Kalkidan Legesse - Founder & CEO - Owni

 

How to change the shape of business, in our headline today I say that Kalkidan is the Founder of Owni, in fact to date she is the founder of 3 businesses that centre around ethics and morals and are based around justice and fairness, which is a core part of her being. During our interview Kalkidan gives us an insight into how NGO’s work which is eye opening and how working for one shaped how she does business today. We learn about her unique business model at Sanchos. Her thinking around pricing would be a game changer if applied across a wider audience.

I read recently (in Clare Press’s new book Wear Next) that Ethiopia is now the cheapest place on earth for labour for the fast fashion market and wonder how this will change the shape of Kalidan’s ancestral home as it has done in all the countries it has spread to in the global south.

Looking for new ways to do business? Read on.

 

 

D: To start I like to ask the same question as I find it fascinating to hear the influences in your life that have shaped the journey you are on. Where did you grow up Kalkidan?

K: That’s a hard question to answer because I was born in Ethiopia but my family migrated to the UK when I was five so I grew up in the UK but whenever anyone asks that question I wonder which part of your life is the most influential in determining what your character is and what your experience is so I guess the simple answer would be Reading in the UK but that’s not where I am from.

 

D: I guess that all of your life experiences influence you.

 

K: When do you stop growing up?

 

D: Exactly. What would you say your early influences in life were and what inspired the direction that life is taking you now? Also, where there any early fashion influences?

 

K: Recently I was part of a BBC documentary series called ‘We Are England’ and the producer asked my parents how I ended up in fashion? Their response ‘oh she used to do this when she was really young, she used to pretend to be running fashion shows and liked doing sketches’. These were things I hadn't logged in my conscious memory, but I guess had logged somewhere. My parents are my earliest influence, they have really strong ethics and morals based around justice and fairness. Which I think is a result of how they grew up, which was during the Soviet reign of Ethiopia in what was a tumultuous period, there was also a civil war which was resolved with a new government. When they were young adults, similar to the age I am now, they migrated to the UK with two children, myself and my older sister and lived the life of asylum seekers which really highlights injustices in the world. I grew up with heavy speeches at the dinner table and with a really strong sense of some things are right and some things are wrong and that justice is important. It's the most important thing really for the human experience and the human condition and I feel that's my biggest influence.

When I started my early career, I applied that thinking to fashion because I was interested in development from a justice perspective. When you look at international development and look at poorer countries who need to develop their economies and build higher incomes and more stability for their population, I was always interested in how that's achieved. Then when I started working for NGOs it became clear to me that that isn't achieved well through the non-governmental sector. At the same time I learned about fashion, I learned how fabric is made, I had no idea about the process before that, but saw people weave fabric from threads on wooden looms and found it amazing, thinking, ‘wow that makes so much sense’, I had never even considered that aspect before. What really stood out to me was that those people were earning a lot of money, comparatively, earning almost ten times the amount an average Ethiopian person would earn, and my thought was, why are so many NGOs dedicated to raising income and why are they doing random projects in random places, with zero accountability when there are clearly industries that can generate really good value for people. That's when I became interested in fashion as a product because, when it’s done well it is a way to really honour skill and craftsmanship, labour, creative intelligence and knowledge, that's what led me to fashion. 

 

 

D: Was it while you were studying your first degree that you went to Ethiopia and saw this side of things? It's really interesting what you say said about NGOs. I can see that your experience with them has informed the way you work.

 

K: I think that's what social entrepreneurship does, it tries to drive social value growths, environmental protection, environmental value growth but through business, and because it's business it has built in accountability and built in measures of success, whereas social work sometimes doesn’t have that.

 

D: Because they do their project and leave, whereas you are continuing the work.

 

K: What tends to happen is that lots of organisations do the same project and then they all take benefit for the changes without quite accounting for the impact. Which means it's really inefficient and really unjust because huge, huge, huge sums of money are being misspent.

 

D: So what happens when they finish the project and move on?

 

K: Oftentimes it means they are warping industries too. I'm not a pure capitalist and obviously capitalism has problems but you tend to do a good job of supply and demand. The problem lies when, for example; one of the projects we worked on was a water resiliency programme in the southern nations and we were doing a lot of research into how you build more resiliency and we found out that although wells were being built the people were being charged for it, something like a quarter of a cent, a ridiculously small amount of money, but because most of the people who lived there weren’t earning any income at all it was an absurd amount of money for them because it was out of their reach. So, it was impractical, but that's what the Funder, EU Aid wanted to build, so they end up building dozens more that no-one could use.

 

D: That’s really sad but also really enlightening for me, I didn't know any of this. So how do we change that going forward?

 

K: Africa pays twice as much in debt repayments for every payment it receives in aid, and a lot of aid is tied to military support. Change needs more just relationships on the international level. Luckily Africa is developing a pan Africanism on most things so the reliance on aid from the West will lower over time and hopefully better relationships with trade will develop over time.

