Consignment and clothing swap apps have been getting so good lately!

Threadflip just launched today, and it’s the best-looking web app I’ve seen yet for shopping people’s closets. (Poshmark still wins for mobile!) It makes it easy to buy and sell clothes and accessories you’re not using anymore.

A few highlights…

• End-to-end shipping solution: As soon as your item sells, you receive a prepaid shipping care package, including an addressed pre-paid shipping label and wrapping materials.
• White-glove service: If needed, send your stuff in and they’ll photograph, price and merchandise for you.
• Every time you use the site, it understands more about who you are and what you like so your experience becomes more curated.

Zara is in the business of fast fashion — and I think we can all agree that fast fashion sucks, fueling a culture of constant consumption that latches onto low price points rather than quality craftsmanship, classic style or supporting independent business.

But… every once in a while, fast fashion can have its place. As I’ve shared here before, I’ve purchased a few pieces from H&M that have stood the test of time. I trust my judgement of a well-made garment, and they can be found.

But not all fast fashion is created equal. And on account of Zara launching online shopping in the U.S. this week, I did some research on its ethics — and for the most part, within the context of fast fashion, I found some pleasant surprises.

Zara’s approach differs from most U.S. retailers’ in two key ways:

1. Mimic & respond

Since its start in the Sixties, Zara’s model has been to watch what designer items are in demand and then mimic them, producing limited quantities of its designs. If demand is notably high, they’ll produce more, in as fast as two weeks.

The typical retail model is to anticipate trends — garment styles are produced according to quantities that buyers think their market will respond to, but if demand isn’t as high as expected, we end up with slashed clothes being thrown out by H&M and excess orders being sold off to discount stores like Marshall’s and TJ Maxx.

When supply meets demand, as in Zara’s model, waste is almost eliminated. (Zara doesn’t even typically have a clearance rack.)

The downsides to this are that stock turns over at Zara every TWO weeks — fueling the consumption fire. And of course, borrowing/stealing other designers’ designs is a terrible thing and another conversation altogether.

2. Turnaround time trumps low prices

To accommodate for Zara’s fast turnaround time of hot (read: borrowed/stolen) styles, the brand initially sourced all its manufacturing from within Spain. ”Assuring rapid delivery of trendy, affordable clothes throughout Spain ruled out relocating factories to countries where unregulated labor was cheaper.” #

The brand has expanded its manufacturing reach since then, but as of 2005, 50% of Zara products were manufactured in Spain, 26% in the rest of Europe and 24% in Asian and African countries and the rest of the world. # (Anything produced in Spain complies with Western European labor laws, which are held to a higher standard than those in developing countries.)

One reason it can keep so much manufacturing in Europe that is that “Zara chooses manufacturers than can provide speed over cost.” # To hear of a fast-fashion retailer that isn’t pressuring factories for bottom-of-the-barrel pricing is a first for me, so cheers to that. This explains Zara’s somewhat higher price points than its fast-fashion competitors’.

And speaking of competitors

Just to help complete the picture…

• H&M was early to the corporate social responsibility game and is known within the industry as being a leading buyer of organic cotton. As mentioned above, it has been busted for destroying and trashing unsold merchandise. (In response, the brand pledged to change its policy and donate rather than destroy. But still.)
• Forever 21 now lists a social responsibility link on its website, but it has yet to gain much of any credibility in the CSR space. And IMHO, their design aesthetic leaves much to be desired, so why bother.

Keep in mind, strikes against all virtually all brands in this category include factory horror stories from time to time. Zara is not exempt. Any brand farming out mass manufacturing on a global scale will deal with this (as one approved factory contracts out to an unapproved factory, and so on) — which is what makes my own case for avoiding them as much as possible.

Please know that I don’t write this article as a free pass for shopping no-holds-barred from Zara. But to shop there discerningly when you’re strapped for cash or can’t find the right piece anywhere else… I feel ya, sister.

As always, if you want to shop from brands without any skeletons in the closet, shop from independent producers and design houses that handle their production personally!

Earlier this week I clicked on this article, devoured it, retweeted it — and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Lecturer and former fashion editor Charty Durrant writes about the impact the fashion industry has had on not only the ecology and economy of countless developing countries, but also — even more deeply so — on our individual psyches, affecting our self-images and the priorities we place on how we look and what we own. WOW. It’s challenged me every morning that I’ve looked at myself in the mirror since.

What we are only now beginning to register is the acute and profound social, spiritual and psychic damage we humans are suffering from after half a century of unrestrained greed, a daily diet of advertising, and rampant over-consumption. … Our lust for shopping and our sophistry for style have taken us into a critical new arena. Human identity is now defined by what one owns rather than who one is.

It’s a helluva long read, but I’d very highly recommend it.

