The Journey Behind the “World’s Greatest Beanie”

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Krochet Kids Intl. is a brand that’s truly dedicated to connecting consumers with the people behind their products. I’m excited to share their latest project with you, via the following post written and originally published by Abby Calhoun on her blog A Conscious Consumer.

Abby founded A Conscious Consumer as a way to document her journey towards practicing more mindful fashion consumption. Through her site she hopes to inspire others to evaluate their needs vs. wants in relation to fashion, and to look for alternative ways to satisfy both without compromising people or the environment.

Gray beanie on work table

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as far as transparent and socially conscious brands go, Krochet Kids intl. is a leader of the pack. Since their inception in 2007, KK intl. has emerged as pioneers in the #knowwhomadeit movement, drawing consumer attention to the people at every step of the production process. Now they’re taking their innovative approach to social enterprise to the next level.

With the launch of their new Kickstarter campaign, KK intl. is asking for support in making the “World’s Greatest Beanie,” a project named for its revolutionary look at their supply chain and its emphasis on environmental sustainability. The “World’s Greatest Beanie” is made from the finest materials available without the use of chemicals or dyes, and in true KK intl. fashion, introduces supporters to every person along the production chain.

We took extra considerations into understanding every detail that goes into creating this product. Generations of craftsmanship stand behind the process and we are so excited to introduce a new generation of customers to the importance of these stories, both from a quality and social impact standpoint.

– Kohl Crecelius, CEO & Co­founder

The beanie starts at an alpaca farm in the Andes Mountains of Peru, and moves from farmer, to shearer, to fiber selector, to yarn maker, to craftswomen, and finally to consumer, all with complete transparency:

Alpacas grazing
Alpacas on a hillside in Peru
Worker selecting alpaca fibers
Close-up of alpaca yarn
Woman wearing gray beanie
Photos and signatures of workers

*all images courtesy of KK intl.

In line with KK intl. tradition, every beanie is hand ­signed by the woman who made it, connecting consumer with producer. KK intl. is dedicated to repairing these broken links that are inherent in the fashion industry as we know it today, and is demonstrating how one purchase can make a huge impact. Their model is based on empowerment and challenges consumers to transform the global fashion industry with their purchase.

We believe products have worth because people do. Our world would be a drastically different place if we all considered the impact our clothing had on the people who created it. This is the conversation that we want to bring to the forefront of the global dialogue.

Please consider standing up with KK intl. to let the world know there’s a new way that our products can be valued. By supporting their Kickstarter campaign, you can be part of a movement that says people matter.

A Primer on Climate Change for the Accidentally Uninformed

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Iceberg in water

Climate change—you know it’s a thing. Politicians are bickering about it, you keep seeing companies tout their reduced carbon footprints, and if you’re in a state like Indiana, you see windmills popping up and feel vaguely good about it. Despite the seeming prevalence of the climate conversation, though, you find yourself foggy on the actual details of climate change. What’s actually happening? How bad is the problem? Have we already passed the point of no return? You can’t ask anyone you know for fear of sounding completely out of touch. It would be like asking someone to explain an iPhone.

I found myself in a similar situation recently. My latest project is sustainability-focused, and I realized that while I was familiar with the general principles of climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions, I was uninformed about the actual mechanics and specific impacts. The catalyst that made me realize I needed to do some research was hearing people more and more frequently blame climate change for extreme weather events. I didn’t think it was quite as simple as climate change directly causing a storm or flood, so I went digging.

Naturally, I had the same FOLS (fear of looking stupid) I described above, so I started by looking for books on the topic. I didn’t find any containing the basic ground-level information I was looking for, but thankfully I found exactly what I needed from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a body that has existed since 1863 to advise the U.S. government on scientific and technical issues.

Climate Change: Evidence & Causes by the National Academy of Sciences and The Royal Society

Partnering with The Royal Society (the national academy of science in the U.K.), the NAS produced a climate change primer in 2014 that answers 20 of the most common questions about global warming, climate research and what Earth’s climate will look like in the future.

