It is little wonder a succession of other labels appeared in London to capitalise on their success.

Labels like Katharine, an ethical collection from Katharine Hamnett, champion of the thinking fashionista. For her new range, she has researched every part of the supply chain to make it organic and sustainable.

Then comes the label with the biggest shock and giggle factor, Hug, and the name is not just the funny part. Front man Nick Peccarelli jumped ship from writing Gordon Brown’s speeches to head-up the label, which is described as: “A fair-trade label with a strong line in cutesy, cheeky t-shirts.” In the past Peccarelli has had a few problems explaining himself; once reportedly being quoted as saying: “There was an old school of fair-trade fashion trying to get people to buy knitted llamas, but that’s never going to meet the mainstream.”

Also worth a mention is T.R.A.I.D, (Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development), which operates partly as a charity/vintage hybrid shop. Proceeds are distributed back into sustainable projects in the developing world, whereas recyclable scraps are re-manufactured, and along with unwanted clothes, re-sold under the organisations Remade label. I mention this label partly because Stella McCartney is regularly seen in T.R.A.I.D’s Notting Hill Store.

Last but not least, there is a label by Canadian designer, Jenny McPherson, who only wanted to work in fashion if she could do it ethically. She works with hemp, a naturally resistant crop, which needs no agrochemicals. The label is called Enamore which may sound a touch wholesome, but promoting it via a raunchy website using actress models to interpret the nouveau romantic look, soon takes care of that misconception.

All these labels play an important part in bringing ethics to the fore in London’s fashion industry. The celebrities who wear them also play an important role in popularising the issues to the public. Lets just hope people become more ethical when it comes to their grocery shopping as well.

Who knows, maybe the world will be free of poverty some day. One thing is for certain, if everybody in the world felt as strongly about ethics in the clothing industry as the designers and manufacturers above, it would be a certainty.