London - Away from the glitter of the catwalk and the champagne-fueled talk about hemlines and skinny models London Fashion Week has put the spotlight on ethical fashion. The six-day show, which ended Thursday, saw lively debates on its fringes about eco-friendly production, the recycling of materials and the vexed question of substandard pay for workers in developing countries.
The Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI), an organization that aims to improve earnings for workers in global supply chains, chaired a debate on "positive buying," encouraging fashion-followers to think about the link between their purchases and human rights.
Safia Minney, founder of Fairtrade fashion label People Tree urged consumers to put pressure on high street chains by buying fewer clothes.
"People should look for higher quality, ethically-produced and eco-friendly products," she told a Fashion Week event.
"We need to buy less. You have got to think where does the product end up - at worst a landfill, at best in a charity shop being reused," she said.
Minney's label, based in Shoreditch in east London, funds two schools in Nepal and Bangladesh for 600 pupils, while using artisans in India and Bangladesh to weave, embroider and print beautiful designs.
The company works with 50 Fair Trade groups in 15 countries and believes that it can help alleviate poverty through creating employment in the world's most marginalized communities.
"In the same way that Fairtrade has changed the coffee industry, change can be achieved in the fashion industry," said Minney.
"Maybe we can seduce people with how fashionable Fairtrade clothing can be," she added, presenting a colourful range of beautifully-embroidered dresses made from organic cotton and produced without the use of chemicals.
Her appeal will have been heard in the boardrooms of Britain's big fashion retailers who have recently come in for severe criticism from human rights groups and charities for failing to provide living wages for the overseas workers who make their clothes.
Retailers such as Marks & Spencer, Tesco or Gap have all been in the firing line.
Dan Rees, director of the ETI, said it was important for brands to talk openly about the challenges they faced as labour laws were being flouted.
"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that exploitation does not work in the long run," he said.
Ultimately, it was the consumer who could put pressure on companies to change the way they do business, said Rees.
"If the product is right and the message is effective, then the customer will pay more for it."