I found this resource to be incredibly helpful and authoritative. The Royal Society has a shorter version that condenses the questions and answers to just a sentence or two, which could be good for those of you who want to familiarize yourself with the scientific consensus without delving into the reasoning and process behind it.

Some enlightening sections of the NAS resource include:

  • The relationship between climate change and extreme weather
  • How scientists determined that human activities are the primary cause of climate change
  • Projections for the extent of climate change if we dramatically reduce emissions vs. continuing at the current rate

Disappointingly, this week I found out that Indiana is suing the EPA over its new climate rules. The most interesting yet disheartening fact from the article is that Indiana produces so many carbon emissions that even if we followed the new EPA rule—which the state is trying to avoid doing—we’d still emit more carbon than most states. This is the kind of news that makes the Parks & Recreation interpretation of Indiana feel completely astute at times. By contrast, though, a group off 22 Indiana-based climate scientists recently wrote an open letter to the governor in NUVO calling for the inclusion of sound science in the state’s climate mitigation and adaptation plan.

After gaining a more complete understanding of climate change, I’m more convinced than ever that we have a responsibility to live in a way that considers the impacts our decisions may have on our global neighbors. Many of the nations expected to feel the most significant impacts of climate change have contributed very little to the problem. Knowing that my state is one of the highest-emitting regions in one of the highest-emitting countries in the world reinforces my commitment to acknowledging our interconnectedness and trying to make more responsible lifestyle choices.

How Facebook Could Revolutionize the Sharing Economy

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Remember the scene in The Social Network where one of Mark Zuckerburg’s friends asks him if a girl in his art history class is single? You see the lightbulb go on over Zuckerburg’s head, and he runs back to his dorm room to add Relationship Status as a field in Facebook profiles.

Creating a way to broadcast that simple piece of information revolutionized dating in the digital age. With the rise of the sharing economy, Facebook has an opportunity to allow us to broadcast another piece of key information that is typically hidden under social norms: the items we want to obtain or get rid of.

Imagine a feature called Facebook Exchange. It’s as simple as a shopping list. Users enter items into two categories: Things I Want and Things I’m Offering.

Mockup of Facebook profile with Exchange link

Mockup of Facebook Exchange lists

While it would seem nosy to ask everyone you know what they have in their house that they want to get rid of, and it would seem greedy to constantly ask people to give you stuff, the reality is that we all have wants and needs that people we already know could happily fulfill. The missing link is an easy connection between the wanters and the providers.

With a growing cultural mindfulness about waste and excess, people are more willing to share what they have and more uncomfortable with simply throwing decent stuff away. While there are plenty of standalone platforms for reselling, secondhand shopping and free-cycling, there isn’t one that connects you to the people you already know, and those are the people with whom many of us would be most interested in conducting an exchange.

Exchange isn’t a full classified ad service. Facebook tried that once with Marketplace, which has now been transferred to an external provider called Oodle and is no longer available on the Facebook platform. Facebook’s error with Marketplace was in reinventing the wheel. Relationship Status didn’t need to be a dating service; once the information was out there, users acted on it in a variety of different ways without needing additional intervention from Facebook. Similarly, Exchange isn’t about executing transactions; it’s about creating the sense of serendipity that comes from connecting with existing friends in new ways.

Let’s say I’m looking for vacuum cleaner bags. (My needs are glamorous, I know.) This is a low-value item that would be pretty pointless for anyone to sell, but it’s also an item that would be silly to throw away if it’s in perfectly good condition. In this case, let’s say one of my friends’ moms has vacuum cleaner bags to give away. She puts them on her Things I’m Offering list, and because we’re friends and I have vacuum cleaner bags on my Things I Want list, Facebook sends me a notification: “Janet Smith just added ‘vacuum cleaner bags’ to her Things I’m Offering list. Send her a message to ask more about it.” Janet would also get a notification that “Julia Spangler has ‘vacuum cleaner bags’ on her Things I Want list. Send her a message to see if she wants what you’re offering.”

