22/08/2021
🪡🧵What does hand-made even mean anyway?
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The fashion and textile manufacture industry is full of these ambiguous words. For example, ‘hand made’ could still mean a sewing machine has been used, it doesn’t necessarily imply ‘hand-sewn.’ ‘Hand-crafted’ is also unregulated. And ‘machine-made’ doesn’t mean a garment has been made by robots. One is not better than the other either, but of course hand-sewing, or ‘sewn-by-hand’ takes longer and is very labour intensive, but allows for incredible attention to detail.
Hand-made on a machine is much faster, but that doesn’t mean a person needs less skill! A good sewing machinist uses a lifetime of expertise, with the efficiency and mechanical consistency and less risk of repetitive strain injury.
So, ask the questions. If your clothes say hand-made, hand-crafted, or hand-sewn, ask yourself whether the price seems reasonable in terms of the labour cost. Seek out these answers to hold the industry to account. If there is no information at all, there’s a good possibility your clothes may have been made in sweatshop conditions in a country where transparency and human rights aren’t a high priority.
That’s why we decided to create our swimwear locally in Australia, so that we could actually meet the people involved in creating our product, and be able to trust that everything is above board, and that we’re using transparent unambiguous terminology to describe how things are made.
We also use manufacturers and suppliers who are accredited by Ethical Clothing Australia - which provides us with the confidence that these issues have been addressed independently.
📸 used under licence