As I say, online shopping has made life so much easier
nowadays and so you are only a few clicks from some
great Independents that are creating amazing products.
Bodies such as the Ethical Fashion Forum can be a
starting point to discover some brands, but I often
discover a number of brands by association from
surfing Instagram. The greater the visibility of these
great little brands that are doing their bit the more we
shift the mindset away from mass consumption and all
the negative associations that come with it. Eventually
those that aren’t carrying out good practice will have to
adapt themselves or go out of business.
Are there any big or small brands/labels you
recommend or admire?
There are too many to mention, but as you might have
guessed I am a big fan of the small brands that have
evolved very much with a positive mission firmly at the
heart of their business. I’ll give you the example the
brand ‘Riz’ a swim shorts company, the founder of
which I recently interviewed on our website. I love the
innovation of their product which is made from 100%
recycled and recyclable fabrics. They also have a
recycling (or rather Rizcycling) programme for your old
swim shorts (earning you a discount in their shop) and
organise events such as beach clean-ups. It’s brands
like this that challenge the market and look to provide
reasons above and beyond your usual purchase
decision that I admire.
What are your top tips to any budding
entrepreneurs with an idea and little to no money?
Okay, I love a list so here are a few based on setting up
a brand with an ethical pillar at its heart:
Find your cause that you feel passionate about. With
PALA I’ve been to several outreach projects in Africa
and it provides such a buzz and motivation to see the
effect of change. Starting up a business is a bumpy ride,
there’s no quick solution here, but if you have passion
you’ll find you can ride the dips a lot easier.
1. Look to affiliate with a charity if need be. There is no
way PALA could achieve the change on the ground in
Africa without the help of the charity and NGO we work
with, so again when you are determining your ‘cause-
related’ model put some meetings in with one or two
charities that may well already be working on location
and therefore have people on the ground that can help
on that local level.
2. You have to be in it for the long-haul and be patient.
It takes time to build a brand. If you certainly have no
money then don’t give up the day job, you’ll need to
start your business in the late evenings and early
mornings!
3. Realistically if you are looking to start-up in the world
of fashion, having no money will be a challenge as you
have to create stock to sell. Add to that the cost of
initial brand design and marketing costs etc. you can
see how financial requirements can increase. This is
where the wonderful world of crowd-funding can come
into play. More than anything it can provide an
excellent way to test proof of concept before fully
committing yourself financially. Find yourself crowd-
funded within a week then you might well be onto
something good, find that you have only been 10%
funded after a month then perhaps head back to the
drawing board.
4. Crazy ideas? Well I’m not one to suppress a wild
imagination, but for every successful fidget-spinner
idea there are hundreds that don’t see the light of day.
Test and test again. You don’t want to be stuck selling
batches of recycled paper-based wetsuits out of a case
at your local market.
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