Eco-ethical fashion

This term was coined more or less at the same time it was born Slow Fashion Next, an initiative that understands it as clothing made satisfying three factors as much as possible: sustainability throughout the production chain,  decent working conditions and local production. Designers are involved, manufacturers and shops from all over the State that currently put on the market close to 200 eco-friendly clothing brands.

We can find them in the directoryFashion Positive Impact, that the web gives us, contact and characteristics of each company. To help us search we can filter by:

• Product type: men's clothing, woman and child, steals inside, of sport, bathroom or home. There are also shoe brands, complements, jewelry and shops (physical, online and second hand).
• Country and city where the company is based.
• Country where the clothes are made ("Produce in" parameter). Of the 164 production companies in the directory, he 82% they make up at least part of the manufacturing in Spain (we don't know which part).
• Traits that make it an eco-ethical option, such as traceability, local production, social character (job placement, fair trade…), organic production in some aspect or animal respect.
• Certifying seals of ecological or eco-ethical production, either for textile products or for products in general.

All this information is provided by the companies themselves, which Slow Fashion Next obliges to sign a paper in which they ensure that the information they put in the directory is true.

Another tool to find eco-ethical fashion (and many other resources for conscious consumption), in this case in the Catalan area, is the Pam to Pam map. In thatdirectors we can select the textile sector and we will get producers and shops (most in Barcelona but also in the other Catalan capitals) with different positive characteristics, such as job placement, sustainable production or second hand.

Look for quality

It's important to keep this in mind whenever we go shopping, in order to choose the goods that can serve us for longer and in good conditions. In this way we will reduce the demand for new production and the generation of waste to a minimum.Here we give practical and precise instructions to know how to recognize the pieces that have the best quality when we are in a clothing store.

second hand

Buying second-hand clothes is a crucial choice, given the enormous pressure that the production of new clothes puts on the planet and people. per sort, it's easy to find: there have been organizations throughout the territory for decades, in many cases of social economy or that are part of Caritas, who collect clothes and put them on sale or give them to disadvantaged groups, putting into practice what is now known as the circular economy.Solidarity/Friendly Clothes iCrumbs are two of the most veteran organizations that make it possible to reuse clothes through the socio-labor insertion of groups at risk of exclusion.

Within the social and solidarity economy

Socio-labor insertion is one of the most present features in the universe known as the social and solidarity economy (ESS), which can be defined as the set of socio-economic initiatives that prioritize the satisfaction of people's needs over profit and act guided by values ​​such as equity, solidarity, sustainability, the participation, inclusion and commitment to the community.

Especially since the beginning of the economic recovery 2014, there is a boom in ESS projects that have opted for the textile sector as a source of self-employment for people in a vulnerable situation who want to become professional. In general, due to term various phases of the production chain (design, patronage, tall, manufacture and sale) and offer unique and quality clothing. Recycled fibers or directly used textile products are often used as raw materials. The recent study by Barcelona Activa (of Barcelona City Council) and carried out by Setem "Exploration of the textile sector with a focus on Social and Solidarity Economy in Barcelona", which will be uploaded to the network soon, thoroughly analyze the weaknesses, fortress, threats and opportunities of these initiatives, from a sample of 45 small Catalan ESS companies. We will get to know some of them in the last section of this article.

To the mainSpanish portal of the solidarity economy we can find a list of textile production companies there, footwear and accessories from all over the State.

Proximity production in the conventional sector

We have already seen that among eco-ethical brands or in the world of ESS we will find a lot of local clothing. We can also find them among conventional brands, and slowly increasing: there is a certain relocation of fabric and clothing. In fact, the State's textile industry continues to maintain the entire production chain, from the yarns to the making and finishing. Moreover, progress is also being made in the production of local raw materials: flax crops are being tested in the Basque Country and fromorganic cotton in Córdoba, and the Textile Research and Industrial Cooperation Institute of Terrassa INTEXTER is doing research to develop theuse of hemp as a textile fiber. Hemp has many agronomic advantages over cotton.

The directoryQésQ it gives us access to a large part of the companies in the Catalan textile sector, the pioneer and the most important in the State (accumulates and 40% of the total turnover). Many are small businesses, and it is that the business fabric of the Spanish fashion sector isconstituted mainly for SMEs and micro-SMEs (next to, that yes, from world-class giants such as Inditex, Mango, Cortefiel or Desigual). Many of these companies produce locally, either tailoring or knitting. We can contact them to find out which ones do it.

Certification stamps

We can also look for brands that have a certification seal, either organic production or taking labor aspects into account as well. The requirements of the certifying bodies vary greatly, as we detail in this onearticle.

Sample buttons

We briefly describe five initiatives with different social and environmental values. All are sold online throughout Spain.

Yaios is a company from Granollers that makes sweaters and t-shirts from wool fibers from scraps left over from clothing factories. The fibers are respun and not dyed, because the clippings are already saved separated by color. Iaios sweaters have no zippers, buttons or placket, with the aim of making it very easy to recover the fiber at the end of its useful life. Garments are durable, on the one hand because recycled wool is more resistant than other fibers and, on the other hand because timeless designs are made. The Iaios are manufactured in small workshops in Catalonia. Each sweater is named after an old person (hence the name of the brand) which has given us testimonies with great human value, thus contributing to keep his legacy present.

Customizing is a Madrid social integration cooperative that, exercising creative design, gives a second life to the fabrics of clothes already in disuse. Offers, so, unique articles with added environmental and artistic value. The main objective is to train the women who work there so that they can be more independent, specifically qualifying in design, production or marketing of textile products. They can then stay to be part of the Customizando technical team, or create your own cooperative.
Nine women currently work there, who explain that they want to escape the underground economy and dependency on subsidies: "We are women who have decided to end the precarious multi-occupation of subsistence and bet on professionalization in creative sewing". They sell women's clothing online, home i children, and also accessories, office covers and cases and cushion covers.

Red cotton is a maximum local initiative in all stages of clothing production: cotton is grown in the province of Seville with integrated production (which limits the use of pesticides and plant protection products), lines up in Ripoll, it is woven in Navarcles (berries) and Mataró, and the clothing is made in Mataró and Manresa. All steps are taken under sustainability criteria; in the case of cotton, he is currently rehearsing itorganic farming in Córdoba.

Empremta Raval is a printing workshop using screen printing, on clothes and also on paper and wood. It is an artisan workshop that provides work in decent conditions and training to people with special difficulties in employment. the fabrics, inks and processes are chosen to maximize quality and durability. The project belongs to the cooperativeBy impulse.

Marcelinus is a brand of sweaters manufactured by small companies in the traditional textile sector of Olot (weavers, spinning mills, dry cleaners, you made…). The sweaters are a reinvention of the classic "Vespa": the one that carried in Marcelino Camacho, which inspired the brand name. Some are also made from fibers recovered from scraps.
The scraps from the factories that make Marcelinus are taken to the adult workshops that Integra has, an organization that works to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities in La Garrotxa, mental disorders or developmental disorders. These people pick the scraps and make them into stuffing and items like key chains or pillows.