 

D: Why did you choose politics and economics for your first degree? I understand your MBA because it fits beautifully with all the work you are doing, but politics, economics and philosophy as a starting point feels very different.

 

K: My degree title was politics, philosophy and economics with industrial experience in Spanish, and to answer the question is it’s because I can't choose (laughs). I want to know everything, try everything and do everything.  It was a mixture of being interested in politics and strategy in particular which I still am. I hope one day my career will take me back to strategy. Also at the age of 18 it meant that there was a freedom in not committing to something fully.

 

D: You owned a store called Sanchos where did that name come from and what led you to set it up and move from doing pop up to bricks and mortar?

 

K: The name is like a nickname, a name my parents called me, Sancho or Sanch at home, as most of my family do. It originates from home and is descriptive of chubby girls who are strong and have a of bit fight in them, which means they are the type of the people who tend to get that name. I thought that as it's something that I think reflects me well, I thought it would be fun to call a fashion brand the same without knowing what the brand would become. The name was decided during a taxi journey in Addis Ababa in five minutes, as we needed a name for the domain and URL. I like it and most people also really like it plus our logo is a lioness, because I'm hugely motivated to empower women. It made sense in 2014 but right now it seems a bit dated, of course there is so much we still need to do, and of course there's so much injustice and inequality because of gender, but it’s 2024 why are we still here? Why is there still such a gender pay gap? Why is there still such a political decision-making gap in every way? I feel right now, I wish it was a bit more radical, because at the time it was #girlpower go for it and right now I'm fed up with the lack of change.

 

D: I think it’s a great name, it sounds Spanish, does it have a Spanish origin?

 

K: A Mexican film my parents saw called Pancho El Sancho was really popular in Addis in the 80s (1988) and the funny character Pancho was ridiculous, he was a psychic and he ate a lot and that’s why it became a descriptive name for people who eat a lot. It's an affectionate name not critical.

 

D: As you said your logo was a lioness which depicts a strong female force. What led you to set up Sancho's?

 

K: In 2014/15 people were still using the excuse, that there's nothing from sustainable brands or what can I do, there's no option offered, or that option doesn’t exist or they had a real complete misunderstanding of the impact of the fashion industry. What we wanted to do was to put everything under one roof so that consumers could make informed decisions about how their money was influencing climate change and product development and product use. We wanted to have the conversation around, who makes your clothes, what impact your shopping decisions is having in the world, whilst connecting with the brands and putting them into one place so people could make a holistic lifestyle choice, and holistic lifestyle shift. That was why we set up the business the way we did and it's why we opened the store. From a personal point of view we, (Vidmantas and I) had just left university which is a time when you are trying to figure out so much about who you are and what you should do, and I think it gave us a root to our identity and allowed us to creatively express ourselves, inform ourselves and educate ourselves and discover who we are in a way that was really aligned and sharp. Over time we took a much more a strategic approach to the business and a more market led opportunity. We always knew that people should think about the impact of their choices, who you vote for, what you eat, and obviously you can't reorder everything, but those who can should and it's important for us all to consider what options we have. That has always been a core value mine and Vidmantas’s it was a fulfilling experience for us, it was nourishing and rewarding. Having a physical space, a place in the community and a role within the community helped us get to know who we were as young adults.

 

 

D: What problems did you face building that business?

 

K: Inexperience was a challenge, a lot of people are afraid of business because they think you need to have really specific characteristics to succeed, that you need to be a certain type of way. That's true to some extent, as you have to be comfortable with risk and uncertainty, but beyond that I think it's a function of what you've experienced in the past, and most people who are successful in business either come from the industry or they have networks, where they belong to a family or community where that type of business is communicated. But we are alone and away from our family and didn’t have much work experience, marketing, sales or business experience, and I think that that learning curve was huge and prolonged, so that was a big challenge. But I think every person going into business will experience that to some extent. We were definitely affected by having restricted budgets, when we set up Sanchos it was with our student overdraft with something like £1,000. We tried to get a loan but the bank refused. Running a business with no money is challenging.

 

D: Did they give a reason why?

 

K: They said the loan was too small and that we didn't have an experienced enough team, but I know lots of people who have smaller and bigger teams and less experience but that was their reason. I see it now with people who are starting companies I see them trying to reckon with the reality of trying to create a business with no money and it's impossible. It’s important for people to learn that they can spend time getting money to do their business and that that's an OK and possible way for them to do it, but we didn’t know that then.

 

D: You have ethical and sustainable pillars that you adhere to with your work can you tell us what they are?

