Europe

Update from London

For those of you not based in London or one of the UK cities that were affected you will have seen the events of the last week on TV and in the papers. It’s been a challenging time but things have started to calm down and we are all very much hoping for peaceful weeks ahead. At People Tree we were very lucky and largely uneffected but thousands across London were and it was shocking to see peoples homes, community centres and businesses – often family run and sometimes decades old reduced to nothing in an evening.

Despite all of the shocking images though there have also been remarkable, uplifting stories from local communities rallying together to protect their livilihoods and help clear up. You might have seen the below picture as it’s been widely used across the web, but for me it really demonstrates the willingness and resourcefulness of people to make a situation better and look out for each other. Well done London!

I’ve also been really excited about the ‘Save our Shops’ chat. We should be supporting local shops and especially the ones that are struggling after looting and vandalism!

Andrew Bayles' Broom Army

People Tree shoots it’s catalogue at Vintage Festival, London

Tom Price and Sosheba Griffiths modell next years People Tree summer collection

Tom Price and Sosheba Griffiths model next years People Tree summer collection

Wayne Hemmingway – co-founder of Vintage Festival has always been a big supporter of People Tree. He welcomed us back to Vintage Festival at the South Bank to shoot again this year for our catalogue. The Royal Festival Hall were excited to host Vintage as part of the “Festival of Britain” to celebrate culture, art and music. 100s of Vintage clothing stands, great British food, film, arts and amazingly well dress people. I’ll be uploading my style and event edits soon and photos from the live music I saw too!

Miki Alcalde assits me on the shoot, thank you!

Miki Alcalde assists me on the shoot, thank you!

Watch our video on you tube to hear what Vintage goers think about Fast Fashion and style.

Thanks so much for all the team who helped including Steph and Bryony who coordinated and planned the shoot with stylist Alicja Jasnikowska and make up artist Abi Johnson. Jerome helped out on lighting, Miki Alcalde assisted me with the photography – thanks everyone!

Jerome Minney helps out on lighting

The lovely Steph looking after the new Spring Summer 2012 product

Jerome gives his mum an energy boosting hug - only 20 more shots to go!

The bake off!

On Friday we were very sad to see our lovely Buyers Assistant Julia leave People Tree. She’s off to South Africa for an exciting new life and to celebrate her time with us we held a bake off.

Jenny adds some finishing touches to her creation

The bakers - what a spread!

Let's eat! The very serious task of judging begins

Turns out we’re a little competitive when it comes to cake, the design room in particular made a tremendous effort and swept the board with the medals, but everyones contributions were wonderful. Well done everyone, perhaps we should do this every week!

Everyone did so well but here are the winning five, well done ladies excellent work.

Everyone did so well but here are the winning four, well done ladies excellent work.

Bye bye Julia, we'll miss you!

From Lands End to John O Groats

Freddie set's out

Our friend Freddie left the South London suburbs yesterday to get a train down to Lands End. He’s cycling all the way up to Jon O Groats and People Tree are his clothing sponsor for the ride. We love Freddie, he’s so clever. His view on cycling clothes is that they should be comfy and not synthetic and we agree!

Safe travels Freddie!

Meeting Vivienne Westwood

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The first thing Vivienne and her husband compliment me on is my 100% Fair Trade and organic cotton dress. It’s a collaboration that we did with Eley Kishimoto, the masters of print and I love it because it’s so fitted.
I met Vivienne yesterday, at her studio in Battersea to interview her for my new book Naked Fashion. She is incredibly beautiful up close and when she looks at you she really listens, sometimes biting her finger in concentration.
She’s even more preachy than me believe it or not! – You can’t stop her mid sentence. She’s not only one of the most amazing fashion designers of our time, she’s also a passionate environmentalist, campaigning to stop climate change chaos. She’s wearing a beautiful 1950s silhouette dress when I meet her and talks passionately about how we’ve forgotten how to dress.
After asking her two questions, she can’t stop herself and asks me a dozen questions about Fair Trade – how it works, how many farmers and artisans we provide work for? When I tell her 3800 she’s impressed.

She’s also madly passionate about handicraft and how it brings people together with a sense of community, shared belonging and pride. At this point she asks if I’ve read her manifesto – I said I had, but was too shy to add that I wasn’t sure that I’d entirely understood it, though I’d welcome a couple of days to talk with her about life, the universe and everything – with a sprinkle of fashion thrown in! She could be my new best friend but that’s because I like strong women who speak their mind, tell you when your button’s undone and share their tips for success!

Naked Fashion will be published in September 2011 with New Internationalist.

People Tree Teepee – adventures on the Autumn Winter 2011 photoshoot

Jon, Jerome and Amrnad infront of the PT teepee!

Jon, Jerome and Armand in front of the People Tree teepee!

We’re in the South of France this week shooting our Autumn Winter 2011 catalogue – up and out of Carole’s wonderful gite by 6.50am to catch the best light – its so beautiful but absolutely freezing that early!

As usual the People Tree photography team are on fine form – Jonathon Rose assisting me on the photography, Gemma on styling, Gail on hair and make up and not forgetting Armand whose capturing the lot on video! And the gorgeous models Paulina, Hannah, Yuri and Jay of course. We had a slight crisis yesterday when my camera decided to give up, fortunately it was only a temporary glitch, easily solved by some new leads – phew!

Mustn’t forget to thank the People Tree Head Office team too who are working hard behind the scenes – Bryony, Jerome and Hiroe from our Japan team. It’s great fun but hard work as usual with lots of long days and not quite the three hour siesta-style lunch breaks that the team were hoping for!

Can’t wait to show you the pics!

