Garment business

This is interesting, I had long had questions about People Tree, I couldn’t believe they were making the amount of profit their profile suggested, and I suspected the deep pockets of Ms Minney and her banker husband were being explored with regularity.

Talking to people in Eco fashion over the last few years, I have heard many complaints about People Tree, and their perceived success, despite the fact that the quality wasn’t considered particularly good by those who spoke to me. Having never properly examined any people tree produce myself, I can’t comment on that.

I have however seen other firms go out of business over the last few years, shops and clothing producers. These were the people who had gone for it, stuck their necks out and taken the risks, but without any seriously big money or marketing nowse behind them.

I have watched with interest as Howies have apparently turned an economic corner, on their way to being a stable brand along side the likes of Fat Face, with high street shops in fashionable places. But Howies of course owe that in part to their relatively new owners Timberland. When I first came across Howies, I think they would have run a mile from Timberland, (maybe I’m wrong) but now they seem happy to be part of the American giant’s family.

All this is interesting and sobering for me, as I continue to explore establishing my own clothing business. It makes me glad I didn’t rush into it, and even more so now as I seem to have found a business partner who has the same heart as me, and all the logistical arrangements already in place to make a great business. But if People Tree can’t make the books balance yet in the UK (it took them eight years in Japan, still counting here) how long will it take us to do so?

And yet there is something right about it all, until we get to the point where cheap exploitative clothing is no longer the standard we measure everything else by, and we no longer think that good quality clothing made in proper conditions by fairly treated, well supported producers is ‘unaffordable’ then there is a lot of very worthwhile, even necessary work to do.