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從消費者的角度來看，究竟什麼是更道德、更永續性的購物方式呢？這兩個詞彙絕對於當下最熱門的關鍵字，而其定義也密切關聯。「這兩者該被視為同義詞，」聯合國道德時尚協會負責人Simone Cipriani 這麼説。「道德必須兼顧永續性，無論在社會或環境層面。」 What exactly does it mean to buy more ethically and sustainably, from a consumer perspective? The two terms are definitely buzz keywords at the moment, and their definitions closely interlinked. “They should be considered synonymous,” says Simone Cipriani, the head of the UN’s Ethical Fashion Initiative. “Ethical has to [mean] sustainable, socially and environmentally.”

Die Seidenstraße in Afghanistan ist bekannt für ihren Reichtum und ihr kulturelles Erbe. Sie ist umgeben von Geschichte und Kultur, die den Westen und den Osten wie ein Netzwerk einer Handelsroute miteinander verknüpft. Ausgetauscht wurden hier neben Religionen, Philosophien und Technologien auch Seide, die bereits damals zu einem sehr wertvollem Exportgut galt. Durch jahrzehntelange Kriege, ist diese wichtige Verbindung der Gemeinschaft leider angegriffen worden, deswegen ist es mehr denn je an der Zeit, die Tradition in der Seidenstraße wieder aufleben zu lassen. ,,The Silk Road’’ heißt das Programm, das von Jeanne de Kroon in Kooperation mit der Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI), einer von der Europäischen Union gegründeten Initiative, geleitet wird.

Die Designerin Jeanne de Kroon hat in der Ethical Fashion Initiative einen Partner gefunden, der ihre Vision, ein besseres Verständnis zwischen unterschiedlichsten Kulturen und Traditionen zu fördern, gemeinsam in die Tat umsetzt.

Die Ethical Fashion Initiative – kurz EFI – ist 2009 mit der Mission an den Start gegangen, marginalisierte Handwerker mit ethisch orientierten Konsumenten zu verbinden. Simone Cipriani, Gründer und Leiter von EFI besuchte damals den Korogocho Slum in Nairobi und erkannte sofort, wieviel Potenzial im traditionellen Handwerk dieser Region für die Modebranche steckt. Von der Verknüpfung beider Welten sollten alle profitieren. Mittlerweile macht sich die Organisation auch mit Projekten in Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Haiti, Äthiopien, Nepal, Kambodscha und zuletzt auch in Afghanistan, Tadschikistan, Usbekistan und an der Elfenbeinküste für ein faires Miteinander und besseres Verständnis stark.

Antes del muro de Trump, ya existía una barrera comercial, que ha dividido históricamente el mundo por la mitad. El hemisferio sur ha sido siempre el gran marginado. Sus artesanos son desterrados de la cadena de producción del mercado del lujo, condenados a trabajar en condiciones pésimas. Vivienne Westwood empezó en 2010 a colaborar con Iniciativa Moda Ética (EFI por sus siglas en inglés) del Centro de Comercio Internacional (ITC), organismo conjunto de la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Comercio y Desarrollo (Unctad) y la Organización Mundial del Comercio (OMC). «Nuestro trabajo con el Centro de Comercio Internacional da a las personas oportunidad y sostenibilidad», señala Carlo. «Estamos hablando de trabajo», hace hincapié Simone Cipriani, director de EFI. Su lema siempre ha sido: «Es trabajo, no caridad». Para D’Amario, es un intercambio: «Compartimos técnicas y transmitimos nuestra experiencia a su artesanía. Soft Power». En castellano, ‘poder blando’ –término acuñado en los noventa que hace referencia a la influencia que tiene un Estado en el extranjero al margen de su acción diplomática, actividad directa económica o capacidad militar–. Para Carlo, la acepción moderna (más positiva) se centra en el poder de la sociedad de intercambiar ideas.