 

K: Fair Trade as 2 words and the way we look for that is through 3^rd party accreditations like the Fair Trade Foundation the WFTA or Fair Wear. Not all companies can afford those accreditations and should that be the case, we will look for evidence of the bargaining power of the worker. Perhaps it’s an artisanal product and the craft person is the person selling it, or it's a small collective but they have Fair Trade principles in place, like prepayment so that's what we look for in those cases. Then we look for natural materials that are organic, because the fashion industry uses around 10% of the worlds arable land and it's very water intensive. Organic materials on the other hand use rain fed irrigation, they don't use pesticides and farmers are not tied to the debt cycle of fertilisers and seeds of inorganic production. Also when the garments are worn they are less likely to be toxic and when they are discarded they are less likely to be toxic too. We also look for recycled materials, if they are using a synthetic material like polyester we will look for a recycled one. Then we try to choose pieces that we know people are going to wear at least 30 times, which is essentially a rejection of trend, and an embracing of capsuling. We really want to sell things that we love and feel really nice to wear. A lot of what we sell we have sold for five years and we carry it because we know that eventually people will need that exact thing again and they'll need it over enough time for us to hold on to it. 

 

 

D: You also had a unique way of pricing in store can you tell us about the pricing points you had and why you did that?

 

K:  I sent a marketing email out during the first Covid lockdown with some products that had arrived and were absolutely beautiful and very ethical, the perfect type of product. I got an email back from a customer saying, great product can't buy it it’s not in my price range, I’m leaving your newsletter. That really hit me, because yes, not everyone has the same budget. People shy away from this problem in the sustainable business field, this idea that is unaffordable to most saying instead, save enough money to buy it or they say don't buy it.

    But there's still that fundamental problem, that in order to live more sustainably, it’s the consumer that has to take on the extra costs and the true reality is, that we all sit in different places, where for some of us that’s doable and for some people it's not. So, should those people not have better quality products are going to last too? Terry Pritchard wrote about shoes and how expensive it is to be poor. He talked about the cycle of buying and replacing things using the example of shoes. His character buys a pair of shoes, they get damaged they have to buy another, they get damaged, they need to buy another so that that first £10 pound purchase becomes £50 pounds over the course of the year, so there is a cost to poverty. Is it not the responsibility of businesses too alleviate that in some way? I would say it is. If you have more money you should pay more money, you should pay more money for everything actually. That’s why instore we had tiered pricing on a range of our products, not on everything because it's really dependent on what things cost us and what we can afford to discount and we can't afford to do that for everything but on the things we can, we give customers an option to pay either a cost price, or a cost plus staffing and marketing price, or full price, which covers the profit that we will make from the item too. The impact that has is that it makes people think about the category that they actually fall in to and a lot of people realise that they have more than they think they do. Of course there are a lot of consumers who will say sustainable fashions really expensive, but what they actually mean is, I don't want that item, which are two different things. I had a customer who is a councillor, once choose the lower price. Now councillors are not paid a huge amount of money, but usually to be a councillor you have to have at least the luxury of time. She had chosen the lower price but came back and said ‘actually I reflected on it and I think that I can pay the higher price, can you choose the high price for me?’ We have also had some people over pay, saying let me give you more money to offset the cost of the lower price. We have also had lots of people who have selected the lower price and because of that felt included in a company that they agree with ethically and now own something that otherwise they might not be able to access.

 

D: That’s amazing an amazing way to be inclusive.

 

K: You would think that's how more services should work, right? Fashion is obviously not an essential service but it is a really great tool to communicate ideas. 

 

D: How have the last few years affected you? A lot has happened, big world events and changes in how the UK does business.

 

K: I think that’s such an important question to think about and reflect on because while you experience it you don’t reflect on it. We now have clear visibility of inequality and I think the good thing about that is that it's created a new social discourse where people are way more critical of those who have power, wealth and privilege. It is absolutely necessary for us to affect the balance of power and privilege but experiencing it is challenging. I feel the experience a lot of people have is that so much change has been outside of their power. Lockdowns, Covid, Brexit, global war so much of it is out of our power that it can feel disempowering, yet in smaller pockets I felt more empowered. More empowered to trust what I feel and know is valid. A positive of the lockdowns we lived through was that suddenly we had access in rooms at an international level that were inaccessible in person. Making it easier to be interactive with spots and spaces that had more power and influence in different areas than before and I think that helped teach me the real scope of my work and thoughts and beliefs.

 

D: Do you still hold your swapping events? Tell us what initiated that.

 

K: It was the awareness that there's too much fashion out there and such a mismatch between what people want, what they have, and where things are. The swaps are a really great way to get people to share what they have, bring them in, and keeping garments in use. 

 

 

 

D: You have built this out further by creating an app called Owni. What is your aim with the app?

 

K: What I know very clearly is that we've sold products to people that they are not wearing that are sitting in their wardrobes. We often think about the problem of over consumption at the point of the consumer, that the consumer has bought too much. But actually businesses have sold them more than they needed.

