Fair Trade Eco T-Shirts – a designers’ dilemma

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There’s a moral obligation for all t-shirt designers to try and pressure the industry, alongside the consumer, to practice business more ethically. This for me is a completely different argument to judging the conditions of the Third World from a First World perspective. Here the only people who we can blame are the t-shirt printers and textile industries of the West, which is fine and dandy with me!

Firstly, I have been looking at the business ethics of my distributors, and to be honest they leave you mostly in the dark when it comes to the whys and wherefores of both their garment manufacturers and their own printing technologies. Although I have found a solitary ethics statement from SpreadShirt who do seem to want at least appease the growing anger against unfair trading practices and environmental pollutants.

The real problem for people like me is we can only use what is out there. I used to be a Web/Graphic/Print designer, I never considered what ecological damage was done after I was paid my dues. Besides I don’t drive, I work from home on a MacBook which however much damage it may have done to the environment, it is far less than any car out there. I don’t have paperwork either. Infact the most damage I do is boil a kettle now and again. I recycle, I’d like to recycle more, I’d love to buy more unpackaged or brown paper bag packaging that can be made from wood pulp from previously recycled paper.

However now, even though I’ve hardly started, I have to consider the ethics of a new industry, where companies of great power and wealth pay my $1 commission and wash their hands of any further commitment – leaving me in a pickle. For a start the world is in recession, or just about, and people are starting to worry about their bills far more than the environment yet again, as usual everything is reduced down to a profit margin.

Whilst browsing the t-shirt news out there I came across a UK company called T Shirt & Sons – Europe’s first certified organic cotton t shirts using Fairtrade suppliers and yes ecological water-based inks for their screenprinting … I am not in a position to pay for bulk printed t-shirts nor the space to store, or budget to market, package, ship my designs. I’m not a businessman at heart, I am learning as fast as I can (for dear life), however if I could afford the independent route then I’d be stocking tees from T Shirt & Sons for all my print orders.

Instead of closing the page, I wrote a short letter congratulating Andy Lunt, the man behind this progressive and inspiring company, if there’s anyone I want to work with (one day, if my sales ever justify the costs), it would be Andy. He is totally on the right track, I’m sure as the economy recovers this market will literally explode in the faces of CafePress, SpreadShirt and others. There should be no such thing as a $9.99 designer t-shirt, but you can buy them. I am a hypocrite, I work with the enemy, I could say I am changing the old order from the inside, but I am not, I don’t have the economic clout, the reputation or business acumen to convince multi-million pound corporations to change their ways, nor the world at large, but it sticks in my throat when I think I’m contributing to the problem. Survival is an awful thing, but people have to earn a living.

I continued to write, hope he didn’t mind the pitch I sent, (we’ll see), I simply proposed his company look into creating an ethical Fairtrade/Eco t-shirt fulfillment site, as with CafePress and Spreadshirt, or Zazzle, Printfection, RedBubble, and many more, with the vital difference that his service could tap into the fast developing ethical consumer market (about time too).

I offered any help for free, regarding design and branding, I don’t expect a reply, but if I do I’ll probably sing this guy’s praises again soon! Anyway, if you’re an independent t-shirt designer who can afford to stock tees, then please do consider a better way of doing business and get your t-shirts printed at T Shirt & Sons.

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