By Bridget Gourlay
Picture a factory in the developing world. The workers are hunched over, thin, their hands and eyes a blur as they work. And work. And work some more.
Then picture a fashion boutique in any first world nation — well lit, ergonomically perfect and filled with shapely mannequins wearing desirable clothes. The walls are draped with some of the finest fashion, fresh from the catwalk. Count the zeros on the price tags.
The awful reality is that entire industries like fashion rely on the backbreaking labour of people in the developing world who are not paid enough to even feed themselves. Healthcare and education are luxuries. Paid days off are ludicrous extravagances. In fact, most of the time, workers live in this crushing poverty until they die.
That’s why the fair trade movement came into existence. Companies began buying products, like coffee, for a fair price and marketing themselves on being ethical traders. Today the spectrum ranges from bananas to cocoa to jewellery.
Wellingtonian Gosia Piatek was destined to be a Fair trade supporter. Social justice was something close to her heart — inspired by her parents, who left communist Poland as political refugees to arrive in New Zealand with two children and two hundred dollars.
Following in those brave footsteps, Piatek turned her passion for fashion into a label called Kowtow, which only uses certified organic and fair trade cotton.
It was a small set-up, funded by an initial $5000 grant, but she’d already secured an order from Australia’s second largest clothing retailer. Fair trade, to Piatek, was just the right thing to do.
“There is an imbalance in the standards of living throughout the world which is fuelled by the West’s continuing short changing and exploitation of labour markets in the so called third world. We don’t believe anyone who is truly aware of what is going on in the world would want to turn their heads and support a slave trade economy.”
One of the first things Piatek had to do was find a factory to buy from. She found one in Kolkata, India, where the workers are not only paid a fair price, but management offers other benefits to its staff. All the employees received paid holiday leave, sick pay, medical insurance, subsidised lunches and overtime pay. Children of employees receive free schooling, donations are made to charities such as the Girls’ Education Fund and the factory has a pension plan.
Piatek chose them because they’re certified Fair trade organic and because they were willing to make small runs for her. To begin with she only wanted a couple of hundred units, while now she orders 6000 at a time.
But it was visiting the factory that showed her what an incredible place it was. “People think once you’re there you will realise they are lying — that there will be child workers hiding somewhere. That wasn’t true at all. You can’t hide poverty. And I was free to wander round where I liked.”
Four years on and Kowtow has grown significantly. “For example, I can now employ staff!” Piatek jokes. Orders come in daily from around the country and Kowtow exports to Australia and Japan. Kowtow’s “bread and butter money” comes from its division called ‘Good Cotton People.’ This involves creating bulk order T-shirts and bags for companies such as Oxfam or WWF, who walk their talk about sustainability.
Teaching, not preaching
Kowtow is arguably the quintessential Wellington company, combining social justice and respect for the environment with creativity. It reaches customers with a range of knowledge about the importance of organics and fair trade.
“The majority buy our clothes because they like them. The whole mantra of our business is to market our clothes to people who aren’t necessarily interested in fair trade or organics. Because you don’t want to preach to the converted and since there’s only a handful of them around we wouldn’t make any money!”
Most customers try on a Kowtow garment after touching the cotton — it feels like silk. If they like it and buy it, it’s hard to ignore Kowtow’s website printed on the inside of the garments and on their tags. Piatek says when customers visit the website they are shown videos and given explanations of why buying fair trade organic cotton is so important.
As our natural world comes under increasing pressure, the global surge of environmental interest has become a tsunami. But not every product is legitimate and ‘green washing’ has hit the food and cleaning industries in particular — and Piatek has seen it in the clothing industry too.
“I’ve been to some shops where they have the token organic garment. It usually comes from a non-certified source, it’s individually wrapped in plastic and it’s usually like 25 bucks. The whole thing doesn’t add up.”
Online opportunities
There’s been a seismic shift in the retail environment during the past five years. It’s now possible to buy a range of things such as movies, books, posters and equipment online.
From a pair of skis to a vintage vinyl record, there’s usually a website that will sell it to you — often cheaper than buying it from a shop, even with postage fees. Piatek says online retail sales are now “huge” for Kowtow.
“We sell causal garments so once people know their size they can re-order off our online store. We got our online store revamped in September last year and the month we did that our sales doubled. How easy a site is to navigate is so important. We get sales everyday from online.”
Online marketing and advertising is just as dominant. “I think one of the most potent ways of advertising is through Facebook and Twitter — it’s just huge.
“You really do notice the power of it. If we have a sale or new stock has arrived and we put that on the website then you can really see the number of online sales increasing that day.”
Kowtow wants to grow over the next few years, and Piatek has firm ideas on how.
“Everybody loves cotton in Australia, I’d like to expand more in there. I’d also like to get Good Cotton People growing. There’s so many business going fair trade — that means they serve fair trade tea and coffee at work. Big businesses too — BNZ has gone fair trade.
“I can see Good Cotton People doing more uniforms etc. Serving fair trade tea and coffee is a good start — that’s the seed and then interest will grow.”
Looking back on her success, Piatek highly recommends SMEs have a mentor they can trust. She has been mentored since the start of the year by Peter Travis who advised Jeremy Moon through creating Icebreaker, and now sits on the company’s board of directors.
“I really value his advice, he’s so positive but straight to the point. When I started meeting with him he said ‘what is it what you need?’, and I said ‘staff’. And he said ‘you’ve got a great product, what are you scared of?’ And I said ‘I’m scared of running out of money’.
“And he said ‘get the staff and then everything will work out.’ It did. I just needed to hear that from someone who knows what they are doing.”
She also recommends businesses know their financials inside and out, forecast properly and keep good schedules. “Pull yourself out of day to day activities and be the managing director,” she advises. This is something Piatek has only just started to do herself.
“We’re planning to employ a full-time production manager and I’ve just got myself a part-time accounts person — I should have done that a long time ago.”
But the most important lesson she’s learnt as a businesswoman is to follow her heart. “My gut would always tell me the right answer. My instinct hasn’t failed me yet.”
What is fair trade?
Fair trade is a system where companies pay fair prices or wages for their products. This price is worked out by something that enables the workers to adequately live by — afford housing, health care and education. Often, fair trade companies go beyond simply paying a fair price and have schools for employee’s children, literacy classes, free doctor’s check-ups and other benefits. The idea behind Fair trade is that rather than people in the developing world living in subsistence, they are employed in jobs which enable them to provide for their families and communities themselves, rather than rely aid or poorly paid work.
Why buy fair trade organic cotton?
We’ve all heard about fair trade coffee, so why is fair trade organic cotton also so important? Unfortunately, coffee farmers are far from being the only workers in the third world exploited by our economic system. Cotton is likely to get lots of pests, so it’s the most sprayed crop in the world; taking only three percent of cultivated land, it receives 25 percent of all insecticides and 10 percent of global pesticide sales, making it the most pesticide-intensive crop grown on the planet. Often the cotton workers handle the chemically-ridden cotton without adequate protection, making them very ill. The World Health Organisation estimates that 20,000 people a year die in developing countries from pesticide poisoning, and a further three million people suffer chronic health problems.