I wanted to create a way to connect brands to the second life of their clothes, because brands have the most influence of what's produced and created. They also have the most information about their products which will help inform the end life of the items and how they are recycled. I realised that we had all the core systems there to build that and we only needed a platform to engage people and a way to do it efficiently and at scale. We could have said we will buy back your items and resell them. The problem with that is supply and demand again and the efficiency of how much and at what volume we could do. Plus how do we find the potential customer. Using peer to peer people can buy and sell between themselves and potentially be more efficient and be of more value.

I believe that businesses need to produce less I believe that degrowth is absolutely necessary, but it will be really hard to convince businesses to do that when that essentially challenges the longevity of their models. What Owni does is that it gives them a way to continue to service the things they have already sold through this peer to peer platform and generate revenue after the fact be that two, three years after the sale, over and over and over until that item can no longer be bought and sold second hand.

Then when the item reaches that end point within a circular ecosystem we know where it started, we know who purchased it, we know how it's changed and we can take all of that information and connect it to recycling facilities so that they can recover items in bulk and then produce new. That's the mission and it should be possible. The challenge is getting enough coverage to be effective, but I think we're going to get there and we've have some really exciting traction with independent brands who are already engaged. Plus we have some really really huge companies who are interested too like M&S. We built the app by fundraising.

 

D: The app has been up and running for a while now.

 

K: Yes, people can buy and sell on it like they can on eBay, Vinted or Depop. We also have the recycling integration ready for use. I am so optimistic of the potential of the circular eonomy to really create the world we want to live in. There is so much potential in underused items. One of my favourite things to do is to go to recycling centres. There is an amazing one here in Exeter and I love seeing the potential of the garments there, thinking if only the right person or the right company was looking at that waste, something amazing would be created from it. It's a really exciting opportunity.  

 

D: What drives you Kalkidan, what is your mission?

 

K: I think the world could be better and I think it can. It can be scary and sometimes it's difficult to see what you can do. But fundamentally I think things can get better so it's better to do something about it than not to, and I guess that's what drives me.

I hate seeing injustice and I hate experiencing it, and I hate when I'm exposed to it through the people that I care about and know. It clicks something in my mind and soul and makes me want fight.

 

D: How do you see the future?

 

K: With OWNI I think we can encourage the worlds biggest brands to take responsibility for over production in an effective way and in a way that transforms how people interact with what they own. I think that people, powered with the in depth details of what they've purchased, where it's from, its carbon footprint, who made it, it’s material composition and the ability to style it will allow them to be huge curators of what they own and take real passion in that. I'm really excited to create that way of interacting with our things, that will be amazing.

I spend so much time focusing on all kind of arbitrary metrics, like percentage growth rate, or social media engagement. I'd love to do all of that whilst also having time to read a book a week (laughs). 

 

Links

 

Web            Owni

                    Sancho's

 

Instagram    Kalkidan.Legesse.Mekuria

                    Owni.App 

                    Sancho's

 

LinkedIn       Kalkidan Legesse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah (Ciel) Ratty FRSA - Founder Conscious Earthwear

 

It was wonderful to head to the sea to photograph Sarah, to a place she has spent most of her life. Sarah is one of our original voices on Sustainable, Circular, Conscious fashion, a pioneer. Still working as a designer she also uses her extensive knowledge as a sustainable design expert, consultant, teacher, speaker and coach, seeing herself as a fashion futurist, she tells us that sustainability is the first step towards success, circularity the next. Here is her story.

 

D: Sarah where did you grow up and what were your early influences?
 
S: I grew up in Brighton. Mum was a fashion historian, and taught me from a young age to look at the history of fashion and look at circularity in fashion. She used to say that everything comes around again every seven years. I would say ‘but look mum I've got these amazing shoes’ and she would say ‘yes, I used to wear that style in the 40s’. I thought they were so radical, but no. She would say ‘There’s nothing new, but its a different interpretation, everything has its cycle roughly 7-10 years, it’s the nature of fashion to be circular ’ So, I was taught that everything is circular because of my mother’s knowledge of how fashion worked. She was a lecturer at Brighton College of Art, now Brighton University, and she taught the history of fashion and costume. Barbara (Hulanicki aka Biba) was one of her students. Mum and Dad became her friends and “Pauline and Peter” are mentioned in her book from A to Biba.
 
My best friend Tatiana’s mum Antonia and her brother Ru ran a boutique in the lanes called Topaz on Park Walk in Brighton in the late 60’s early 70’s, after school, when I was 4, we used to sit underneath the clothes and play and look at the people coming in and out. I remember in the 70’s the boutique sold bum bags made from ex-convict’s jeans, it’s my first memory of recycling. They were embroidered with stars, flowers and patches with messages of peace and love for the flower power generation. It was already happening then recycling clothes, it’s not a new concept. But every generation seems to think it's new because it's new to them! Myself included!! In the 70’s in Brighton, with Infinity Foods, Whole Earth Catalogue, Sussex University sit-ins, protest counterculture from the Beatniks to the Hippies all were a huge influence as I was growing up in Brighton.
 