De Kroon works with artisans across Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and India, but her latest project brought her back to Afghanistan for a special collaboration with the United Nations Ethical Fashion Initiative. Last year, de Kroon met Simone Cipriani, the head of EFI, at Nest’s summit on the handworker economy at the U.N. “I was wearing one of my coats and Simone asked me about it, and when I told him it was made in Afghanistan, he said we had to work together,” she says on a recent call (from Berlin, not the jungle!). The EFI had several ongoing initiatives in Afghanistan in collaboration with its social enterprise partner, Zarif Design, a “slow production” workshop in Kabul founded by Zolaykha Sherzad, who employs 52 local artisans to create garments using traditional fabrics, embroideries, and natural dyes. In doing so, she is keeping those crafts alive and providing safe, fair trade employment.

On the 10th anniversary of the EFI, Simone Cipriani discusses his mission to make fashion truly sustainable

Abrima Erwiah, who was raised in New York and worked in marketing and communications at Bottega Veneta, co-founded Studio 189, an artisan-produced fashion brand that is headquartered in Ghana, West Africa and New York. It currently operates a store in New York and Accra (Ghana), an e-commerce site, a manufacturing facility in Accra, and supports various community-led projects in Africa and in the US. It works with artisanal communities that specialize in various traditional craftsmanship techniques including natural plant-based dye indigo and hand-batik. Studio 189 partners with the United Nations ITC Ethical Fashion Initiative, NYU Stern School of Business and has collaborated with brands including EDUN, which was part of LVMH, and the retailer Yoox Net-A-Porter.

Simone Cipriani, Head and founder, Ethical Fashion Initiative at the ITC, spoke about what luxury is today and his work investment in social capital.

After years of various groups trying to promote the importance of sustainability as best they can, the United Nations Alliance on Sustainable Fashion plans to take the lead.

Fashion in Africa has consecutively gotten better with every year, and 2018 was no different. The prospects are becoming more visible and based off this, we at Haute Fashion Africa are debuting our “Fashion Ahead” list, a curation of brands who from the last quarter of the previous year are already showing trends for remarkable next year to come, thus putting them Fashion Ahead.

Williams and Adidas will release a limited-edition range of reworked track jackets with the Ethical Fashion Initiative, an organization that links artisans from developing countries to fashion’s international value chain.

The fund seeks to create an investment potential to cover the gap between public intervention and business reality in the creative and fashion sectors of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The United Nations through, its ethical fashion initiative also helped the co-founders develop a factory for its clothing. While its mission may be philanthropic, Dawson said it doesn’t come at the expense of high fashion.
“If you don’t even care about sustainability you don’t have to lose out on anything. It doesn’t have to feel like charity. It shouldn’t feel like charity. This is about really recognizing people’s work and coming to the table and recognizing everybody along the supply chain and the consumer is just as important as the farmer,” Dawson said.

Previously underestimated in terms of its impact on the environment, the record of the $2.5 trillion-dollar fashion industry is now coming increasingly under scrutiny. Not only is it the second highest user of water worldwide, producing 20 per cent of global water waste, and responsible for 10 per cent of global carbon emissions, but beyond the environmental impact the industry is also closely linked to labor, gender and poverty issues. And while significant today, it is likely that such concerns will only increase further in the coming decades, which has prompted the UN to call for delegates attending its upcoming High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development to debate plans to launch a Partnership for Sustainable Fashion.

For the past eight years, she’s been producing her Ethical Fashion Initiative bags in collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative of the International Trade Centre — a joint organization of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization — which supports the work of women micro-producers of marginalized African communities. Westwood was one many European designers to oppose Brexit, too. There’s much, much more to be learned from Westwood — and you’ll be surprised to realize just how many trends (those material and immaterial) she started. In the clip below — one of our favorites from the documentary — the designer narrates her start in the fashion industry, including her relationship with McLaren. Like most great woman designers of our business, she outran him.