Mockup of Facebook Exchange notification

That’s as far as the feature would go. Any photos of the item and the details of the transaction would be handled through person-to-person communication. Users would be free to arrange their own preferred forms of payment, barter, or give stuff away for free. In a lot of cases it could also eliminate shipping, which is one of the biggest inconveniences of online shopping. In this example, my need isn’t urgent, so I’d just pick up the goods the next time I was in Janet’s neighborhood.

The goal of Exchange is to identify potential matches between list items, then let users hash out the details in a subsequent conversation. Facebook’s understanding of language is good enough that it would be able to match up list items that are close but may not be phrased the exact same way. The feature would also be a boon to Facebook’s advertising strategy, since users would literally be telling the platform what they’re interesting in acquiring.

Exchange is obviously a hypothetical feature at this point, but it illustrates a potential solution to the gap between wanters and providers of any given item. My previous blog post on this topic illustrates how challenging it can be to find the right recipient for your unwanted stuff. How much better would life be if we could easily find those people within our own networks?

5 Things I Love About Not Using Shampoo

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Showerhead with post title

It’s been 10 months since I’ve used shampoo. To some of you that may sound shocking, and others of you may already be familiar with the movement winkingly known as “no poo.” The underlying belief of the no-poo movement is that conventional shampoo is actually more damaging than it is helpful, and by stripping the natural oils from hair, it creates the need for more frequent washings than would otherwise be needed.

While I spent a couple of years experimenting with natural shampoos, the no-poo method lingered in the back of my mind as a mysterious, too-good-to-be-true myth conjured by the internets. However, once I found out that my two bandmates with dramatically excellent hair were also no-poo, I decided to give it a try.

I chose one of the methods I saw discussed most frequently online, using baking soda and apple cider vinegar in place of store-bought shampoo. I started out washing my hair on the same schedule I used to shampoo (every other day), and over time that became less frequent. Now I only wash my hair twice a week.

If you Google “no poo,” you’ll find a myriad of different methods and opinions and experiences. Some people have had negative experiences, and others, like me, only wish they’d done it sooner. Here are my five favorite things about no longer using shampoo:

1. It changed the way I think about my hair

Until I went no-poo, I was very concerned about my hair being clean. I felt like it would be a scandal to go out with unwashed hair. I washed my hair every day for most of my life and assumed that everyone else did the same. Now that I know about the wider world of hair care methods, I feel like I’ve been freed from a prison of my old assumptions about socially acceptable hair.

2. Less time spent styling

Changing the way I wash my hair has also changed how I think about styling it. I used to think I had to straighten my hair for it to be acceptable. Over the last 10 months I’ve begun to embrace my natural hair, which is sometimes mostly wavy and sometimes mostly straight—I’ve come to appreciate both without feeling like I need to intervene with a styling tool.

I felt like it was especially imperative to blow dry and straighten my hair for work, and now I realize that there are way better things to do with that 20 minutes every morning, and life will not end if I show up at the office with my hair how it naturally dries. Plus, since I wash my hair less, if I do decide to style my hair it lasts for several days.

I’ve also come to love wearing my hair in a bun—it’s quick, it looks good whether my hair is wet or dry, and it curls my hair for later. A trifecta in only 30 seconds.

Notable natural hair moments from this year. Waves! Movement! All brought to you by no-poo.

Some natural hair moments from this year. Waves! Movement! Note that my grandma is chic as all get-out at 92. Also note that no-poo gave me so much confidence in trying new looks that I actually pulled off wearing a hat.

3. No more traveling with a hair dryer and straightener

Breaking my reliance on heat styling means no more lugging around small appliances on every trip. Extra room in my suitcase for the win!