The Tyranny of Trends, Charty Durrant

We all love hearing about a new for-benefit company, where a business has built its concept around benefitting a social cause. Most for-benefits are based in Africa or other impoverished countries, which is completely awesome — but there’s something especially impactful about hearing about one in my own country. It hits closer to home, literally.

Thistle Farms is a bath & beauty company based in Nashville, Tenn., that sells products handmade by women recovering from lives of prostitution, addiction and violence. It’s the social enterprise of the Magdalene project, and on average, women in the project range from the age of 20 to 50, were sexually abused as pre-teens, started using alcohol or drugs by their teens, have been arrested an average of 100 times and have spent about 12 years on the street prostituting.

In America.

The Magdalene program offers women two years of basic needs and beyond — housing, food, medical, therapy, job training and education — without charging for it or taking any government funding. About 30 women at a time are split among six homes, where they learn to care for each other as well as themselves according to 24 spiritual principles inspired by the Benedictine Rule.

The paper labels on the bath and beauty products are made from thistles, which is also handmade by the women, and is symbolic to their lives. Magdalene founder Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest, told NPR about thistles: “It grows in the places that are abandoned and kind of forgotten, and it also has a history of survival by brutality — but it also has this beautiful deep purple center.”

Magdalene is for women like Penny Hall, a lesbian, who was homeless and would get high to prostitute herself to men for money. She told NPR, “I never thought I’d be at a place making healing oil,” but that Thistle Farms and the Magdalene program have been her saving grace.

Seventy percent of the women who join Magdalene are clean and sober 2 1/2 years after starting the program, and they’re well-equipped to start a new life. The project offers a matched savings program to help prepare for economic independence upon graduation, and women who remain in recovery two years past graduation are eligible for a new home buying program.

Both donations and Thistle Farms profits help fund Magdalene. The project regularly has a waiting list of 80-100 women, which we can all help whittle down by purchasing products or donating.

“Magdalene was founded not only to help a subculture of women, but also to help change the culture itself. We stand in solidarity with women who are recovering from abuse, addiction, and life on the streets, and who have paid dearly for a culture that still buys and sells women.” — thistlefarms.org

First, a contest!

From now through Earth Day, this Friday, Levi’s is running a contest that I thought some of you might be interested in. To enter, just tweet about how YOU combine style and sustainability, whether you’re wearing vintage or building a sustainable wardrobe or reviving old furniture, and include the hashtag #SWTC (as the contest is being hosted by Levi’s Shape What’s to Come). Three winners will each get a Levi’s Sustainable Fashion pack. More details here.

I don’t usually blog about things like this giveaway. But I thought it was worth sharing among all the advancements Levi’s has been making recently — in both the environmental and social spaces. Notably…

Levi’s Water<Less

This spring, Levi’s is saving more than 16 million gallons of water through the manufacturing of their Water<Less jeans, which employ some simple but out-of-the-ordinary water-saving steps in the finishing process of the jeans. Most jeans are washed three to ten times in industrial machines in the finishing process, but Levi’s combined several steps that have cut water use by an average of 28% per pair in the line. And for a company the size of Levi’s, that adds up!

In addition, Levi’s is encouraging us to use less water washing our jeans once we have them home, and they’re working with water.org to donate clean drinking water to communities around the world.

My only complaint is that the Water<Less jeans only come in men’s cuts so far!

Levi’s “B” grade on labor from the Not For Sale Campaign

Earlier this year the Not For Sale Campaign released a smart phone app that rates about 40 brands according to their labor rights. Brands are given a grade from A through F, and I haven’t clicked on them all, but I haven’t seen an A grade yet — though Levi’s ranks among the highest with a B! And when it comes to rankings based on labor issues, the Not For Sale Campaign is a source I trust. Download the app here.

And great fit, too!

Last fall Levi’s did a promo here in SF for their new Curve ID jeans — which included a performance at Union Square by She & Him! I didn’t get there early enough to get a free pair, but I got a 30% off coupon that I used afterward. And the jeans are excellent. Not only do they run a bit big, so that you end up with a pair ONE to TWO sizes smaller than your usual jeans (psychological win!), I dare say they fit as well as premium denim… pairs of which I’ve spent three times more on. They’re still my “weekend jeans,” but I feel a lot better in them than in many pairs of jeans I’ve put on.

I got mine at the Levi’s Store on Union Square in downtown SF, which also includes a repair shop that has come in handy for fixing some of Jon’s jeans.

A couple weeks ago I published my latest piece on for-benefit companies at Commerce with a Conscience, With Benefits: Nau. For it, I got to learn a lot about the labor landscape from talking with Nau‘s product and textile guru:

I get a little bit giddy every time I talk to someone like Jamie Bainbridge, Nau’s director of product and textile development. I find myself trying to gather as many smart-shopping takeaways as possible from her vast amounts of garment industry knowledge.