London Fashion Week – February 2011

I’ve been running around at London Fashion Week. We loved the Bora Aksu show for AW11– gorgeous separates.

My favourite green blouse from Bora Aksu's show

My favourite green silk blouse from Bora Aksu's show

An impressive front row at Bora

Then off to see Orla Kiely’s AW11 presentation and film – really prim and 60s gorgeous.

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There were a great group of customers, friends and fashion bloggers.

Orla turned the place into a forest with dried out trees with stuffed birds – lots of dead birds in London Fashion Week this season Orla’s were in good taste but not sure about those dead crow hats!

Safia’s Sustainable Christmas shopping?

Some of us fix a limit on how much we can spend on each other – forcing us to be more innovative and creative. We’ve never formalised that rule in my family but my favourite Christmas present last year was definitely my brother’s chutney – (imagine a doctor with two small children who makes time to make chutney! – so cool!). Anyway my mate Andrew the Jamaican taxi driver filled me with the joy of buying and stockpiling for Christmas and I realised I hadn’t started anything… I like getting excited about what I’m going to give people, rarely find it a pressure and well if I hide away special organic Christmas food it’s more likely to be me raiding the special box in the middle of the night than my teenagers!

So this Saturday – aside from my People Tree Fair Trade presents, Natalie my 14 year old daughter and I set out in South London to find things that would bring a smile to her grandmother’s face – that’s where we’re all spending Christmas. I find a hip flask, some second hand records and some gorgeous second hand shoes – completely impractical for my Yorkshire Xmas, maybe People Tree Christmas party though!

Local charity shop - a treasure trove of fun!

I find some cute junk jewellery and purses for my nieces

Here are a few of my Christmas present rules -

Rule 1. Never buy plastic and non-biodegradable. You can only buy plastic if it’s from a charity shop and recycled. (I buy a football hat game – where you chuck a ball at someone’s hat the ball attaches itself with Velcro to the unfortunate persons head!)

Rule 2. If you buy new, buy Fair Trade and organic! I’ve bought friends good organic wine and other foods and consumables – I want to make mince pies – veggie of course. I’ll treat everyone at People Tree’s Christmas sample sale on 10^th/11^th December – so come along! Homemade rules – so save those jars!

Rule 3. Buying ethical fashion can mean, buying Fair Trade or second hand (or vintage I you have a bit more money to spend). I’ve bought my Mum a gorgeous silk dress that I’ve been imagining she’ll wear on Christmas Day – glamorous and colourful.

Rule 4. Don’t forget the important things – it’s different depending on your age, my teenagers want a drum kit on eBay for £100, my mum wants to see her grandchildren more than anything for Christmas – and all I want is a good long bubble bath (organic bubbles please!) and 2 days off to cook together and drink red wine.

Rule 5. Don’t spend money, only spend time!

5th Year anniversary of Fair Trade cotton – and a photo launch to mark it!

Me and Trevor Leighton at the Fairtrade foundation launch

Trevor Leighton photographed 12 celebrities wearing Fair Trade Fashion – (frankly speaking I didn’t recognise one People Tree product there – even though the stylist was sent more than 20 pieces!) Anyway … I love his last campaign where he shot Anita Roddick with a pineapple in her mouth to promote Fair Trade foods.

I was asked to give a short speech after Elizabeth Day from the Guardian who told the audience of 200 - half inebriated on Fair Trade wine - supporters about life in Mali, West Africa for cotton farmers. Fairtrade Foundation have released their report – The Great Cotton Stitch-up which says what we activists have been saying for years that 3 billion dollars a year of US and EU subsidy to cotton farmers, reduces the world price of cotton making West African farmers 10% poorer than they would otherwise be. Fair Trade cotton in Mali has helped more than 90% of cotton farmers go to school when less than 40% usually can. A very well presented report: The Great Cotton Stitch Up – read it online.

My favourite photo from Mali of Moussa Doumbia

Fair Trade Fashion Pioneers.

In my talk I discussed that People Tree and other Fair Trade fashion pioneers had found an alternative to fast fashion – the human and natural world exploitative model of fashion that has spread now to every corner of the world. I told, stage by stage, how differently we work with farmer and artisans and asked the audience to ‘imagine’ a new fashion industry based on those principals. I also introduced other pioneer fairtrade clothing brands: Epona, Pants to Poverty, Gossypium, Pachacuti and Fairly Covered who together with People Tree make up a strong voice to change our fashion industry. We are also demanding that VAT (20% in the UK from January 2011) should be dropped on Fair Trade clothing.

The Vega girls

Alice wears a People Tree Richard Nicol shirt

No time to change the world. Mike Gidney of Fairtrade foundation and James of People Tree discuss

Mike Gidney of Fairtrade foundation and James of People Tree discuss how to change the world

Laura Bailey shows us how it's done - Deb and I are out of practice

Laura Bailey shows us how it's done! Debs and I are out of practice

After the event, the ‘Fashion Fair Trade 100’ dinner, we discussed how to change the world through Fair Trade and fashion

After the event, the ‘Fashion Fair Trade 100’ dinner, we discussed how to change the world through Fair Trade and fashion.

Me and Abi of Gossypium

Cute PT babes, Sarah and Kate wear People Tree:)

Bora Aksu Fashion Show

I just got back from Bora Aksu’s SS11 show and it was gorgeous!

He named the collection “Ants & Corsets,” inspired by a colony of ants he saw a summers’ day. He was intrigued by the patterns they made and discovered that their body shapes were similar to the silhouettes of the 50’s with slim waists and corsets. He combined this inspiration for his collection beautifully with his romantic style. I loved it!