4. Uses no plastic bottles

Now that I don’t buy shampoo, that’s one less plastic bottle in my waste stream every couple of months. My baking soda comes in a cardboard box and my apple cider vinegar comes in a glass bottle. I go through the baking soda every 4-6 weeks, but I’m still working on my original bottle of vinegar since I use so little at a time.

5. My hair has more volume and holds curl

I remember the first day I went out in public having washed my hair the new way. It was the Colts vs. Patriots AFC Championship game this past January, the game of Deflate-gate fame. I washed my hair in the morning and wore it in a bun most of the day, and when I let it down to go watch the game, it was holding beautiful, voluminous curls. Though the Colts’ playoff hopes and the game balls deflated, my curls did not, and I’ve never looked back.

Julia wearing curly hair and a blase expression

An example from earlier this year of curls I could not have achieved before no-poo. Ignore my sullen expression; inside I am giddy.

For those of you interested in the details of my hair washing routine, here’s what I do specifically:

  1. Fill a small travel shampoo bottle halfway with baking soda, then fill it the rest of the way with water. Shake to mix. Depending on the size of the bottle this should last for 2-4 washes.
  2. Combine 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar with 1 cup water in a small spray bottle. This quantity should last for 6-10 washes, depending on how heavily you apply it and and how much hair you have.
  3. Wash wet hair and scalp with baking soda mixture. Do not wash ends of hair. Rinse well.
  4. Spray vinegar mixture onto hair, including the ends. I let it sit for a minute or two to absorb. Rinse well.

Edit Feb. 2016: I’ve made some changes to the proportions of baking soda and ACV I use, resulting in my hair being softer and shinier. Check out my updated method.

You may be tempted to skip the vinegar rinse, but don’t. I’m not totally up on the science of it, but because baking soda is basic on the pH scale, it’s important to follow it with an acid to keep the pH of your hair balanced.

Lots of no-poo articles describe an adjustment period during which hair gets incredibly greasy. That was my biggest fear going in, but it ended up not being an issue for me at all. I think this is due to the fact that I started using the new supplies right away instead of letting my hair “lie fallow” for a few weeks, as many articles recommend. There was a brief period where my hair looked slightly greasy, but not to the extent that I felt like I needed to cover my hair. Following the slightly greasy period there was a dry period, which I also didn’t really mind because it gave my hair temporary super-volume and I had a lot of fun with that. I don’t remember exactly when my hair found equilibrium again, but I think it was around the three-month point.

I have often pondered how people in the past kept their hair from looking greasy, because I know if I lived on the prairie in a cabin with no heat, I would not be washing my hair at all between November and March. No-poo hasn’t totally answered this question for me, but it has shown me that human hair can take care of itself more than most people give it credit for.

Have you tried no-poo? What was your experience? Can anyone enlighten me about old-timey hair care methods?

What’s It Like to Run a Secondhand Shop?

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When I really like something, I enjoy hearing the story behind it so I can appreciate the people and processes that bring me so much joy. This Secondhand September (I’m a couple days late, shhh!), I wondered what it takes to actually run a vintage shop and how someone gets involved in that business. Thankfully, Sara Baldwin Schatz, founder of Fountain Square alt-boutique Lux & Ivy, was more than happy to illuminate the topic.

Lux & Ivy retail floor with racks of clothing

I asked Schatz what personally draws her to secondhand shopping. “I have always loved vintage and secondhand clothing,” she says. However, her parents didn’t get her into the habit. “Before I could drive, my mom could never understand why my friends and I wanted to be dropped off at Goodwill and Value Village. We would spend hours just sifting through racks of clothing. Each piece seemed to tell its own story. It was as if you could picture the previous owner; and yet the moment you put that perfect dress or sweater on, it instantly became a part of your own story.”