Interestingly enough, Jamie was surprisingly pessimistic about the current state of labor certifications, and the auditing processes that qualify them. Crazy, right? (Though, don’t worry, she did affirm the exciting things we’ve heard before about Nau’s textile developments — read more on that at CWAC.)

“The business of auditing factories has become controversial,” she told me. Now that Western consumers and corporations have become more conscientious of how their goods are made, the downside is that factory auditing has become a business unto itself, costing factories lots of money and lots of time. “A lot of Asian factories will have 50 to 100 audits per year, which takes over their lives,” she said.

Jamie shared lots of “hints” about labor practices in the garment industry, so for those of you paying attention like I am, I thought I’d share the juiciest bits.

• “By and large, the good factories are doing everything they can. It’s important to the Western customer, so it’s important to their survival to do good.”
• So what warrants a “good” factory? Jamie said that labor issues aren’t in direct correlation with a product’s price point — “Walmart could do it right if they tried,” she said. (!) The direct correlation for good labor practices is in regards to the brand’s general conscientiousness.

• Nike, Columbia, GAP, Marks & Spencer — these are brands that Nau trusts for vetting the “good factories.” Nau is small enough that it simply can’t afford to audit every factory it works with on its own, so working with factories that are considered up-to-compliance by brands like these are taken as a solid affirmation. (I take that as a solid stamp of approval for my own shopping!)
• About auditing: ”The American consumer would like to think it solves problems, but it has been shown that it doesn’t.” So what does solve labor problems? We don’t know yet (“haven’t quantified it,” Jamie said), but groups like the Outdoor Industry Association are looking at systemic problems within the industry. Their labor solutions will be incorporated into the up-and-coming Eco Index, a standard that will regulate the labeling of green garments (and that Jamie is involved with), sometime next year.
• What else can Nau do, especially at its relatively-small size? “I can make the best choice I can make to work in the best factories I can work in. That’s the only thing I can do to move the lever,” Jamie said.
• And check this out about the Los Angeles garment industry! “The LA manufacturing scene is getting back on its feet,” so Jamie just took a trip there to check it out. “The sad truth is that I have less control in LA than I would in Asia, with a factory I’ve worked with for years,” she said. She mentioned American Apparel and its required layoff of 1,800 undocumented workers last fall. “They were undocumented; who would they complain to (if they needed to)?” she said. “It’s never what it seems.”

Très intéressant.

Any expertise (or even just a strong opinion) on the matter from any of you?

I will keep the conversation going, and I will let you know what I learn. :)

Before Gretchen Jones was on Project Runway, she was a sustainable fashion designer in Portland, merchandising her slow-fashion line MothLove. But to take her work to the next level, for the sake of both finances and fame, she knew she needed some kind of jumpstart — so Season 8 it was. I got to chat with her by email last week about where she’s come from and, more importantly, where she’s headed next.

Look – the inner-workings of a traditional clog factory in Sweden! I love seeing the craftspeople in action. (Especially the rivets guy.)

I’ve always thought the price point of Swedish clogs were a bit high (No 6, Swedish Hasbeens), but now I get it — plus, Epaulet’s exclusive designs start significantly lower, at $185. Very nice!

Via Grechen’s Closet and Commerce with a Conscience

We love our indie brands, but oftentimes shopping at chains can be unavoidable. Last month Newsweek released its Green Rankings 2010, ranking hundreds of the world’s most environmentally sound companies, and I went through and grabbed just the Fashion & Beauty companies from their Top 500 US Companies list — so that when we do find ourselves at the mall, we don’t have to check our conscientious-shopping-selves at the door.

Note that these rankings are based solely on environmental factors, not social – though a lot of environmentally responsible brands tend to get the social side right as well.

As ranked according to the Top 500 list:

10. Nike

40. Kohl’s

51. Wal-Mart

52. Avon Products

53. Estee Lauder (incl. Aveda, Origins, Clinique, M-A-C, Bobbi Brown, Bumble & bumble)

61. Target

63. J.C. Penney

71. Gap

91. Hanesbrands (incl. Champion, Playtex, Wonderbra)

100. Limited Brands (incl. Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel)

108. Tiffany

113. Macy’s

118. Nordstrom

120. TJX (incl. T.J. Maxx, Marshalls)

232. Abercrombie & Fitch

245. Polo Ralph Lauren

316. Urban Outfitters

412. VF Corp (incl. Lee Jeans, VANS, Wrangler, Nautica, Jansport, The Northface, Reef, 7 For All Mankind)

436. Coach

Via GreenBiz.com

This shot from The Sartorialist is fantastic in the first place. But I also love the context in which Scott Schuman posted it: In the midst of New York fashion week, he snapped this and then asked the question, “So what is more important, fashion or style?” Referring to “fashion” as following the trends, and “style” as doing your own thing. I think she speaks for herself!