• Vogue
• Helena de Natalio
• Peace Corps
• Ashoka
• Katharine Hamnett
• Organic Cotton
• Katharine Hamnett items for sale

Clothing That Gives Back

The maxim "You are what you eat" has long been repeated to, well, anyone who eats. They're words that have grown to mean more than "you are a donut" - the adage reflects how food has become as much about values as nutritional content. The latest twist on this formula? Thanks to the mushrooming niche market of socially conscious clothing and accessories, "You are what you wear."

By launching their own lines of ethically sourced and produced clothing, design-savvy humanitarians are helping connect socially conscious fashionistas with little-known artisans in developing countries. Because they've been incubated in the world of Vogue, they're making clothes you'll actually covet, not ill-fitting hemp pants that make you wish you'd just donated to charity instead.

Accessory designer Helen Hoppock (a.k.a. Helena de Natalio) fell in love with South American crafts when she worked in the Peace Corps in Paraguay. Now she employs South American artisans to create the versatile and cosmopolitan belts and bags she designs. "I wanted to bring back to the United States a combination of unique South American designs and the quality and sophistication that an American consumer demands," she says. Five percent of her proceeds each year go to Ashoka, a nonprofit organization dedicated to social entrepreneurship. She also works as an Ashoka mentor to a community of Mapuche Indians, helping to market their handmade textiles, silverwork, and woodcarvings in English-speaking countries.

Lauren Scott Miller of the label Lala Scott is also passionate about combining fashion-forward designs with traditional techniques. Her colorful scarves - chunky-yet-glamorous - are hand-knitted in Sri Lanka by a cooperative of 250 women. A percentage of sales goes directly into community improvement projects. Materials that are used might be the finest expensive Italian fibers, but the value of the wisdom and skill that generations of Sri Lankan woman pour into each scarf is incalculable. (And they look great, too).

"It's important to me to maintain craft techniques that are disappearing with the increase in mass production," Miller says.

Bigger designers are riding the feel-good wave, too. Two years ago, acclaimed British denim designer Katharine Hamnett started converting to only certified organic cotton and donating money to help farmers in India and Africa use sustainable farming methods to create her clothes. Doing so could potentially increase their income by 50 percent, she says.

The "E" in Hamnett's soon-to-launch Katharine E Hamnett organic and socially conscious line? She says it stands for "ethical" and "environmental."

You can add a word to that list that describes both her mission and her clothes:

Exquisite.

 

Posted on March 27, 2006