Schatz’s love of vintage clothing grew through her studies in journalism and photography and work experience in the fashion industry. But she says, “Now, as an adult, my interest in secondhand goes way beyond feeling and aesthetic. I truly believe that it is the most responsible way to shop. Why waste precious resources creating new clothing that is not made to last? Especially when so much beautiful, well-made clothing is already in existence—discarded and waiting to be reused. Fashion is so much bigger than the latest trends—it should be something that we think about as a society, the same way we are collectively starting to consider wastefulness and production when it comes to our consumption of food.”

Fashion should be something we think about as a society.

When asked about the biggest challenge of being in the vintage clothing business, Schatz says, “Truthfully, the toughest thing is fulfilling the needs of my customer—a big reason why I started carrying new clothing as well, still trying to keep sustainability in mind when doing so. Because I can only carry what people bring me and what I find, I am somewhat limited as far as the shop’s aesthetic. I get so many requests for vintage items and I do my best to hunt them down for people, but it isn’t as easy as placing an order from a distributor like you would with new items.”

Schatz and her son at the Lux & Ivy store

Schatz and her son at the Lux & Ivy store

Schatz cites merchandising as the second-most challenging aspect of her business. I actually had to look up what merchandising is; according to Wikipedia, “At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.” I’ve always thought this would be the most fun part of running a store, but Schatz points out that with a limited selection, you also have limited options for conveying the shop’s aesthetic.

Thanks to Sara Baldwin Schatz for sharing a small glimpse behind the scenes of a secondhand store! Do you have experience working in the secondhand biz? What was it like? Satiate my curiosity in the comments!

Vacation… and a Teaser

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I’m on a quick family vacation right now with my dear sister (check her out if you like interior design and DIY projects). I’ll be back with a regular post later this week, but I wanted to take this random-post opportunity to foreshadow something new I have in the works.

Blurred out photo of new project

Coming soon!

It’s somewhat related to Fair for All but is also something completely different. I may be a little more hit-or-miss with regular posting as I shift some attention to this new project. It’s exciting and a little scary (for me, not anyone else, I hope) and I’m looking forward to when I can officially share it with you!

With that extremely vague teaser, have a great start to your week and try not to lie awake wondering!

The Best Secondhand Stores in Indianapolis

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Thanks to everyone who came out to FairSwap15 last week! Check out the gallery of awesome photos by Abigail K Photography, and keep an eye on our new Events page to find out when the next swap will be.

Best Secondhand Stores in Indianapolis

Photo by Abigail K Photography

For the last seven years or so—ever since I learned that sweatshops and poor labor conditions in factories were not in fact eliminated in the 1990s and remain widespread today—I’ve done the majority of my shopping secondhand, which I consider to be an ethical choice for a variety of reasons. Thankfully, I live in Indianapolis, a city rich with excellent thrift, vintage and consignment shops. This Secondhand September, I wanted to share my picks for the best secondhand stores in Indianapolis.

Goodwill

I go to Goodwill like other people go to Target. It’s my first stop for almost any purchase. They have almost everything, I live right by the excellent N. Keystone location, and it’s reliably well-organized and clean.

  • 25+ locations in the Indy area
  • Price point: Most items under $10
  • Good for: Clothing and home items particularly, but they have virtually everything
  • Need to know: Hit a savings bonus by shopping their “color of the week” (not the actual color of the item—each item has a different colored plastic tag) for 50% off.

Vintage Vogue

Despite its unique name, Vintage Vogue is actually a Goodwill store with a twist. It stocks items from the Goodwill donation stream but is arranged and styled like a boutique to provide a more conventional shopping experience. The selection is curated to include higher quality, trendier items, which is great if you don’t have a lot of time to invest in sifting through the racks.

Sales floor of Vintage Vogue store

The boutique-y layout of Vintage Vogue

  • 2361 E 62nd Street
  • Price point: Slightly more expensive than a regular Goodwill store. I paid $10 for jeans and $8 for a shirt there once.
  • Good for: Women’s clothing
  • Need to know: Vintage Vogue is located close to the N. Keystone Goodwill location as well as The Toggery, making Glendale an efficient neighborhood for a big shopping trip.

