Fashion trends Forecasting #Fashion #Ethicalfashion

We’ve been researching, analyzing and taking a look at some fashion trend forecasts, and here are some insights for you:

Men: Long t-shirts, blanket woolen jackets, crisp button-front shirts, drop-crotch pants, zip front blouson jackets

Women:

• Boy Meets Girl: Mannish overcoats (mohair), best pinstripes, slouchy trousers, oversized coats, double-breasted jackets
• The rebel: Chiffon-plaid, zips, chains, vinyl, leather and studs
• Excess: Folk-inspired florals and painterly prints and patterns
• Skirt lengths: mid-calf, slightly flare at the knee
• The Warrior: Sheath dresses with lots of shape, long robe, strong-shouldered suits and velvet pyjama pants
• Dark: Dark make up colours, capes, cloaks, high necks and toe-grazing hems, in opulent textures and grand silhouettes

Colours: bright accents against muted tones, unusual combinations, black, burgundy, purple, gold, turquoise, grounded slate grey, tawny brown and midnight blue (read more about colours here:
http://www.fashionising.com/trends/b–fall-colors-2013-winter-colors-27647.html)
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While shopping for your clothing and fashion accessories, follow the trend and tips we gave you in our previous blog Dress Ethically, Easily and never forget to look ethics behind your purchases. Happy ethical shopping!

[Article Round Up] From jellies to puffballs: 10 fashion trends we don’t want revived any time soon #Fashion #Retro #Vintage

“Flares are back in fashion. Or at least the women of the UK would like them to be, if the results of a new survey are anything to go by.

The research conducted by website myvouchercodes.co.uk reveals that the flappy-trousered phenomenon of the 1970s is the fashion trend most women would like to see make a comeback, with 51 per cent of those questioned wanting to see them make a return.

Hair scrunchies, were the second most sought-after item – with 49 per cent voting for them to come back into fashion – with bodysuits, overalls and crimped hair completing the top five.

And further down the list women wanted to see the return of ruffled shirts, tie dye, bandanas (worn as headbands, natch),  zig zag partings and choker necklaces.

All of which seems reasonable enough (although we’re not sure we’d want to swap our skinny jeans for a pair of bellbottoms). But for every fashion trend that the nostalgic may still yearn for in their wardrobe, there are many, many more which – while still around in some form or another – should never be allowed to undergo a serious revival…”

Read more: metro.co.uk/2013/05/30/from-jellies-to-puffballs-10-fashion-trends-we-dont-want-revived-any-time-soon-3821328/

Dress Ethically, Easily! #Ethicalfashion #Fairtrade #Environment #Sustainable

In a recent article in the Washington post, the writer wrote the following quote:

“The clothes on my back really do connect me with the people who made them in the most intimate way. We as consumers cannot turn our backs on them as they are with us, even now, in the very clothes that touch our skin.”

In light of the recent tragedy in Bangladesh, it seems that ethical fashion is on everyone’s brain. We have done this before, but we felt it was very important to share it again. One of the overwhelming factors that have been talked about in the media is how difficult it is to find ethical clothing. Well, we thought we would provide you with some tips about how you can dress ethically, easily:

1. Retro, retro, retro: Look for second-hand fashion locally and online – this is a great way to reduce demand for big name companies with bad practices (such as the ones involved in the factory collapse in Bangladesh), while reusing products that might have ended up at landfills.
2. DIY: Do it yourself and figure out how to either start from scratch or refashion an old piece of clothing. Places like Pintrest are a great way to get some DIY ideas.
3. Research: Find brands that are exclusively ethical, fair-trade, environmentally-friendly, or all of the above. Brands such as Shopanthropic do the work for you (sourcing and designing ethical fashion) and all you have to do is come online and shop! The best way to find ethical fashion is most like online.
4. Look for initiatives such as the Better Cotton Initiative: Stated goal: “make global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for the sector’s future.”
5. Ask: Next time you walk into a brand name fashion store, ask the manager if they have any fair-trade or ethically made guarantees on their clothing and accessories? If enough consumers question the ethics behind a store’s manufacturing processes, companies will have to rethink their policies (Earlier this month, for example, shareholders had to walk through demonstrators at Gap’s annual meeting demanding that the company sign a new Bangladesh factory safety accord).