Anita Roddick (The Body Shop Founder) was a massive inspiration to me, she started her first shop in Brighton. I remember walking past the shop when I was little, it smelt lovely from the street, she used recycled bottles and had re-fill stations in store for her products, which were all against animal testing and used natural plant-based ingredients without harmful chemicals. Reading her autobiography really inspired me, as a woman she was my major influence. Her and Barbara of course, whose first shop was also in Brighton. Reading Richard Branson's book was also inspiring, because he was very progressive and modern in his approach. They showed me how to be Go Ahead and Dynamic, let’s get on with it, be part of the solution, make it happen, like the slogan from Greenpeace, “think globally act locally”, that was my inspiration. It inspired me to think Yes!! Come on, Let’s do this, make a difference, be the change! 
 
D: Was this during your teenage years?
 
S: Yes, I was a teenager growing up in Brighton the home of counterculture. I thought everyone was going to be like this I didn’t know we were in our own Right On Bubble!

I moved to Bristol to study fashion and although it was a green cultural community, I missed Brighton so I only stayed for a year. During that year though I was nominated as student designer of the year for Fashion Weekly magazine. 

I moved back home to Brighton in the late 80’s and had a gap year. I volunteered part time at Oxfam, and worked in one of the shops, and found out what happened to the donations.
 
When they come in things that are of merchantable quality go out onto the shop floor, if after six weeks they haven't sold they go back to the warehouse, and then they will be sent to a big plant in Huddersfield called Oxfam Wastesavers, the clothes are then categorised.
 
There are a lot of vintage seekers, people looking for certain types of product. Vintage was and still is massive, so people are sorting and searching for certain things and the clothing is put into packs for different groups. Whatever is not good enough is made into something called ‘shoddy’. Shoddy is used as carpet underlay, or insulation and most people don't even know, that happens. I was passionate about all of this and wanted to do everything I could to change the world.

Daryl, a woman who lived on my street, ran a model agency called Circuit Models and through her I started modelling for local photographer Glen Luchford, and in London with Donna Trope, I seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Glenn (Luchford) said to me, ‘Sarah, show me your book’ as we chatted he asked ‘what do you really want to do?’ my reply was ‘I want to be a fashion designer.’ He encouraged me go for it ‘you’ve got to try you never know it might just work out’. Shortly after I finished college and stopped modelling, I got a job in fashion and I went to live in London. 

 

D: What year was this?
 
S: Around 88-89 during that whole rave summer of love thing. After moving to London I interned with Lisa Nelson PR agency in South Kensington we looked after a lot of fabulous fashion brands such as Dolce & Gabbana, Adolfo Dominguez, Charles Jourdan and Reebok trainers. I had to call round to all the fashion magazines and find out what they were working on and send things they may like to shoot for the magazines, booking appointments with stylists and handling the call ins and returns. Lisa gave me tickets to go to a Vivienne Westwood show which I loved. I sat next to a lady in a navy blue suit, she looked so smart, I said ‘Wow look at you in your blue suit. Are you from America?” Because I thought only Americans would do that, turn up to a Vivienne Westwood show wearing a suit! She replied, ‘no, I work at Options Magazine’, so I asked if she needed an intern and by luck she did.

 

They were based in Newman Passage at the time, near Soho. I loved working there, I got to meet and work behind the scenes as a stylist, to some incredible photographers like John Swannell, it was an absolute education in how the fashion industry worked, I loved it, creating these incredible beautiful images. I loved fashion photography and found it fascinating working in the magazine world creating looks to inspire people to have fun with how they dressed. It was a great time, Models One was just down the road and Storm Models Agency was in Covent Garden it was a great experience. While I was there, during one of my lunch breaks I saw a job advertised for a designer, for Sun & Sand.
 
That became my first job as a designer, with Sun & Sand, they had made their name in the 70’s it was a great job and meant I got to work in the South of France. They had their own small factory. During a trip to visit the factory I remember driving over a river which had a big sign that said ‘Polluted River’ so I asked, ‘what’s that all about’ they said ‘oh that's because of the fashion and textile industry, the dye mills up the road.’ Until that point, I had no idea the impact the business of fashion had on the environment. I was a member of Greenpeace and I had read about industrial pollution, but I didn’t realise that fashion was involved. I thought that there must be legislation to prevent that kind of thing. But there wasn’t until the mid 90’s, when they banned Azo dyes in Europe. 

