Socks and jocks

Underwear is a popular Christmas stocking filler in Australia so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post about ethical underwear choices (socks, jocks, bras and tights). Underwear is one item I don't want to buy "vintage" and am not willing to forgo completely.

This cheeky (sorry, pun) "More Than Pretty Knickers" video briefly (oops, another pun) points out some of the environmental and human costs of the production of underwear.

There is further explanation here of the facts quoted in the video. I'm not alone in the struggle to find ethically made underwear - I discovered great posts on the topic by Adventures Undressed and Life of a Vegetarian Girl (each with a list of links).

With my non-existent sewing skills, I'm unlikely to make any underwear that's wearable and does its job without bulging (and not in a good way). I discovered a website for a bespoke bra-maker in Brisbane (Linda's Lingerie) - I wonder if I could find the same in Perth? I have heard that making bras, particularly those with under-wires, is a specialised and difficult skill. If you are more sartorially savvy than me, here are instructions for making underpants from old t-shirts.

I am trying to extend the lifespan of my delicates by handwashing and mending where possible - and I reuse my holey (cleaned!) undies as rags for cleaning the bathroom. But what to do when my current batch of smalls has had its day? Finding ethically made underwear is far more difficult than finding ethically made clothes. Bras (especially with under-wires) are more difficult than undies and socks.

There are a number of producers making socks and jocks (and singlets and sleepwear) from fabrics with a lighter (but not invisible) ecological footprint than traditional cotton and nylon, such as organic cotton and bamboo. Some are fair trade. You can find them easily by searching for "ethical underwear Australia". Wool socks keep feet warm wet or dry, require less frequent washing and will biodegrade if you bury them in the garden once you're done with them. My friend works for NZ merino brand Icebreaker and vouches for their ethical standards (and his wife loves Icebreaker undies!), although I've not tried them myself.

Pants to Poverty (their name is a pun - my kind of brand) is a British pants company that, according to their website, source their organic cotton directly from farmers in India and produce in a carbon neutral factory that pays living wages to its Indian garment workers. There are a few online stockists in Australia including Etiko and The New Internationalist.  Who Made Your Pants? is an English worker cooperative (mainly of refugee women) making underpants from fabric that would otherwise end up in waste. I was really captured by their business model (after discovering them through Twitter).

I've struggled to find Australian-made underwear since Bonds sent their production offshore. Brisbane-based Nico Underwear produces (ethically, in Australia) pretty women's underwear that's available in a few stores in Brisbane and online. I won some of their underwear once and while it's gorgeous, it far too big for me because I chose the sizes based on my (obviously poorly self-measured) measurements. Still they're worth another try, especially if you're in Brisbane and can try them in person. With a bit of online searching, I just found Tuffys & Tuffetts, another Australian-made underwear producer (including bras with under-wires!). However, they don't seem to have any bricks and mortar stockists so I'm left with the same concern about ill-fitting bras and VPLs.

For seriously sexy, Melbourne-made lingerie, Hopeless looks like the way to go. They have a gorgeous blog and are the most only appealing of the Aussie underwear producers I found via an etsy search.

As I sit here sweating on the couch on a 39 Celcius Christmas day, it's hard to think about wearing tights. However, I thought I'd end by mentioning Tightology. Their lovely hosiery is Australian-made, from "organic cotton, bamboo and wool blend using 100% recycled paper packaging and environmental inks for printing." They have many stockists, including several in Perth!

I would love to hear others' suggestions for ethical underwear choices. Does anyone know of a store in Perth selling Australian-made underwear? Does anyone know of a bespoke bra-maker in Perth? If you do, please be generous and share the details - it's Christmas after all.

Buying Christmas gifts? My gift guide.

I have decided to throw in my 2 cents (more like $200, at current Perth prices) with a Christmas gift guide. There's a wealth of links here about how to simplify your Christmas, including Zen Habits' Case Against Buying Christmas Presents. A sobering statistic from The Life You Can Save newsletter:

"According to the National Retail Foundation, last year, $563 billion dollars were spent just in the U.S. during the holidays in 2011. To put that in perspective, according to a UN report, the cost of reducing by half the proportion of the world’s population in extreme poverty will be $189 billion dollars in 2015."

However, if you are going to buy gifts (as I am), my first suggestion would be to make a charitable donation on behalf of the recipient - for example, Oxfam Unwrapped's Pile of Poo (or any of their other excellent gifts for the less faecally-inclined). As well as helping Oxfam's humanitarian projects, you can claim the donation as a tax deduction! Win-win.

