WELCOME TO YOUR 2009 FASHION LIFE.

In the US - southern Florida -- for Christmas break. All around us life swirls in ways that can only happen in America. Say what you like but this is a country with a very very deeply ingrained sense of hard work, hope, 'anything-is-possible' mentality and astonishing belief in happy endings. It seems like NYC apart, America cannot understand cynics. Of course, all this comes at a (sometimes huge) cost to individual and nation, but still, the innate positive mentality -- cranked up to full volume during the 'holidays' -- is something to ponder and, in places, admire.

So 2009 is here. Just this fact signals 2008 is over which, in itself, is cheering. Not that 2009 will be easy - nope, not at all -- but at least the deep economic pits we are most certainly going to visit will be expected...very little of the precipitous falls of 2008 were expected at all (Lehman gone in 72 hours....no one saw that coming).

Some important questions with which to look into the new year:

1) What will the relationship between money and fashion in 2009? As has been said before on these pages, fashion, ie, the desire to adorn and dress ourselves is a fundamental part of human self-expression. So we should be clear that the importance of fashion isn't going to recede because of the recession -- although we can expect a crescendo like baying from the usual naysayers who bang on about how fashion is essentially frivolous and not connected to any 'real' need etc etc. Be that as it may, the key thing to note is that, more than in a very long time and for some years ahead (at least), the relationship between money and fashion is going to be thrown into sharp relief.
Anyone who deals with fashion -- selling it, writing about it, marketing it and making it -- MUST contend with this issue. For the consumer, its not anymore just about looking good....its about looking good on a budget and this is going to reverberate all through the fashion food chain. The fashion industry will have to understand and accomodate less spendy shopping behaviour. The Guardian tells us that Chanel in Rue Cambon - that bastion of luxury and symbol of fabulous, untouchable wealth -- has cut 200 jobs as even it feels the pain of the economic downturn and that Prada advertised price cuts in the windows of its Milan boutiques (yikes!) last month. Yup, everyone's gotta re-think.

2) How to spend money on fashion when money is tight? Mindfully....that principle of conscientiousness and balance that Gautam Buddha gave us over a thousand years ago works very well anywhere you apply it. For sure. The re-working of our finances that we most definitely will feel this year should push us to purchase what we want having saved for it and to keep and wear our purchases for yonks. The good, old fashioned way to shop for our wardrobes. We need to remember the joy of waiting to get and the exhilaration of receipt.

3) Money can buy fashion, but can it buy style? No. Real, actual style is something that originates within a person, is indelibly peppered with stuff about them, feeds off individuality, evolves over time and is/can be as fresh as every new thought the individual has. None of which can be purchased.** The paucity of credit must force us to evaluate each purchase within the context of our style and be confident in this. Use the current economic situation to learn about your fashion self.

**While advisors like DeviDoll (for example) cannot decide your style for you, they very much can offer inspiration and content. In 2009 DeviDoll will take this role very very seriously, providing many opportunities for style inspiration and style experimentation...stay tuned).

There are many more questions to be sure but I thought these 3 are good to start with. And added to them a sage snippet from Cintra Wilson in the (very well written) New York Times on the first day of 2009, which (under the auspicious eye of Ganesha, Lord of Auspicious New Beginnings), I am going to use as a road map for keeping my fashion life alive in the hard economic times ahead:

"At the finish of any regrettable life episode, we invariably go back to basics to distinguish values that are real and indissoluble from those that are false and temporary. In doing so, we rediscover joys we forgot during our manic race to the dead end."

Happy New Year, indeed.

KNOW WHAT'S IN YOUR KNICKERS

Went to see the launch of Know Whats in Your Knickers at the Southbank Center last week (of course I did - DeviDoll was a sponsor!!). BBC's Verity White has made a very cool, short film that demands attention not least because it so graphically shows the ugly side of fabric production processes through the glamour of a catwalk showcasing the sexiest of lingerie....something that we have learned to associate only with positive (though sometimes naughty) adjectives....it's something we all want, its big time coveted. See the film here.

