Being human, you’ll know how difficult it is to be perfect, and how much effort it takes to even try. Just doing one thing completely perfectly is a huge challenge. So, putting yourself in better thinking’s shoes when we undertook a project to create the perfect t-shirt, you can imagine how daunted we felt. Especially if, like our team, you’d had no experience of the textiles industry before you began.
The team’s process involved listing all the stages of making a t-shirt, working out how each could be altered to be as environmentally and socially responsible as possible, whilst still achieving the high quality you’d expect from some of the world’s best clothing manufacturers. One aspect of the project involved setting up a dedicated website, inviting people (industry professionals and concerned customers alike) to share what they knew, fast-tracking the team’s knowledge of eco-textiles beyond the standard of those working in the industry full-time. “We set up a forum to encourage discussion and debate, alongside the blog we’re writing,” says Cate Trotter, a lead member of the t-shirt making team. “In the blog we often write about the issues we’re tackling and what we find confusing, whilst encouraging people to get in touch and offer their opinion. The forum made it even easier for people to contribute their views and knowledge, as well as telling us the issues our potential customers value most. It certainly hasn’t been our sole source of our information, but it’s definitely been a huge help.”
As well as information gathering, the site’s helped to keep people onside. “I think people find it really easy to be overly critical about companies that are trying to do the right thing,” Cate says. “If a company makes itself a bit greener, people often think they could have gone further, when in actual fact the company may have explored that option, but for some reason it just wasn’t viable. By involving everyone at every stage in the development process, always asking to hear about better ways to do things, we’ve avoided a lot of unfair and uninformed criticism.”
The project has been brave enough to publish the criticism it has received as well. “Every comment was uploaded, and we created a special page for the 2,500 word response we got from one supporter of organic cotton. The project’s much more robust because we always make sure we take every issue raised into account.”
Overall, though, the project’s been well received, getting an average of 65,000 hits a month. “I think people can see we’re doing something really different and special, and that’s really captured their imaginations. We’ve had industry professionals from GAP and Timberland get in touch with some really positive comments, and a teacher up in Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, told us she’d based an entire wall display on the project to help her 700 students get to grips with some of the issues. The forum received comments from Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Barcelona, Michigan, Bangalore… it was really exciting. It was really funny at times too – we had one comment pleading ‘‘I AM IN NEED OF A PERFECT T-SHIRT!!! I NEED A PERFECT T-SHIRT!!!’’. It really spurs you on when you’re feeling a bit confused and overwhelmed,” she says, smiling.
“I think the site’s also been so successful because it’s not just there to sell something. As well as everything we’ve posted on the blog, people can download our report on environmentally friendly dyeing. A lot of students have found it really helpful, as have a number of professionals in the textiles industry, whether they work for a company that’s known for its ethics or not. It’s also inspired some interesting posts on other people’s blogs.”
“I think by involving everyone in the process so much we seem less like a faceless company and more like a group of real people trying to be successful but at the same time trying to do the right thing,” she continues. “It’s easier for people to identify with, and this makes its story more interesting, and this should make the project more popular.” And it’s expected that this popularity will boost sales when the shirt comes to fruition. “It’s likely that some of the people who’ve taken an interest will support us by buying the t-shirts when they’re finished – we’ll have a market there waiting for us. It’s a privilege few companies have, especially if they’ve never brought a product to market before.”
And of course, with continued feedback, the end product will be even better, boosting sales further. “It’s given us a solid understanding of the ethical considerations that people are most concerned about, as well as the kind of design features that they want. We had one guy saying his perfect t-shirt wouldn’t have an itchy tag. This kind of detail sounds obvious, but it could be easily overlooked – especially in a process like ours that’s more frequently concerned with the bigger picture. But for us, we’re not that interested in selling huge quantities of t-shirts – we just want to sell enough to show other manufacturers that you can make a profit no matter how high your ethical standards are.”
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Ben |