When legislation started kicking in around this sort of thing companies moved the production to the Far East where there was no legislation to prevent chemical run off… Sadly we are still fighting to change this still, 30 years later! 

 My epiphany or pivotal moment was on that bridge in the South of France.

From that moment on I realised we all need to become more conscious. I was the first to put the word Conscious with Fashion an idea I developed with my first brand Conscious Earthwear. I purposely chose that name in that way.

D: When did you set up on your own?
 
S: I wanted to do something more, so I set up the brand with my boyfriend at the time and called it Conscious Earthwear and printed T shirts. We created loads of them, this was around the time of the rave scene; we created all the rave T shirts it was a really successful business. Honestly it was like printing money selling those T shirts. We were free you know, we thought we were gonna change the world. And we did in a way, we made it so people could dance all night. Before that they kicked you out of clubs at 2 o'clock in the morning. We fought the criminal justice bill. Saying you can't penalise us for wanting to dance, it’s a human right.
 
D: What were you making your T shirts from?
 
S: We were making them in a studio in Saint Albans called 21st State. We created T shirts for bands like The Grid, for Jazzy B from Soul II Soul and his Camden shop Soul II Soul, we were in on the dance scene in London at the time we were known as “The S/Chakras” because we were always talking about Consciousness and the Indian Chakra System. It was then that I started saying we should be making more really conscious clothing we should be making these out of organic cotton.
 
My partner at the time moved to California, I didn't want to go, I was from Brighton, what do I need to go to California for? I already know that kind of life. I have lived by the sea in a progressive city. I also felt that London, as one of the top capital cities of the world, is an important place to be, it’s a window on the world. That what you do here and what you create can make a big difference. If I went to California I would become just some groupie hippy, so I stayed. As a feminist I felt I should follow my own path and do what I was gifted to do, which was to make Conscious Fashion, fashionable. 
 
I started searching for organic cotton and eco-friendly fabrics to make clothes from. I researched at The British Cotton Council and at the London College of Fashion Library. I discovered some organic cotton from India and I made my first collection “One World Tribe Vibe”, it was heavily inspired by the work of Keith Haring, environmental Artist Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy. Then for the subsequent collection “Touch the Earth” I used organic cotton cheesecloth and literally hand printed the cloth with my handprint, I had just completed a course in Yoruba Tribe natural dyeing and used my new found skill set in the collection. The collection was featured in The Face magazine and I did my first runway show at a warehouse in Camden Lock. The next collection was based on Celtic culture and was a winter collection featuring knitwear made from recycled post-consumer waste which I picked from Oxfam Wastesavers.
 
It was there that I discovered that because this is the British Isles tonnes of knitwear is sent to Oxfam, a lot of cable knit sweaters. There had been a big trend for cable knit sweaters in the 80’s because bands like Haircut 100 had been wearing big Arran sweaters. With time of course they all were chucked out.

 

D: Did you unpick the wool and remake?
 
S: I undid the side seams and turned it into a fabric, then I draped it on the stand to see what we could do with it. Because of my fashion background I was thinking what can I do? I made coats and dresses out of them, that was my first winter collection.
 
Luck was on my side when I went to see the woman who ran a trade show called Inter-Season, at Olympia in Kensington. I asked if I could have a stand and she sponsored me which gave me a window on the world. I got £26,000 of orders from this first show, back in the 90s that was a lot of money. I recycled the packing paper from the fixtures and fittings and put it on the walls I showed a recycled Denim knit and organic cotton collection and collaborated with a friend to make jewellery. 
 
It was an interesting time because there was a movement in this direction, Margiela in Paris was creating garments out of old stuff, Yamamoto also was working that way, it was a big movement that isn’t really talked about that much.
 
To build the brand we had pop-up shops before pop-up was a thing. I worked with Alternative Arts and we had an incredible shop behind Carnaby St, it was amazing. There were a few of us working this way at the time Kate Hills and Joe from Vexed Generation, Grahame from Kilogramme Patchworks and Sister T. Bjork came to the store and fashion stylists Andy Blake bought the pieces for music artists, it was great being there right bang in the middle of London with a statement. We sold the collection to Brown’s as a result of that.
 
D: The brand became known as Ciel from 2004. Ciel is a beautiful name, what does it mean?
 
S: It means Heaven. Sky or the Heavens in French. Ciel was a different brand, more feminine in feel less urban. I was trying to find a name that would be like Conscious because conscious was always keeping me on track, it a reminded not to deviate, even if you find yourself attracted to shiny things, but if it’s not Green you can't use it. Which makes necessity the mother of invention.

