October Rebel is back, working her magic on the Sylvia blouse from our fall collection. To her the blouse says, “I’m little fairy tale, I’m a touch Little House on the Prairie, but I also fit perfectly in a modern wardrobe,” so she showcased the floral print by pairing it with several solid basics, playing off the romance of the tiny floral print and voluminous sleeves.
Ethical Fashion Blog
Welcome to the 2nd ‘Get The Look For Less (Guilt)’! In today’s post we are looking at the beloved trend of black & white stripes.
Hi there! I am Mata Traders’ textile designer, Shifra (Check out my site!). I will be sharing a little bit of the background, processes, and fun stories behind the textile designs from Mata Traders’ Fall ’13 collection. That’s right, even the prints have some history! This post will be dedicated to the folk inspired “Roosters” print.
If you’re like me, you probably don’t iron much. Maybe it’s too much of a hassle. Maybe you don’t have the time. Maybe you really buy clothing based on whether or not it will ever need to be ironed. Even once. Wait a minute, are you… me?
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This is the story of what happens when 2 people have babies. Well, specifically, when those 2 people are my best friends, and they get a fair trade fashion business up and running, and through that business they design clothing made of original handmade block-printed and screen-printed cotton fabric. And then I join the company, only for those 2 best friends to turn around and have babies at the same time. It’s soooo awesome for best friends to have babies at the same time, but for business partners, it poses some challenges.
Mata Traders is a fair trade fashion company, and we take both parts of that description very seriously. Our clothes and jewelry are manufactured by women’s cooperatives and artisan groups in developing countries that pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions. Our designs mix old-fashioned processes–such as hand loom weaving and hand block printing–with fashion-forward silhouettes and contemporary color palettes. Mata’s mission is to bring fair trade clothing to the forefront of the fashion industry–and to bring fashion to fair trade.
I celebrated Earth Day by having a mini picnic and wearing Mata’s ‘Blue Belle Dress‘.
By choosing to wear Mata’s clothing you are making a difference. Usually fashion is seen as having a negative effect on our planet (lots of dyes and chemicals are used to produce garments). Luckily for us, most of Mata Traders’ pieces are hand block printed with eco-friendly vegetable dyes. Mata also uses fair trade cotton, which means they support small family farms and follow environmental standards that restrict the use of agrochemicals and encourage sustainability.
Do we get the most photogenic interns or what? That’s Mallika and Laura in New Buffalo, Michigan and our own talented Taylor behind the lens.
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I couldn’t resist taking this pic at the office today. Kristin, our designer, on the left, was wearing these adorable floral shorts paired with a striped sweater, and Carmen, our new design intern, had a sheer minty green long skirt folded over and tucked into her waist with leggings. Sheer draping is everywhere these days, even in the Mata office. I love that these girls are ON it and having their design input shows in our collections.
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About a month ago I had the pleasure of posing for Mata’s Spring/Summer 2012 catalog shoot. It was on location in New Buffalo, MI which I had never visited before, and it was absolutely perfect. The sun shining, the sand between my toes, and the clothes…the clothes! Mata is showing bright colors for the spring and summer, and it makes me happy.
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Maureen and Kristin are in India at the moment working with the co-ops on next Spring’s collection and even getting started on Fall 2012. This past weekend they visited one of the block printers where we source our fabric. Maureen said they got a lot of great photos and video, and it motivated me to finally get these pictures up from last summer when Michelle and I visited another block printer we use.
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Here are the first runway pics from Greenheart’s Fair Trade Fashion Show. A big thank you to all the fabulous models and to Greenheart Shop for putting on a great show!
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We want to thank Hannah Warren, founder and Executive Director of Jhoole, for being such a fabulous host! We spent two lovely days designing in the peaceful town of Maheshwar – best known for the talent of its handloom weavers – in Madhya Pradesh (central India) where Jhoole is located. It was a true relief to escape the chaos of big-city India for a moment; Maheshwar, with a population of just over 20,000, actually feels chill, like a village! We ate home cooked meals and got to know the townspeople a bit.
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I’ve had 3 full days now back in India (last time I was here it was 2004) and the main thing to report is that it is rainy. It’s monsoon season which means that it rains almost all the time and when it seems like the rain has let up and you go outside, it’s actually still raining, only a bit lighter.