Value World

I go to Value World when I’m shopping for costumes. The selection tends to be a little older and quirkier (though I’ve gotten some very wearable shirts there), but the super-low prices are perfect for buying something you plan to modify or wear infrequently. I also like to shop for shoes at Value World because they keep most of the shoes in one area instead of spreading them out a la Goodwill.

  • 4 locations around Indy
  • Price point: Generally very low. Some items are priced at $1-2.
  • Good for: Tops, shoes
  • Need to know: There are no fitting rooms at Value World, so don’t plan to buy anything there where the fit is really important.

Broad Ripple Vintage

Do you like The Doors? Good, because that’s pretty much all they play as the soundtrack at Broad Ripple Vintage, and it represents very well what you’ll find there.

  • 824 E 64th Street
  • Price point: Moderate
  • Good for: Men’s & women’s clothing
  • Need to know: The style at BRV skews toward the 60’s and 70’s hippie look, though there are outliers. They also have a great selection of 80’s prom dresses and women’s slips, crinolines and other retro undergarments.

The Toggery

I’m currently wearing my absolute favorite pair of black pants, which I bought at The Toggery. It’s a consignment store, meaning they only accept what they think will sell, which leads to higher prices than a thrift store but a much higher quality selection.

Rack of clothes at The Toggery

  • 1810 Broad Ripple Ave.
  • Price point: Moderate. I recall these black pants being $12, but they also sell designer items at a higher price point.
  • Good for: Stylish, work-appropriate clothing
  • Need to know: Make money on your own unwanted clothes, shoes and accessories by consigning them here.

Lux & Ivy

Lux & Ivy caters to the rock n’ rollers of Fountain Square, according to owner Sara Baldwin Schatz. The vintage selections at her shop inside the Murphy Building have a distinctly edgy flair.

  • 1043 Virgina Ave, Suite 209
  • Price point: From $5 – $100 depending on the era and condition of the item
  • Good for: Edgy vintage clothing
  • Need to know: The shop contains a mix of vintage and new items, so choose carefully if you’re aiming for a 100% secondhand haul.

Thrifty Threads

Thrifty Threads is a shop with a big heart. Clients from the Julian Center shop at Thrifty Threads for free to help get back on their feet. Proceeds from items sold to the public help underwrite Julian Center programs and services.

  • 1501 W 86th Street
  • Good for: Clothing, furniture
  • Need to know: The National Council of Jewish Women also operates a boutique within the thrift store selling second-hand designer clothing.

Do you have a favorite secondhand shop not listed here? Share it in the comments!

A Secondhand September

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This September is shaping up to be a secondhand-centric month. Not only is my very first clothing swap event tomorrow (!), but the Ethical Writers Coalition is leading a Secondhand Challenge. The EWC challenges you to rethink your attitudes toward secondhand shopping and begin to think secondhand first.

Ethical Writers Coalition Secondhand Challenge

Using secondhand items is ethical for a variety of reasons:

  1. It saves usable items from the landfill
  2. It doesn’t use the energy and materials required to produce new items
  3. It opposes cultural pressure to buy everything new
  4. It honors the people who make items by not treating their work as disposable

Secondhand items can be found at thrift shops and consignment stores or alternative channels like clothing swaps, Craigslist, Freecycle, neighborhood message boards, Yerdle, and more.

The flip side of the coin of secondhand shopping is putting our own unwanted items out into the secondhand market. This can be an ethical challenge in itself. According to the documentary The True Cost, only 10% of the clothes people donate to charity or thrift stores gets sold. The rest ends up in landfills or is shipped to developing countries where the flood of secondhand clothing can undermine local industry. That’s why the EWC challenge also includes an emphasis on finding the right channels for discarding your unwanted things (such as the alternative channels listed above).