I worked with the Soil Association so that I could change the story there and helped work on the GOTS Global Organic Textile Standard, where I brought the designers view, because at the time they only had food labelling and together we changed some of the wording to create the more coherent inclusive standard that we have today. I also worked with PAN Pesticide Action Network, we created a campaign about Bee’s, before the importance of their welfare was known about. I worked with EJF (Environmental Justice Foundation) designing T-Shirts for fundraising for Staro, the Save The Amazon Rainforest Organisation and with the proceeds bought land to save which was later given over to Prince Charles and the Green Frog Save the Rainforest Campaign. I worked as Co-founder and Chair of the Ethical Fashion Forum, (now known as the Common Objective or CO), with Judith Condor-Vidal, Carrie Sommers, Tamsin Lejeune and Allana MacAspurn amongst others. 
 
Ciel - Conscious International Earthwear Limited. It’s a name that was meaningful, it was blue sky thinking, optimistic it was short and was near the top of the alphabet.
 
I made some samples, I got an agent and she got us into Vogue, and it sort of happened from there.
 
The problem we have in this country is that we take people who are very small niche brands, we put them under hot house lights, make them grow and blossom and then they crash and burn, this is the trouble with UK independent designer fashion. We are always looking at the new, new, new, new, new and that causes its own problems.

 

D: What was your favourite collection?
 
S: I loved working with alpaca, the knitwear, that was such a joy. I worked with lovely people in Peru. They were so nice they had 52 colours, all natural that was exciting. I loved going to Peru and sourcing and learning the story of textiles there. At one point in Peru, textiles were worth more than gold. Historically the Spanish invader Cortez devastated the people, when he said ‘take me to your most precious thing’ they took him to their temple and the most precious thing they had, in their eyes was a textile. It was a beautiful wall hanging. He was furious because he wanted gold, he burnt the whole place to the ground and killed them all.
 
I have a lot of respect for Peruvians, because when I went to their factories they had rights to association everywhere, fair labour everywhere. The right to association means the people were able to form trade unions, they had a voice, they don’t have that in some countries even in America some rights to unions were suppressed in some states.
 
D: That's what Fashion Revolution are did with their ‘Who Made My Clothes’ campaign isn't it.
 
S: Yes!! Thank goodness there are fashion people like Carrie Somers and Orsola de Castro who are awake to try to change the story and make a difference. Carrie created one of the first Fair Trade fashion standards with her work with Pachacuti the Panama hats such an inspiration to us all.
 
I loved working in Peru. I loved working with the knitwear, it was a joy to work with the knitters. It was very soulful, you went to their house you saw them knitting it was lovely. It was really wonderful because it was making a difference and in a very cool way and making great product design. When Jane Shepherdson was at Whistles I created a really nice knitwear collection with them, where we collaborated together with the Peruvian knitters.

 

Then there was a collaboration with Liberties using their deadstock, that was a lovely, lovely collaboration because I got to look at all the archive and see the most fantastic fabrics. This was before using up deadstock became a thing.
 
Fashion is always going to exist. My whole ethos when I first started in the 90’s was to make it fashionable to be green. That was my one of my core philosophies.
 
D: That still holds true now, you can have beautiful clothing which is made well ethically and environmentally.
 
S: What I'm wearing right now is a John Smedley collaboration, made from organic cotton, made in Portugal and it’s beautiful. I also found a brand on Instagram, which is a very popular called, Never Fully Dressed they make mostly in the UK and that's great. At least they are doing their bit, ‘not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something’. I created T shirts that says that, for a pop-up shop I did with Eco-Age. It was a quote from the lovely gardener Monty Don. I took it to our pop-up launch at Ecoage and Livia (Firth) bought all of them, and her team wore them at the launch of her film In Prison My Whole Life. That was a great moment. They were all organic cotton, long sleeves with this quote; ‘No one can do everything, but everyone can do something’ and that's so true.
 
D: Are you still creating your T shirts through Conscious Earthwear?
 
S: Yes, I've just become an ambassador for tree planting which has led to me to creating a Re-Wild Me new collection of sweatshirts and tees with pressed wildflowers they are beautiful I’ve called them Save Me! I print with Rapanui who are completely circular, printing is on demand and they work in a solar powered factory with organic cotton and print on the Isle of Wight, even their packaging is from recycled materials. Then at the end of the life of the T shirt they will take it back and will recycle it and make it into new yarn and new product. So truly completely circular which I am so happy about. We, get a royalty for the charity to plant trees and I don't have to worry about any of the production as I know it’s origin and ethics. This is what I call smart collaboration.
 
Ciel is an interiors brand now and I am making inroads into that industry, because they don't talk about being sustainable at all, and they need to. I went on a course on hotel interior design, and they brought out all these swatch’s and they were made out of vinyl. I was like PVC? Really? Wow are we in the dark ages, then they tried to side line me and push me away, because they didn't know my background. I'm not in their industry and what I’ve done means nothing to them. During a course I was on, I was the one at the back asking awkward questions, interestingly now though they're talking about it, and Heals are now doing sustainable furniture, but where is the certification for furniture and interiors? It’s been interesting infiltrating that world for the last 10 years and changing that conversation too.
 
