Know Fair
Who made your clothes?
Not what store you bought them from, or what company designed them, but who made them? The people — flesh and blood, hopes and dreams — who sourced and stitched the clothes that live and breathe on our bodies.
Who are they?
We’re proud to go a step further to ensure that the people who make our clothes are treated fairly and come to work every day knowing they’ll be safe and supported. For us, there are two critical halves to a balanced and sustainable supply network: people and planet.
Fair Trade changes lives. It’s that simple.
When you shake someone’s hand you feel their energy and what they’re all about, just like when you wear clothes that were made by people that were happy vs. people that were working in grueling factory conditions, they just feel better, and make you feel better. It might sound cheesy, but ideally our clothes are with us for the long haul, and you should feel good about where they came from and how they were made.
Workers from Fair Trade Factories around the world. Photos by Elliot Eliash and James Rodriguez for Fair Trade USA.
"Fair Trade USA, an organization that works to ensure that factories are safe, healthy, and prosperous for their workers."
That’s why we partnered with Fair Trade USA, an organization that works to ensure that factories are safe, healthy, and prosperous for their workers. For every Fair Trade Certified™ product made, we pay an additional premium directly to the workers — no middlemen, no red tape, just cash back for a job well done. Workers come together to vote on how to use these funds to address their greatest needs. In the past, these premiums have funded the purchase of washing machines and laptops in the homes of workers, translators for migrant workers, and scholarships for local youth.
Three of our partners have joined us on the Fair Trade journey and are now certified through Fair Trade USA: Hong Ho in Mexico, Saitex in Vietnam, and VT Garments in Thailand. Fair Trade USA, which started off certifying coffee in 1998, now certifies over 30 categories and is a global authority with over 354 strict guidelines in their certification process.
Fair Trade isn’t easy. It’s one of those complicated, multi-faceted concepts that takes some real work. Even so, it can be boiled down to a core principle: it strengthens communities.
With rampant forced labor, human trafficking, and people toiling in unsafe working conditions around the world, it’s our job as humans to shop smarter, and understand that cheap clothes often come with a heavy price.
At Outerknown, we’re aligning with factories and producers that care about the environment and the humans whose lives are interwoven with our product. Buying Fair Trade trickles down to nourish our global community. And if more of us started outfitting our lives with products made fairly, that trickle would turn into a flood of kindness that our world could really use right now.
