LightningFast.com - T-Shirts That Save Lives

A mission statement from Steve Savides at LightningFast.com:-

“When you buy a T-shirt, what do you get? A bit of warmth? A bit of cool? How about real change? When you buy Lightning Fast clothing, you’re helping transform communities. That’s because we channel 50% of our profits into projects that are proven in helping children and families escape a cycle of poverty. At Lightning Fast, we’re about combining the love of cool with the love of change. It’s a virtuous circle. You get great design on organic, fairly traded clothes. And people from Romania to Swaziland to South Africa, UK, are given a hand to build sustainable lives.” Read more

Five Humans On Sale Now!

Don’t worry I’m not featuring a secret sale of human slaves, this is just a quick mention for the charitable t-shirt store FiveHumans.com who are running an end of summer sale and offering a generous 15% off all their t-shirts, especially when you consider they already donate 10% of their profits to charity! Sale runs from Sept 5th – Sept 14th. Read more

Three Cheers for Eco Gear!

I’ve featured ecological t-shirt sites at Buy Tees before, but Canadian-based Eco-Gear.ca has to be the most ethical and ecologically aware t-shirt manufacturer and printer in the world. I was going to wait until I’d collated a few more sources for organic t-shirt suppliers/printers because I’ve had a few requests for more lists, but I couldn’t let this wait.

Here’s a quick rundown of Ecogear’s amazing ethical and environmental credentials:

- recycled materials in pre-consumer cotton clippings and recycled water bottles( 65% cotton and 35% recycled PET )
- least water and energy needed to produce the fabric
- no bleach or dyes used. Their colours are from the first life cotton clippings.
- no land use for agriculture or need for deforestation
- for their printing processes, instead of being back end conscious and filtering all wastes, they are front end conscious and only use dyes that are either organic or water based.No PVC, pthalates or APEOs.

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Ethical T-Shirts Supporting Communities Worldwide

I’m going to feature a few t-shirt stores that stretch their budget just that little bit further than your usual label. Over the last few years more and more charities, progressive arts communities and even businesses have realised exactly how powerful t-shirt fashions can be when you have a good cause or message to propagate. I include businesses in the mix because they too know it makes sense to align themselves with worthier pursuits than the mere accumulation of wealth and power. The consumer is more savvy than ever, the choice they face, especially when shopping online is almost insurmountable. Charities used to sell second-hand goods for pennies in most rundown high streets throughout the eighties and nineties here in the UK.

Things have moved on and nowadays you’ll find many major charities have branched out into all sorts of merchandising. Forget Christmas cards and gift tags, we’re talking desirable bang up-to-date underground fashion here, not smelly old sweaters and handbags in a bargain bin, you could almost say that the idea of charity itself has become fashionable. We’ve moved a long way since those first Live Aid t-shirts of the eighties, not everything can be summed up in a slogan and some of the following sites may offer you a surprise or two, think glamour on a budget, subtle persuasion, and a growing underground appeal and you’re halfway there. Read more