Fairtrade Fashion

Latest reports say that more than a million tonnes of textiles are sent to UK landfill sites each year, a lot of which are not biodegradable. Places such as the Fairtrade Foundation are trying to find ways to help cut back on the amount of textiles being dumped in landfills.

Every year to celebrate fair and ethical trading values they have an event called Fairtrade Fortnight. This year such shops as Topshop, Marks and Spencer and Tesco all unveiled new ethical collections.

Marks and Spencer introduced Fairtrade-certified cotton to its Limited Collection, which included a T-shirt dress and a bag, with model Lily Cole fronting the campaign. The retailer will also launch a range of recycled denim.

Tesco unveiled a fair trade denim range that was distributed to shops on March 10 and the women’ range of jeans and shorts will hit shops on April 21. They expect to sell between 15 million and 20 million fair trade garments this year.

Meanwhile, Topshop, one of the most influential brands on the high street, unveiled a 36-piece collection made from fair trade cotton. The range will go into 30 stores and will include everything from T-shirts to woven waistcoats.

Eileen Maybin from Fairtrade Foundation said: “After this year’s successful Fairtrade Fortnight they are planning on doing this again next year to keep the awareness of ethical clothing up.”

Topshop - friend or foe?

Even though Topshop has begun to take part in producing ethical clothing, their methods for making clothing are still surrounded in controversy.

Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, has been asked to improve labour conditions for the people who make its clothes.

In September, the Times found migrant workers facing deportation when they complained about long working hours, low wages, overcrowded living conditions, poor ventilation, and a lack of sanitation in their workplace.

Yet the Arcadia group refuses to join the Ethical Trading Initiative and work with other retailers, trade unions and NGOs to improve conditions.

To try and get through to Topshop and the Arcadia Group, there have been many protests to persuade the Topshop to improve working conditions. The latest protest took place on March 1.

Rebecca Jones, organiser of the March 1st London demo said: "Topshop still have to sign up to the ethical trading initiative," and "other high street retailers are trying to make changes."

10 people were at the March 1st demonstration, which Rebecca Jones said: "made a big visual impact." Rebecca described Topshop's response as "childlike". She states they tried to set up talks with them in Oxford and they didn't show up.

Rebecca is not sure when then the next protest will be, but there might be more in the future.