Here are a few of my favorite posts collected by the EWC’s Secondhand Challenge so far:

Thrift shopping is how I get most things I need, but I’m excited to take another step in supporting secondhand culture with the clothing swap tomorrow. If you’re in the Indy area and haven’t signed up yet, join us!

The Only Thing that Has Changed the World

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

– Margaret Mead

I’ve always been a big fan of this quote. If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll realize it aligns well with my belief that individual actions can create real change. This quote came to mind again today and I wondered for the first time about its origins. Who is Margaret Mead? What was the context for the quote? Is she really saying what it sounds like she’s saying?

Margaret Mead in 1948

Margaret Mead in 1948

Margaret Mead was a cultural anthropologist the the mid-1900s. She was a controversial figure throughout much of her career for her reports about sexual behavior in various traditional cultures in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Her work helped inspire feminism, the sexual revolution and other movements in the 1960s.

According to the Institute of Intercultural Studies, which was founded by Mead in the 1940s but shuttered in 2009, there is no definitive source for the widely attributed quote: “We believe it probably came into circulation through a newspaper report of something said spontaneously and informally. We know, however, that it was firmly rooted in her professional work and that it reflected a conviction that she expressed often, in different contexts and phrasings.”

I was disappointed to learn that the quote wasn’t intentionally composed in a specific context and likely has been altered from its original phrasing. However, I was reassured to learn on the IIS website that Mead did actual research into the role of small groups in cultural change in her 1964 book Continuities in Cultural Evolution. She believed in the power of small groups not from wishful thinking but from her research.

I appreciate this quote because I know of so many small organizations and companies working to do things differently to make the world a better place. From fair trade cooperatives to neighborhood revitalization committees, each group has the power to make positive change and grow a small movement into a big one.

Margaret Mead quote

What’s your favorite quote that inspires you to change the world?

Apps & Online Tools for Ethical Shopping

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ethical-shopping-apps-header

As a companion to my recent Beginner’s Guide to Ethical Shopping, I wanted to share this post by Kasi Martin of The Peahen about apps and online tools to help make ethical shopping easier. Kasi is a devotee of ethical fashion and writes about brands, designers, issues and trends at the intersection of style and standards.

Ethical designers catch a lot of flak for not being fashion-forward enough. When I bring up ethical fashion to a friend or outsider I usually get a skeptical eyebrow raise. Before I make a style recommendation, I’m forced to brandish it with an ethical disclaimer. “Oh, you’re on the hunt for a new brand of denim? There’s a new organic hemp denim brand I discovered –  but you know – it’s all that hippy-dippy shit I love.”

I want to stop this justification madness. Ethical should be cool. It should generate just as much excitement for shoppers as a Zara haul…even if it’s more expensive.

Zara copies trends as they trickle down from the runway. Ethical fashion creates trends that travel up to the runway. This is ethical fashion’s redeeming quality that makes it appealing to the masses. Issues like greenwashing or human rights may be entirely off your radar  [I will eventually convert you] – but ethical fashion gives you the ability to shop according to your terms. Because trends start from the bottom, you have power to pause for a reality check and confidently say – “Hey, I’m not okay paying 300 bucks for a pair of knock-off Rockstud pumps because Valentino said they were cool three seasons ago.” Ethical fashion makes you a rebel WITH a cause.

Still, with all this power of choice in front of you, ethical brands are disparate and hard to discover. You could click on a cathy Instagam one second, and the next it’s flying off your radar into the social media abyss. What sticks? How do you find which brands are right for you?

Well, stop by here for suggestions. My ‘elsewhere’ list is a good place to start. But there are also a few online tools that will help you reign in the option overload, discover what’s new and audit what you already love.

No excuses for not buying ethically now, this is shopping empowerment at your fingertips.

For the mobile shopper

Orange Harp – A mobile app that puts artisans and brands in one place. Checkout Lovehewn jewelry. And it’s not just fashion! Buy through the platform to donate a bit extra to fight human trafficking.

Orange Harp website

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