A  few pictures from our past events!

Perhaps if more consumers follow these trends and tips, we will be able to avoid other factory collapses and deaths around the world.

In an exciting update on the situation in Bangladesh, the government has recently allowed the country’s 4 million garment workers to form unions without having to have the permission of factory owners. This step will enable workers to fight for fair wages and safe working conditions.

3 Hot Trends in Ethical Fashion! #Ethicalfashion #Fairtrade #Environment

1. Cultural Fusion: Look out for a fresh take on mainstream styles through a fusion of multiple cultures, and collaborations of vibrant and fierce patterns, artisanal methods and colours.
   

   Hand-painted silk scarf made in Bangladesh by a group of underprivileged women artisans

2. Fresh and Fair Trading: Watch out for fair trade practices that impact the lives of socially excluded groups in developing regions of the world through regular employment, fair wages, and safe working environment.
   

   Brocade handbag made by a group of disadvantaged women artisans in India who have and continue to face many hardships in their lives

3. Eco-consciousness: Go for eco-friendly materials – such as non-violent silk, cruelty-free leather, and recycled metal for jewellery.
   

   Recycled bomb shell bracelet made by war survivors in Cambodia

[Read more] Why are co-operatives such popular places to work? #cooperatives #Workenvironment #CSR

“Communicating the successes and failures of the business is a core part of what The Midcounties Co-operative seeks to do. “In the last month we’ve grown to a billion-pound business,” explains Simmons. “And it’s great that we can celebrate this with all our colleagues. But in the past where there have been downtimes we have stuck to being transparent. Everyone has the right to know how we’re really doing,” she adds.

Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, the UK trade association for co-operatives, said: “We’ve seen that tribes are very important in the consumer world, and it’s the same in the workplace. The workplace is fundamental to our lives.

He adds: “It’s not for everybody because they do demand responsibility from the employees. You have to be very careful with who you recruit into your organisation, but you don’t see the same churn and flow that you do in other companies, co-ops tend to keep people for far longer.”

Mayo concludes that “recruiting graduates is a social responsibility”, and it’s reassuring to see that co-operatives are offering an increasingly attractive proposition for new entrants to the employment market.”

Read more: 
http://socialenterprise.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/2013/may/24/co-operatives-popular-places-work

Entrepreneurship and Social Impact in the Middle East — Business as Unusual? #Socent #Socialimpact

“It is a striking feature of the growing startup ecosystems in the Middle East that the lines between “entrepreneurship” and “social entrepreneurship” — that is, entrepreneurship that makes a social impact — often blur. Where conventional wisdom wrings its hands that social and economic problems seem increasingly unsolvable by traditional non-profit and non-governmental organizations whose funding and performance can often be unreliable, a new generation around the region sees these challenges as surmountable by profitable businesses that can self-fund and rapidly accelerate their social impact.”

Read more: allthingsd.com/20130515/entrepreneurship-and-social-impact-in-the-middle-east-business-as-unusual/

Is it too difficult to measure social impact? #Socent #Socialimpact

It can be argued that demonstrating social impact is very important, however most social entrepreneurs are not very good and showing this. While some just might not see the results for their social projects yet, others simply do not understand how to demonstrate this social impact. There are a few tools out there for organizations interested in evaluating social impact such as the Social Return on Investment (SROI) analytics model.

“Social Return on Investment is an analytic tool for measuring and accounting for a much broader concept of value, taking into account social, economic and environmental factors.”

SROI is commonly used to come up with figures for the social value (or social impact) generated by products and services, such as the example quoted by nef that: “£1 invested in high-quality residential care for children generates a social return of between £4 and £6.10.”

