SPOTLIGHT ON SOURCING
TUESDAY 19TH MAY FROM 6PM, LONDON E1
EVENING SEMINAR AND ETHICAL SOURCING MARKETPLACE
SOURCING FROM ASIA
If you are in business in fashion, sourcing from Asia is almost inevitable.
China is the largest clothing production hub in the world and India is second.
Yet garment workers all over Asia continue to suffer from poverty wages, unfair working conditions and limited rights.
As a fashion designer, business or professional, what can you do to maximise benefits for people and minimise environmental impact in Asia?
Don’t miss the event- a chance to learn from inspirational best practice, meet and make links with pioneering brands and suppliers.
Scroll down for full details.
Places are limited: REGISTER NOW
In response to your feedback, this month we will be featuring less presentations, carefully structured and going into more depth, to give you valuable insights relevant to your work
RICHMIX, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E16LA
VIEW MAP
ALSO – during the afternoon of the 19th between 2 – 5pm we will be running a masterclass on Sourcing from Co-operatives following up on last months event.
SIGN UP NOW for the afternoon master class
EVENING SEMINAR: SPEAKERS
Abigail Petit, Gossypium
Abigail has worked with fair trade and organic cotton for more than 20 years, producing Traidcrafts first clothing collection in the 1980’s. Since then she has worked as a consultant for Marks and Spencer, Greenpeace, the EU and others, worked directly with Indian cotton farmers, and launched Gossypium in 2000. Abigail will talk about building a sustainable fashion brand based on fairtrade and organic production in India.
Clare Lissaman, Ethical Supply chain consultant, and
Sury Bagenal, Head of Design, Adili
Clare has worked in both trade and aid for over 10 years, including heading up Rugmark UK – working to end exploited child labour in South Asia’s rug industry. Clare has helped the Fairtrade Foundation develop and launch Fairtrade cotton and now works with NGOs and companies researching, developing and implementing strategic ethical trading programmes. Sury Bagenal has been designing for more than 20 years and now heads up Adili’s own label , produced in India. Clare and Sury will talk about producing fashion products to high ethical standards in Asia , the challenges in launching a new fashion line and how these have been addressed by Adili’s own label.
Bernice Leppard, Code of Practice Manager at Next, and
Julia Hawkins, Ethical Trade Initiative
Homeworkers form an important part of the garment supply chain, particularly in Asia. Homeworkers may face very poor working conditions and are rarely protected by national labour law. Julia will introduce the ETI’s homeworker project, which has developed guidelines for companies to improve conditions for homeworkers. Bernice will introduce the work of Next in relation to homeworkers in India.
Register for seminar and marketplace
MARKETPLACE
This seminar will be accompanied by a marketplace featuring suppliers, pioneering brands and organisations supporting sustainable sourcing from Asia.
Make a night of it! Delicious food and drinks available at the bar at Richmix.
AFTERNOON MASTERCLASS
This masterclass looks in more depth at the issues covered in the Sourcing from Co-operatives seminar, in April.
Small co-operatives all over the world are producing fashion and textile products to high standards. At the same time, co-operative and fair trade structures ensure that the benefits of sales go directly to the people , and their families, who need them the most.
Come to this masterclass to consult and work with experts and practitioners on the specific issues facing your business, and how you can effectively engage with co-operatives and fair trade groups.
Led by Mo Tomaney and Tamsin Lejeune
Mo Tomaney is currently a Research Fellow in Ethical Issues and Fair Trade at Central Saint Martins and runs the MA in Ethical Fashion at University College for the Creative Arts at Epsom. She has led a Commonwealth Secretariat supported project in developing market access with rural women textile producers in Pakistan, worked in the community trade dept at the Body Shop, as fabric design manager at Levi’s and consultant at Textil Santanderina and Benetton.
Tamsin Lejeune founded juste. in 2003, developing a fair trade supply chain for design led fashion in Bangladesh. Since then she has worked to connect fair trade suppliers from all over the world with fashion designers and businesses through the Ethical Fashion Forum, worked with the International Trade Centre (UN) to connect African community groups with fashion businesses and is now developing a sourcing pool to make it easier for UK fashion businesses to connect with fair trade suppliers.
ABOUT SPOTLIGHT ON SOURCING
The Spotlight on Sourcing series is part of Fashion + , a DfID funded project aimed at reducing poverty and creating sustainable livelihoods in the supply chains to the UK fashion industry.
The project will do this through:
1. Increasing understanding of development issues amongst fashion professionals, in particular the opportunities for poverty reduction
2. Providing the tools and resources fashion professionals need to make informed choices in their working roles
The project aims to integrate training on development, poverty reduction and sustainable livelihood creation as a core part of all fashion business training in the UK.
The Department for International Development (DFID) is the part of the UK Government that manages Britain’s aid to poor countries and works to get rid of extreme poverty.
Spotlight on Sourcing projects are held at RICHMIX, RichMix’s mission is to create and celebrate work from marginalised communities and to encourage, nurture, grow and explore the cultural and creative talent of all people through a vibrant, dynamic celebration of entrepreneurship, utilising the creative industries and artistic expression as its foundations.