If your recipient just wouldn't be satisfied with a donation, think about gifting an experience. Depending on your budget, options include a holiday, birdwatching, a voucher for a local independent restaurant, some babysitting or a cooking class. A voucher for shoe repair or a tailor would allow them to rejuvenate old shoes and clothes, to stop them going to landfill.

If you must give a more tangible gift, keep in mind the resources (environmental and human) that went into producing the gift. Fair trade items tick the box here (try the Oxfam shop or if in Perth, Fair Go Trading in Northbridge). If you're buying for a sweet tooth, there's a lot of delicious fair trade chocolate about (Fair Go have a Butter and Sea Salt chocolate that I really want to try - hint to any family or friends reading).

You can also head to local markets for locally produced items. Some of my upcoming favourite Perth holiday markets include Unwrapped Designer Market (Sundays December 9th and 16th in Forrest Place), Subi Farmers Market Annual Christmas Gift Market (Saturday December 8th, 8am to noon) and Illuminites Christmas Festival (Friday December 14th, 5pm to 10pm, Perth Cultural Centre).

Support your independent bookstores by giving books as gifts. Be subversive with beautiful coffee-table books with an underlying message of sustainability. I recommend Kevin McCloud's 43 Principles of Home, Amanda Talbot's Rethink: The Way You Live, Michael Pollan's Food Rules (beautifully illustrated by Maira Kalman) or India Flint's Second Skin.

Some other thoughtful gift guides I recommend are Nicholas D. Kristof's Gifts That Change Lives for the New York Times (charitable donations), GiveWell's Top Charities for the 2012 Giving Season (also donations), Oxfam's Top Ten Gifts (all fair trade) and Sarah Wilson's Christmas Gift Guide.

If none of the above will satisfy, I recommend something from Aesop. Unlike mainstream beauty companies, this fiercely independent Australian brand puts most of its money back into research and development, rather than advertising and promotions. They don't have sales, which is a good indicator that their products don't have ridiculous mark-ups. The products are all made in Australia and they do what they promise on the label, in addition to looking great in the bathroom and smelling divine. They're expensive but they last for months (and then some). As a universally pleasing gift, I would recommend the Resurrection Aromatique Handwash. Every time your gift recipient uses it, or spies it next to their sink, they will sigh with pleasure and think of you with fondness for bringing it into their life.

What are your recommendations for ethical gift-giving?

Cheap fashion - what does it cost?

We have an insatiable appetite for cheap fashion. I've heard friends say, "This store is great for throwaway clothes." I've seen fashion magazine covers scream, "Guilt-free buys under $20." I've seen a lifestyle journalist comment (repeatedly) that fashion purchases are so cheap, they're "practically free."

These comments assume that the only cost of cheap fashion is the cost to our wallets and that the only reason we may feel guilty about purchasing cheap fashion is that we're spending our potential savings or racking up more credit. The Australian mainstream media today ran a "cheap fashion" story, with the long (and poorly punctuated) title "The twin test: One twin is wearing a $199 Cue dress the other is in a $50 Target dress. Can you tell the difference?" The focus of the article was the aesthetic differences between the two dresses - the fit, the cut and the feel of the fabric. While mention was made of the country of manufacture (the $199 dress is made in Australia by an accredited Ethical Clothing Australia brand, whereas the cheaper dress is a cotton/elastane mix and was made in China), no comment was made about the possible implications for labour conditions.

One reason the "Twin Test" article resonated so much with me today is that it was juxtaposed against the horrific news of more than one hundred deaths in a factory fire in Bangladesh. Twelve of those people died after jumping from windows to escape the fire (due to a lack of emergency exits). I'm not trying to suggest that the cheap Target dress in the article above is linked to factory worker deaths, or even that Target uses factories with unsafe labour practices and conditions. Target Australia, like many big brands, has an Ethical Sourcing Code, which is very easy to find and download from their website. This is self-monitored, as per the guidebook to their code:

"Target will monitor compliance with this Code, and we, or our representatives, may visit factories to ensure compliance with this policy. Any violations of our Code will be reported to the vendor for follow up and corrective action. Vendors are required to cooperate with the entire process. Where there are egregious violations and/or the vendor/factory does not demonstrate a willingness to comply, Target reserves the right to discontinue business with the vendor/factory."