The great thing about interiors is that it’s slower and I can sell the same things all the time, because if you choose something that's really beautiful and stylish then it's not going to go out of style. When you buy a new sofa, you're going to have it for 10, 20, 50 years and more.
 
D: Yes, our dining table and chairs are from the 1950’s which we inherited when we moved into our last house.
 
S: Interiors are a lot slower, you can change things by having different cushion covers. Say I got pink velvet cushion covers but in the summer I might want to change them and I could easily put green on there and it still looks good or I could put yellow, and make it feel warm. Textiles in the home can give you a new look and feel and they last.
 

D: How do you see the future?
 
S: I think we have to be hopeful. That's one of the most important messages to get out there.
 
Change is coming, and circularity is coming, and the main thing is that production has to slow down. We must slow down the cycle then people can have the time to switch their factories and update them. It takes time, it takes money, and it takes investment. Most fashion brands don't own their own factories, that's a problem, they used to, but not anymore. Also, this constant quest for new new new and everything to be cheap has to stop.
 
Recently I did a teaching course, lots of people write to me and ask if I can come and talk at their college. This made me want to know more about teaching. So, I've been updating my skill base and learning how to present.
 
I have also started thinking, how can I be a voice for positivity, looking at solutions, looking at how we can change this story. What we focus on is what becomes bigger, when we collectively focus on s**t then guess what……. that’s what we get, that's what consciousness means, the broadening of humanity in the mind, and it's really important that we plant seeds of hope and find solutions.
 
Cindi Rhoades set up a company called Worn Again Technologies, looking at the bigger picture, where they can split recycled fabrication into different modules. That's the future, that is what we are going towards this is real circularity, then people won't burn collections.
 
I have seen so many children with climate depression, it’s a thing. It's unfair that they should be feeling this way when they should be enjoying their childhood and not worrying about this. So, I felt that I needed to be positive and didn’t know how to do it, so started by going back to college.
 
What I've discovered about teaching is that young people already know a lot, it's not like you're turning up and telling them some brand new story, they are part of the fabric of society just like anyone else.
My starting point is OK we already know about these things, so where are the gaps? One interesting thing is that using organic cotton, reduces the water needed for its production, the why of this is not talked about enough. They don't tell you why.
People can be self-sacrificing, I'm such a good person, I'm eating organic but again, same thing they don’t tell you why. Why are you doing that? There are lots of missing links that would make all this communication so simple for children because it is simple.
 
As far as fashion is concerned people are like peacocks it is in our DNA, you can't take that away from us, people are always gonna want to shine.
 
The whole point of circular design is that it starts at the design stage because it needs to be built in at that point. Educating designers with this in mind is really important.

D: In the past products were created to be repaired, then they started creating things to fail and a lot of products in our homes are built that way at the moment, but I am pleased to say that is beginning to change again.
 
S: I remember learning about that when I was a child, built in obsolescence and that’s a problem because things are built to only last for a short time. Orsola says “loved things last” and I think that’s true if you invest in something then you want to keep it, repair it fix it, share it. In the fashion world we must work with what already exists, but people are voraciously eating clothing like it’s going out of fashion, we need systems in place to make garments circular.
 
D: Some people say that the fashion industry can pivot quickly. Designers can but the industry around them is much slower. It’s time to build the economy differently now.
 
S: Investment is the key thing. Who's investing in the Plant (machinery)? For me the biggest change that has to happen is investment in Plant. Make filters for the factories, its simple make filters and filter the effluent. There was a Danish company who did this, they put filtration systems in their factories, and used the effluent to heat the factory. They were so clever; they were ahead of the curve as this was happening in the 90s. This should be happening everywhere by now.
 
If we could get investment in Plant to create change in factories where it's needed and make sure that factories comply, and that the big companies who are placing orders with them also give grants to the companies to enable the update. They need to tie a proportion of their profits to these companies. There should be modern philanthropy.
 
Cheap clothing means somebody somewhere is not being paid and that usually means it’s the workers. There are slave labour camps in China which is also linked to ethnic cleansing all for production for the West. The UK has one of the biggest fashion footprints and we are tiny. Why do we need all this stuff?
 
It's time to fix, the big problem, and the big problem is, that people don't feel validated. This whole cult of new, the cult of trend, it’s time to switch the language we use. We need to think about our style. What style are we? Not what trend. A daffodil is always going to be a daffodil.
 
The right words create change, how we talk about this is one of the biggest changes we can make. It’s simple and effective, if we help people with positive language then they can change the story themselves. It can be self-directed, when they have the right information.

Links

Instagram: Conscious Earthwear

LinkedIn: Sarah Ratty FRSA

Consultancy: Sarah Ciel