Film was good but I was perplexed by Ben 'Pants To Poverty' Ramsden's handling of it and the use of the platform it provided him to talk about ethical issues. I won't bore you with a long winded description but suffice it to say that Ben had to speak right after the film was shown (for the first time ever) and one would have thought he would mention something about the film (even if just the producer/director name). But he didn't...nothing at all. He simply launched into his own speech about poverty, labour, trade and so on....all of which was good stuff, no doubt, but seemed totally disengaged from the film, which had after all been the intro to his appearing on the stage. I think he could have done a better, more cohesive job.

Any way the film will now be shown widely in the media with plenty of events planned around it. We'll keep you posted.

THE FT MAKES A GOOD POINT

Its really satisfying to read an article in the mainstream press that focuses on the right issues on a particular ethical issue. Source of Concern in this weekend's FT satisfied me.

The key point it made, and this is one that is often lost when ethical activists demand bog-standard, black-and-white fairtrade or other certification, is that 'sanitised production' as required by ethical trade standards that are now widely demanded in the UK (among other developed countries) and which big retailers ignore at their peril (remember the outrage over Primark revelations in the summer?) can have the effect of, simply put, keeping the very poor,those that are most reliant on traditional methods/handicrafts and most unable to break socio-economic barriers to employment diversification, out of the supply chain, ie, out of a livelihood.

Thus when Primark dropped its suppliers because of labour standard violations, they were rightly chastised for throwing the baby out with the bathwater and well and truly behaving unethically. The right thing to do would have been to stick on and improve standards within the supply group they worked with (Primark countered this with the claim that they refused to work with untruthful agencies that denied subcontracting when it was actually going on, but that's pretty lame given Primark's own record of honesty was severely under question here).

The big issue that needs addressing is how to stop the more fortunate (albeit impoverished by Western standards) workers/suppliers from being the only ones who can be employed. At the end of the day, what do ethically-aware consumers in developed countries gain if a poor tailor's family outside Delhi goes hungry and even loses a child or two to sickness if they could have averted that by earning a tiny wage, no matter how abysmal the amount. Even .00001 is more than 0 and for many of the poorest workers thats where its at.

Solutions in this area require, first and foremost, an understanding of what we are trying to achieve by seeking better standards for poor labour in developing countries. I think the first 'phase' of this understanding is pretty clear now and is espoused in the principles of fairtrade, child free labour, health and sanitation requirements for workers, minimum wage and other like doctrines.

The next phase though is to look behind these terms, see the complexities and start figuring out how these are to be addressed...for eg:
--Developing country governments don't always themselves have a clear idea of what the minimum wage should be, indeed, in some cases they keep this low so that business keeps coming in. So assurances and certifications from them need scrutiny and international pressure must be applied to shine some light on what's really going on and rationalise legislation.
--We need to get past the fashionable fixation for formally certified goods. Its now almost de rigueur to pay more for these and feel good about it but the public's knowledge must be clarified. Having a certification can often mean that the supply/worker groups were well-off enough to get all the logistics done but even without the stamp of approval they would have been pretty okay and certainly much better off than less fortunate workers who couldn't afford the certificate but really needed the money more. The ethically aware public has to understand that certifications alone aren't making peoples lives better.
--There is no need for the less fortunate, less able to adhere-to-formal-logistics and less visible worker groups -- homeworkers are a great example here....their the ones that take work home rather than sit in a factory all day because they need to also look after children, livestock etc at home -- to be marginalised but this requires a lot more administrative energy and systems on the part of retailers/organisations in the developed world. This is something that will require public pressure (why would a business-minded company take this on if it could get away with certification alone?) and ultimately will cost something that must be passed on to consumers. Better to pay for this than the shiny label or stamp of approval on your next coffee purchase.

Aside from all this, what's important is that all the complexity doesn't cause exasperation which leads to frustration on the consumers' part about what they are really paying for, what good they are actually doing, when it comes to demanding better standards for foreign labour. Lately magazines have taken to publishing lists of things the credit crunch has happily rid us of (here, for example) and 'over-priced, organic goods' (or something very like that) appear fairly regularly. While this tells me that there are many ultra-shallow people who (i) don't have a clue about better products but want to blah-blah about them anyway and/or (ii) spend on better products not to save the planet/its people but to impress the neighbours, it also tells me that the whole issue of demanding better labour standards could get a bad name among consumers if it falls under the rubric of 'over-priced stuff that claims to be doing good but really isn't' type thinking. Get my drift?