This monitoring seems pretty wishy-washy to me. They "may" visit factories to ensure compliance, they "reserve the right to discontinue business" in the case of "egregious violations." I'm not trying to pick on (or target) Target in particular. I only mention them because they are featured in the "Twin Test" article and I thought they would be fairly representative of other big Australian retailers. (Out of interest, I spent a few minutes searching the Myer and David Jones website but was unable to find any ethical sourcing policy, just mentions of their philanthropic works. K Mart has an Ethical Sourcing Code, similarly worded to Target's, which is unsurprising as they are both subsidiaries of the same company. I could not find a similar policy on Big W's website.)

What I am saying is that our appetite for cheap fashion, and retailers' desire to feed that appetite, means that manufacturers have to produce garments more and more cheaply. This inevitably means that somewhere along the line, corners are cut, and the least empowered workers are the ones who ultimately suffer. Most (nearly all) big labels and chain stores out-source the production of their garments to third parties. This way, when disasters such as today's factory fire occur, the label can protect their brand name and wash their hands by severing their ties with that factory and condemning its unsafe practices.

How do you ensure that the people who made your fashion did so in a safe working environment, under fair conditions? Unfortunately, this sort of information does not appear on a clothing label along with the washing instructions. There is nothing to distinguish whether it was made in a "good" or "bad" factory. When I'm in a store and spot clothing I like, the first thing I look for is the place of manufacture (yes, even before the price). Unless it's made locally or fair trade, I will avoid it. Individual items of clothing may be more expensive but I am buying far fewer clothes than previously. The only way to ensure that workers are treated fairly is for consumers to demand it and to be willing to pay more for fashion that is produced under better conditions.

Even the "Twin Test" article concedes, "...cheap clothing can often cost more in the end because enthusiastic bargain-hunters buy more items than they really need." It's a pity the more important, human, cost is not mentioned.




As usual, this post is longer than I intended, with half the content. Another post on this topic, and a page with reading suggestions, coming soon!

What I buy at the supermarket & how I "Shop Ethical!"

I'm a strong proponent of voting with my wallet. This is a general post about how I do that at the supermarket. There are many product categories available at supermarkets, each deserving of its own post (or series of posts) that I'll cover in future. These include food, toiletries and cosmetics, cleaning products, pharmaceuticals, clothing and textiles, and more.

I feel the two big supermarket chains in Australia have a real duopoly. (Gosh! I just googled it and Maggie Beer agrees in this article published online 30 minutes ago.) The "big two" lure us in with loyalty programs, loss leaders and discount fuel offers. They're big pushers of tobacco, alcohol and gambling. I try to shop at independent supermarkets, farmers markets, greengrocers, butchers and other independent retailers. When I do shop at the "fresh food people" or "down, down, prices are down" I'm careful to choose brands and products that I want to encourage them to stock more - local, Australian owned, organic and fair trade products. These products are usually found on the bottom or top shelf or inexplicably (in the case of organic hot chocolate and instant coffee), the "health food" aisle.

Making choices at the supermarket can be overwhelming. Packaged products are covered with all sorts of misleading labels trying to convince us of their health or environmental benefits. Marshmallows are "99% fat free"! Likewise, many "natural" products are neither healthy for us nor the environment. Many iconic Australian brands, like Vegemite and Tim Tams, are no longer Australian-owned. You may be boycotting Nestlé but not realise that they own Connoisseur ice cream (I can attest to this; the logo is very subtle).

One tool to assist supermarket decision-making is the Shop Ethical! app or its hardware form, the Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping book. I used the book before I had a smartphone but I find the app more convenient. I also get less weird stares from fellow shoppers. The app allows you to search for products via brand name or category. For each product, it offers information such as ownership, number of Australian employees, any boycotts, scores on various ethical shopping profiles, environmental pros and cons, treatment of employees and other ethical considerations. For each product, there is also an overall recommendation and you can quickly scroll through these for each product category. You can "favourite" products for quick reference.

I do not blindly follow the recommendations in the guide (eg sometimes I buy Green & Black organic cocoa, even though it is owned by Cadbury) but in most cases I agree with the recommendations and it makes my supermarket shopping much easier. If you don't follow the overall recommendations of the guide, there is enough information (and hyperlinks) to assist you in making your own decision about individual products.

Further reading:

Ethical Consumer Guide - the not for profit organisation responsible for the Shop Ethical! app
Dick Smith's Magazine of Forbidden Ideas "Censored by the Murdoch Press!"
Ausbuy, Australian Owned and Australian Made
Fair Trade Association, Australia and New Zealand
Australian Made, Australian Grown
Choice magazine's survey on country of origin labelling


This blog post is purely based on my opinion. I do not have any financial stakes in any of the companies or brands recommended and I am not affiliated with them, other than being a consumer.