Ethical Fashion: Green Fashionista Trend or a Sustainable Enterprise?

Mehera Shaw, An Artisan Fashion House, Restores the Enduring Style in Ethical

“Mehera Shaw, loves clothes: classic, beautiful, feminine clothes that do justice to the environment, the people making the garments, and the woman who wears them,” states designer and co-owner Shari Keller. Mehera Shaw is an ethical design house started in 1999 by entrepreneurs Mark and Shari Keller. They make sweatshop free, fairly made clothing in natural fibers. They use artisan hand block printing and other traditional, non mechanized methods of garment making.

They are part of a new understanding in the ethical fashion movement: putting ethical together with enduring style. They make not trendy, but classically inspired clothes at affordable prices. All of their clothing is designed by co-owner, Shari Keller. Shari comments, “While we are working toward a more sustainable world, we believe ethical fashion also has to express a timeless femininity; it must be beautiful, practical and comfortable.” Shari creates upscale, original designs which fuse beauty, ethics, and practicality.

She has developed an unabashedly happy and sophisticated casual look that transitions across work, home and socializing. Shari notes: “Our clothes are for real women who lead real lives. Our look has always been about true femininity because I think women really want exactly that to be truly feminine but on their own terms, in a way they are comfortable with. “Addressing the enduring quality of the feminine,” says Shari, “is the key to making the ethical fashion movement more than a trend to making it a sustainable way of life.”

Fair Trade Moving Mainstream

Fair trade fashion is quickly moving from market niche to mainstream, becoming a sought-after product by the conscious consumer. There are a growing number of non-profits supporting ethical/environmental principles in the garment industry; the number of labels, high end designers and fashion events is growing, and; the mainstream press is now actively covering the ethical fashion movement. Ethical fashion is finally gaining the momentum that the organic/fair trade food movement has been capitalizing on for years. “The shift towards ethical fashion is long-term” notes trend analyist Roger Tredre speaking to the Financial Times. In the UK, the annual Ethical Consumerism Report (December 2005) indicates a 30% increase in sales of ethical clothing which includes organic cotton, fair trade and garments made from recycled materials. Market increases in recent years have been tremendous. According to Organic Trade Association’s 2004 Manufacturer Survey, the organic fiber products category grew by 22.7 percent in 2003 to reach $85 million in sales. The OTA predicts continued increases in market growth.

Increasing fashion events and press coverage are likely also contributing to the recent high growth rate in the ethical clothing market. Ethical fashion shows are appearing world wide such as the Fair Trade Fashion Show in December 2005 in Hong Kong during the WTO talks, supported by high profile organizations such as Oxfam. British supporters of fair trade fashion participated in Oxfam’s Fairtrade Fortnight in March of 2006 and RE:Fashion in London. In America, Wildlife World launched “Catwalk on the Wild Side”, an eco-chic fashion show and party in support of the U.N.’s World Environment Day 2005, attended by such environmental “A” listers as Al Gore. Among the collections were the Edun line, Linda Loudermilk, Deborah Lundquist to name a few. Other fair trade fashion events have included New York Fashion week’s FutureFashion, presented by Earth Pledge, a show of hip eco fashion by many of the top runway designers including Diane vonFurstenberg and Oscar de la Renta.

Press coverage of ethical fashion is also hitting the mainstream with publications such as Elle going green in their May 2006 issue. Newsweek, in its March 2006 article “Green and Still Chic”, is also capitalizing and contributing to the new wave of conscious consumers. Until recently, conscious consumers have had to actively seek out information on ethical fashion, not to mention the fashion itself. Gradually, through the mainstreaming of ethical fashion, issues at the core of the movement--equity and environmentare being spelled out for the less active environmentalist. The message of committed organizations such as labourbehindthelabel.org, cleanclothes.org, globalexchange.org and larger organizations such as transfairusa.org, ifat.org, fair-trade.net, sweatshopfree , and Oxfam is also making its way into the minds and conscience of American consumers.

Trend or Sustainable?

Now that ethical fashion has grabbed the consumer consciousness of the American public, can it take form as a revolutionary way of living? After all, the fashion industry is all about the trend d’jour. Good-for-the-soul, eco-friendly bamboo evening gowns may not be the most practical means of creating a shift in buying habits. An article in the New Consumer notes: “As soon as [fair trade] is fashion, it’ll disappear,” said one insider who preferred anonymity. “It’ll be replaced by the next fashion and god knows what that will do.”

