We recently attended an event promoting sustainability and transparency. At this event we demonstrated in particular everything we are doing to become a greener company and the steps we are taking to make this happen.
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About transparency? It seems to me that the hundreds of videos on our YouTube channel and articles on this very blog speak for themselves.
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But this article won't be about that event. I only remembered it because of a discussion I had with a "made in Portugal" fundamentalist (I support national production without fundamentalism, obviously).
And I call her a fundamentalist because she couldn't understand facts and simple logic. For this person, if it's not made in Portugal, there's exploitation. Full stop. Simple. The discussion is over. Certificates don't matter, logic doesn't matter. It's better to have Portuguese people unemployed than to create brands based on clothes that haven't been produced in Portugal since the cotton thread. She seemed to me to be a blogger who saw a documentary a while ago...
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Funnily enough, today I read this advert in one of Observador's magazines.
I confess that every time I see these titles I get itchy. And the excess could be from the title, were it not for the creator of the brand saying at one point All garments are made in Portugal, in an atelier. A génese do projeto é ser 100% português.
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It's ruined, I'm sorry. I won't go on at length, with the exception of posing a few questions to all readers.
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WHERE IN PORTUGAL DOES COTTON GROW?
I reply. We don't produce cotton in Portugal. In fact, the biggest cotton producers are the USA (mostly for their own production) and the bogeymen of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. It has something to do with the weather, I'm told.
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DO MOST GARMENT MANUFACTURERS WORK WITH COTTON OR FABRIC?
I reply. I'm sorry, but that imaginary part of Portugal where the cotton comes from also works it in most cases and turns it into fabric before exporting it to the Portugal we know, where the clothes made in Portugal are actually produced.
There are honourable exceptions, it must be said, and we have people in Portugal who work the yarn incredibly well. But they're the minority, let's be honest.
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HOW CAN WE SAY IT'S 100 PER CENT NATIONAL IF THE RAW MATERIALS AREN'T NATIONAL?
I reply. We can't.
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SO BEING PRODUCED IN PORTUGAL OR BANGLADESH IS THE SAME? DON'T SUPPORT WHAT IS PORTUGUESE?
That's not what I said. I will always support what is Portuguese and what is made in Portugal. But you have to think, you have to know the market and you have to know what you're buying. We will NEVER buy 100% national clothing because the raw material is not Portuguese. We don't grow 1cm of cotton in Portugal and that's a fact.
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What bothers me is the misleading advertising.
What bothers me is turning Asia into a demon when there are projects being produced there that have value and that lift hundreds/thousands of people out of poverty and give them living conditions they would never dream of having otherwise.
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All Made works in Haiti providing living and working conditions for orphans, lifting them out of extreme poverty and an almost unbreakable cycle, generation after generation.
TH Clothes works with AMI to build schools.
Mukua has its own production in Africa.
Sol's has its own factories where it guarantees the working conditions of its employees and does not rely on outsourcing.
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And all of these - and several other brands - have internationally recognised certifications that are renewed regularly (which means they are inspected) to ensure that they meet and exceed all European standards for safety and working conditions.
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Does fast fashion have examples that we should NOT follow? There's no doubt about it! We should stay away from large chain shops whenever possible. Abolish it completely? I'm not a fundamentalist and I don't think the police would find it funny to walk down the street naked.
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