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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Ethical Fashion Blog
A few weeks after Chicago was declared a Fair Trade City, several more towns will reach that milestone. Enough to make 1000 fair trade towns in the world!!!! Fair Trade is clearly a strong and growing movement, as more people shop for fair trade products and demand fair trade options in their towns. The fair trade towns campaign really epitomizes that expression, “Think Globally, Act Locally.”
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It’s so fun to see our Dangle Necklace featured in People Magazine’s June Style Watch.
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Chicago celebrated World Fair Trade Day with an exciting announcement. After a 2-year campaign of outreach to residents and businesses, Chicago was declared a Fair Trade City!
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fairtrade.us is giving away a $250 shopping spree this World Fair Trade Day – May 14th. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is register between now and May 13th 2011.
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If you are in the Chicago area, head over to Daley Plaza on Friday, May 6th to celebrate World Fair Trade Day!
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Yesterday was Michelle’s wedding shower, and as you can see, Mata Traders was very well represented! Here we are all decked out in our Mata fashions. One of the co-ops we work with is making the bridesmaids’ dresses, which will be a similar design to the Gold Coast dress – seen below on Michelle and Andrea (Michelle’s sister and maid of honor).
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San Francisco fashion blogger Modelina Michelle found us in local boutique Marmalade, and if you’re in the Bay area, you can, too! Entitled “Sweet Bohemia,” Michelle’s post features the Edgewater dress, Lakeshore dress, Skylark skirt, and Symphony skirt from our new Spring line. She notes Mata’s bright colors, bold patterns, and laid back bohemian vibe, but she’s just as impressed with the line’s social impact – empowering Indian women. She asks, “How often can you buy a dress for yourself and help empower other women at the same time?” Thanks for the shout out, Michelle!
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Well, maybe not THAT famous, but we are so proud of our little Arbor skirt for making it on a TV show! She was just a little fair trade skirt, and now she’s hit the big time. It was only by chance that we found out our skirt is a star. Our designer Kristin spotted it when she just happened to be watching her guilty pleasure, the show Pretty Little Liars. She was amazed to discover that our Arbor skirt from Winter 2010 is featured on one of the actresses!
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The global marketing firm Edelman conducted their 4th annual good purpose study to explore consumer attitudes around social purpose and their social expectations of companies. The study surveyed more than 7,000 adults in 13 countries (1,000 in the U.S.) and some noteworthy data has emerged.
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9. Sign up for newsletters from organizations in the Fair Trade movement – You can get regular updates from the Fair Trade Federation and the Fair Trade Resource Network.
Selecting Chennai – India’s fourth-ish largest city – as our port of entry into India is comparable to the average European deciding to launch their American tour from Detroit. It is a city one would normally not visit unless, well, unless you had to… We’ve crossed the peninsula from east to west via the Cardamom Hills in the Western Ghats, and our arrival in Kochi, Kerala was much anticipated. Kochi is a seaside town full of travelers (imagine even the western men wearing colorful head scarves to hide the dirty hair days) w/ a Jewish quarter, two churches, and a semi-posh coffee shop to hideout in.
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It’s early November… time to place orders with our producer groups for Spring/Summer 2011. To help us determine what to order, we hosted a focus group on Friday, November 5th at our office/warehouse space. The samples we worked on in India this summer were on display, and our focus group participants completed surveys rating each item’s style and color variations.
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Wednesday I witnessed 106-year-old Ignacia Garibay de Moya request an absentee ballot to vote for the first time in this election. She became a citizen just months ago on July 19th, 2010. When asked why she wanted to vote, she said, “I’m a citizen now. My children are all citizens. That’s what citizens do.”
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