However, while SROI has been proven to have sound basis principles (particularly tested in the UK, which has a substantially large social enterprise market), there are many other models to test social impact. The challenge is making sure these models encompass realistic objectives in comparison to the diversity and stages of various social enterprises, and whether social entrepreneurs know how to correctly use them when measuring their businesses.

As presented in recent article in The Guardian:

Different approaches will be suitable for different social enterprises but there’s no excuse for not measuring your impact in some way. The growth in social investment and the introduction of the Public Services (Social Value) Act means that some social enterprises will be under increasing pressure to demonstrate their social impact to other funders and commissioners but that’s only part of the point.

The key issue is that, as social enterprises, we need to know what we’re trying to do and whether it’s working. If we, as people running social enterprise don’t have the time and resources to work out what we’re doing and how it’s making the world a better place, we probably don’t have the time and resources to run an organisation at all.

Overdressed, Undereducated: Lessons We Learned from Bangladesh #Ethicalfashion #Highstreetfashion

As the tragedy in the factory collapse in Bangladesh continues to unravel – we have to continue to understand the lessons we have learned. The collapse killed more than 1400 workers, injured countless others and came at the heels of a fire in another factory last year that killed 112 workers in the same country. Brands such as H&M, Zara, Espirit, Lee, Wrangler, Nike, J.C. Penny, Wal-Mart and Joe Fresh have been called out for their role on contracting work in such unsafe working conditions. As consumers, it was hard for us to connect such brands to such conditions but the truth is unavoidable.

This is a turning point for us as entrepreneurs, consumers and members of our global society. The trends need to change – fast fashion doesn’t work. Inexpensive “fast” fashion comes at the risk of workers in developing countries such as Bangladesh. While some people can only afford “fast fashion”, there are many things we can do as consumers to counteract the dangers of this trend. We need to consider alternatives to disposing clothes such as donating, refashioning, or repurposing clothes. Also, we should consider buy less clothes at higher prices (that are ethically made) or even affordable brands such as Shopnthropic.

While the world continues to understand the implications and lessons that the tragedy in Bangladesh has bought forth when it comes to the “fast fashion” trend vs. ethical fashion, we have found numerous interesting articles on the topic.

Read more about ethical fashion and how many main stream stores rate in terms of their ethical viability:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2013/may/17/ethical-shopping-high-street-fashion
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Take a look at these 2 articles below:

• Shoppers face hurdles finding ethical clothing: www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/05/05/shoppers-face-hurdles-finding-ethical-clothing/2124659/
• The Case for Ethical Fashion: www.thenation.com/article/174109/case-ethical-fashion#

[Article Round Up] Is social enterprise sustainable? #Socent #Sustainablebusiness

‘When Filipe Santos began teaching Social Enterprise at INSEAD in 2004 very few of his students had any interest in developing businesses which had a social impact. Now more than 30 percent of his students want to make a social difference. “The time is ripe for a new social impact model,” says Santos. “We see a lot of problems in developed and developing countries that are not being addressed by markets. It’s not just poverty, it’s about things breaking down around long-term unemployment, exclusion from society, healthcare. Problems that society and governments are not able to invest in. For me, social enterprise is the process of developing sustainable solutions for some of these neglected areas.”’

Read more: www.vccircle.com/news/general/2013/05/10/social-enterprise-sustainable

And if you are interested in a counter-argument, read: Why Your Social Enterprise Is Not Going to Save the World (www.csrwire.com/blog/posts/842-why-your-social-enterprise-is-not-going-to-save-the-world).

5 Things Social Enterprises Should Learn About Scale From Big Companies #Socent

“If McDonald’s can empower millions of franchise employees to make millions of perfect Big Macs a week, can a social enterprise empower hundreds of thousands to provide basic health care or education to their communities?

Of course Big Macs aren’t the same as education or health care, but here are five practices from big companies that social enterprises or NGOs more broadly could adopt to deliver the same quality of goods or services to a huge number of people in a vast array of different contexts:”

Read more:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681742/5-things-social-enterprises-should-learn-about-scale-from-big-companies