The marketing strap lines of ethical consumerism aren't hard to follow, largely because, there is some intrinsic value human beings attach to doing good for others (no, its not all smug, upwardly-mobile, essentially hollow one-upmanship). But the work behind making these strap lines 'real' and not just marketing speak, is much more complicated. But it's got to be done.

DEVIDOLL GETS INTO YOUR PANTS

It's not often that you will think, whilst slipping on (or off, for that matter) your silk gossmer panties and matching brassiere , about fair trade practices and ending labour injustice. Even less likely is that you will be contemplating aspects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which on Dec. 10 this year, is 60 years old.

Well, you're going to be thinking about all this together if Eco-Boudoir (purveyor of the finest luxury lingerie all ethically sourced and produced), Pants to Poverty (through the sale of fairtrade and organic pants - yes literally - they tackle various issues in poverty eradication) and DeviDoll, along with other like-minded souls, have their way.

The short film 'KNOW WHATS IN YOUR KNICKERS' engages viewers in a dramatic walk down the runway, with front row seats to watch the show unfold. The whole thing revolves around the
environmental and ethical issues associated with creating a garment that either gets no attention at all (when was the last time you really thought hard about your grey/black/white cotton underpants?) or when it does, we're programmed to think lovely, frilly, sexy, delicate, treat, beautiful -- a plethora of terms that conjure up anything but ugly and horrid. Fact is, though, that these innocuous garments can have some pretty awful origins and journey before they end up on us...something this thought provoking film highlights.

The events planned around the debut showing of this film at the Southbank Center on Dec. 10 (if you've been paying attention you'll know why they picked that date) include dance, music, poetry and a debate/discussion about what is/can be wrong with labour rights within supply chains. Sound like a dreary topic? Well, Ben Ramsden of Pants to Poverty is presenting the debate so its likely to have much chutzpah (remember the record set in November at St. Pancras for largest gathering of people dressed only in underpants....well, it was Pants to Poverty's brainchild....ain't nothin' boring 'bout this lot).

There are campaign films and then there are campaign films...this one promises to be unforgettable. Eco-Boudoir and DeviDoll both believe that the consumption of luxury can be wholly ethical....indeed that it should be.

Watch this film and you'll get a glimpse into why.

HOW MUCH DOES ETHICS MATTER IN FASHION - A LESSON LEARNED

Those of you who receive our newsletter will know that we did our first real public, 'in-the-flesh' appearance for Boutique de Noel earlier this month. Organised by the Junior League of London, Boutique de Noel is (basically) a 1 1/2 day xmas fair made up of independant, exclusive retailers, the proceeds from which go to charity projects in the UK. Always one to throw itself at good cause (and shopping to support children and families is a pretty amazing cause), DeviDoll was honoured to included.

Happy to report that it all went swimmingly. But even more interested in reporting the lesson learned: to an un-preselected audience, in an ethical fashion colletion it's the fashion part that speaks the loudest. This may not come as a huge surprise but to see it in action was instructive. Part of the problem seems to be simple lack of knowledge -- "clothes can be made from bamboo? really?!"; but there is definitely an element of apathy -- "cashlama, huh? fairtrade? Uh...that's, uh....interesting, I guess....erm...anyway, its so soft and cheaper really than regular cashmere. I love that!"

In my mind there is no doubt that if something looks good and then it has done good en route to you, it wins over stuff that only has the former going for it. But I realize some people don't really care about the latter....it's as if its not their problem to worry about. It will take a lot more public awareness for the message to sink in that, ethically made and delivered fashion, is something we all need to think about.

Listen, I'm not complaining because DeviDoll has many customers that are not fussed about ethical but the effect of their shopping is the same as those who are -- DeviDoll is better able to support ethical fashion designers, spread the message and move forward in its aim of making a difference. I am just noting that, having stuck my head out of the eco/green/ethical fashion bubble, I realized how much is still not obvious to shoppers.

Guess we have our work cut out.