Ethical Fashion Doesn't Always Have To Suck

And it's pretty much guilt-free, too.

March 28, 2012, 10:30am

Shopping for new clothes can be pretty fun, but in a world of hyper-low wages, child labor, and other exploitative practices, often any contemplation of the fashion production process is a total bummer. A typical shopping excursion might begin innocently enough—with me jauntily making my way to the shop, eventually trying on a nice dress—but as soon as I read that Made in Bangladesh tag the stark reality hits. I'm instantly fraught with guilt and find myself haunted by images of a 7-year-old working feverishly on it in a factory on the outskirts of Dhaka.

It's gotten to the point where I've actually come to anticipate such guilt, pre-shopping, and on occasion have used this worry to justify buying designer clothes to myself—a Chloé skirt with a Made in France tag is less likely to have been made by children, to be sure. However, I do not have anything like the financial means necessary to only ever buy designer clothes. Then there's the guilt after spending an obscene amount of money on something as frivolous as clothes when people are going hungry, dying of curable diseases, or literally freezing to death because of poverty. Given all this ethical baggage, one might start to worry that almost all clothes-shopping must be inherently guilt-ridden. Thankfully, some innovative designers have taken steps to provide us with other options.

Laurence Chauvin-Buthaud launched her label LAURENCEAIRLINE in Abidjan, the former capital city of the Ivory Coast, in an effort to provide opportunities for both employment and education. The Ivory Coast is a country that has been perpetually plagued by numerous economic, humanitarian, and political crises since the 1980s—including a coup d'état in 1999 and a civil war which broke out in 2002—and wasn't exactly Switzerland before then. Education beyond basic literacy and numeracy is inaccessible to the majority of the population and LAURENCEAIRLINE's workshop also acts as a base for teaching the locals skills like pattern cutting, with Laurence herself teaching some classes. Profits from sales are then fully reinvested back into the project.

Now dually based in both Paris—where Laurence lives for part of the year—and the Ivory Coast, LAURENCEAIRLINE does not earn its title as an "ethical fashion label" by merely participating in ethical manufacturing practices—i.e., not exploiting its workers— it goes a step further by actively promoting its workers interests.

While obviously sufficient for alleviating the aforementioned guilt associated with shopping, with the rare added bonus that by buying something you're actually doing something good for the world, all this guilt alleviation doesn't count for much, unless of course the clothes are ones you'd actually want to wear. Let's be honest, most "ethical fashion" is lame. Fortunately, these clothes, with their clean geometric construction and rich wax-printed textiles, are seriously hot. The prints themselves are inspired, in part, largely by the traditional clothing worn in the Ivory Coast, though references can come from anywhere and polka dots and tartan also sneak in.

While technically menswear, I reckon the AW12 collection could easily be rocked by either sex, which is good since I'm a girl.

This fashion film was shot in Abidjan to mark LAURENCEAIRLINE's SS12 collection, and in collaboration with Under/Current magazine. PHOTOS/FILM: COURTESY OF LAURENCEAIRLINE

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Ethical Fashion Doesn't Always Have To Suck

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