Is conscience enough to inspire a lasting revolution? Industry insiders are also asking, if ethical fashion also offer viable buying options. The movement had little credibility in the fashion world when styles remained trapped in the environmentalist “granola” look. Is it any wonder then, that committed efforts to propel ethical fashion into the mainstream have focused largely on the extraordinary, on luxury and haute couture style, and on extreme active wear or yoga wear? Designs by Linda Loudermilk, Bono and Ali Hewson’s Edun line, Katherine Hammett, designers committed to eco-fashion, or pieces in the de la Renta or Diane von Furstenberg collections greatly contribute to the public’s awareness of the eco-movement. Taking ethical fashion into the haute couture world has propelled the movement into the mainstream with amazing zest, but where do haute couture fashions leave the middle class would-be conscious consumer?

The challenge is to find affordable, feminine styles within this market that have a look sophisticated enough for both work and socializing. Often the looks are not sophisticated enough to for work, or when they are, the price tags are out of range for many would-be conscious consumers. Most price tags sore over $100 for tops, up to the mid $100 range and above and from $100-300 for pants. “The luxury slant to many of the more sophisticated lines,” says Shari Keller of Mehera Shaw, “makes them unaffordable to many women. It also contributes to a two-tier social positioning; those who can afford eco-chic and those who believe strongly in it but don’t have the resources to put their money to social good.”

Mark and Shari Keller, owners of Mehera Shaw have intentionally priced their line at affordable rates in an effort to keep the entire production more equitable, but also to develop a middle class customer base that already wants to create positive change with its purchasing power and can now do so. Mehera Shaw collections are colorful, upbeat and target conscious consumers with normal economic means. Their prices range from $40-$90 for blouses and from $70-$90 for skirt and pants.

Enduring Style

Like a small but growing number of companies such as Of the Earth, Indigenous Designs, Cotton Field, and Stewart+Brown, Mehera Shaw makes affordable, feminine, wearable collections. Mehera Shaw, an artisan-style fashion house, asserts that styles must endure the test of time; this is the hallmark of Mehera Shaw’s respect for both the environment and the artisans who make their garments.

Mark and Shari contend that their philosophy of style is crucial to the longevity of the ethical fashion movement. Shari notes: “Everything we do is from an artisan perspective. Our clothes are made by hand and take time to make. Our styles are classically inspired, not trendy. Like the slow food movement, artisan-wear is about style and process being in synch. Each garment is an expression of enduring beauty, quality and values. It is also an expression of real femininity, rather than some sales committee’s idea of sexiness or glamour. We make our clothing affordable to real women leading real lives. We make classically inspired styles with the intention that pieces from one collection can be combined with those from following years. Our clothes are made to couture standard and are intended to become part of a woman’s lasting wardrobe. They are well made with detailed stitching that should last more than a season and become part of a woman’s wardrobe.”

Shari observes, “For the ethical fashion movement to become sustainable, it must embody beauty, practicality and actual value. Trend or conscience alone are not enough to inspire lasting change. This has to be about a beautiful, practical way of living. This is a revolution. And we say, “The revolutions is beautiful.”

About Mehera Shaw

“Dress yourself in True Femininity: Restore beauty, equity, environment.”

Mehera Shaw clothes are made in villages around the Jaipur region of Rajasthan in North India. All collections are made from fine cotton and silk which is almost always unbleached, and frequently vegetable dyed. All Shari’s designs incorporate the hand block prints indigenous to that region using traditional, non mechanized methods of garment making in every step of product. The dyes are low impact and the process consumes as little resources as possible. Workers are treated well and are supported in their traditional artisan (UNIDO marked and supported) heritage craft. “We are also currently producing our first line of organic cotton which is being handloomed and vegetable dyed or hand block printed with low-impact dyes in the same region of Rajasthan.”

Shari and her husband Mark chose this location as they each have long-standing personal and professional ties to India. Shari has a doctorate in Anthropology, has worked with indigenous groups in India, traveled extensively in India and speaks Hindi. Mark has a jewelry business stemming from Jaipur and has worked with local artisans for the past 20 years.