Ethical & Sustainable Fashion in the Works: Meet loom.ist
Hand-Loomed Sustainable Resort Wear, LoungeWear and Home Textiles
As Life is Style, our primary commitment to women in fashion also prioritizes the domains of sustainability and local artisanship. That is why it gives us great pride to have partnered with loom.ist, a brand-led by two influential women founders Çiğdem Toraman and Nilüfer Şener, who have started a journey dedicated to fashion transformation with a focus on elegance and ethics. Their ethically conscious and sustainable fashion brand brings together home textiles, resort wear that extends into use in the beach, bath, lounge, and home. All items are created by hand utilizing natural, hand-loomed fibers coming together from different Turkish regions. These fibers are then used to produce timeless and fresh-looking pieces that blend in extremely well with the casual and chic lifestyle.
A primary value proposition of the brand is to empower local artisans and businesses that are led by women, as well as small-scale family establishments and community cooperatives. These organizations and individuals are committed to producing extremely high-quality products that are each unique by design. The care with which they conduct their craftsmanship is awe-inspiring. Through this beautiful combination of traditional and contemporary approaches, loom.ist is fully equipped to produce sustainable incomes for local artisans, conducting their business in line with fair trade.
Meet the Founders: Çiğdem and Nilüfer
In a recent quote, Çiğdem recounts: “I remember the fabrics swinging like balloons in the rough sea wind after being washed in the Black Sea.” Having been brought up in Sile, a fisherman’s town that is located in the Northern region of Istanbul, Çiğdem’s fondest childhood memories include this special town. This village was also special for each home having its own handloom allowing for residents to weave their own fabrics. “But, over time, the women stopped weaving, and the looms slowly started to disappear. I do not want these fabrics—and the traditions behind them—to be lost. That is why it has been my dream to bring Sile fabric back to the modern world.” Her inspiration in empowering traditional approaches to fashion for clothes that can be worn in modern and casual settings has led her to found loom.ist.
Her co-founder Nilüfer, also had fond memories associated with these symbols. In a recent dialogue, Nilüfer shares: “Every corner of Turkey has beautiful textiles that have been loomed for centuries. My dream is to support the incredible women making them and introduce their work to a global market.” Nilüfer’s ambition has been the driving force behind loom.ist’s focus on uplifting local artistry, and Turkish craftsmanship, and allowing it to meet a global audience.
loom.ist is the co-brand of Ark of Crafts which is a socially capable business focused on spanning high quality Turkish customs with current living. Cigdem Toraman and Nilufer Sener—partners and companions with many years of involvement with business ventures, advertising, computerized media, and money—united to make the Ark of Crafts.
Notwithstanding modest modern items, longstanding Turkish customs are gradually kicking the bucket. However, valid Turkish products that reflect revered practices and long periods of involvement ought to be cherished—and accessible for all to appreciate. In light of this common objective, Cigdem and Nilufer set off to track down the best craftsmen from all around Turkey, assemble them on a computerized stage, and acquaint them with the world.
They went around the nation and met with copper aces, weavers, earthenware craftsmen, block-printing craftsmen, small-scale specialists, and the sky was the limit from there. In 2013, they dispatched arkofcrafts.com. In mid-2017, they dispatched their newest brand loom.ist, a fashion line for ageless and happy styles.
The organization is focused on reinvesting in the endeavor to foster new craftsman organizations and plan items that can keep on supporting the social, financial, and ecological prosperity of small-scale makers using age-old specialty strategies that have been passed down for ages.
Meet What Makes loom.ist Unique: Sile Fabric
One of the key facets that positions loom.ist as a unique global brand is its use of Sile and Muslin fabric. loom.ist products are hand-loomed through utilizing 100% organic twister curly cotton. Then, these items are washed in the saline waters of the Turkish black sea, to be later dried on the quartz sands of Sile beach. That is where the fabric takes its name, having originated in the small seaside town of Sile, Turkey. The venue is highly celebrated in line with its golden beaches, historic lighthouse, and rocky vista.
In this small seaside town, Sile Women’s Community Center was founded, prioritizing handloom processes to preserve the 150 year old tradition. The cloth produced here is made into textiles through age old hand-sewing techniques. Given the highly natural and non-industrial production process, the fabric becomes highly unique and distinctive; the process also allows for the cotton to be highly durable, yet uniquely soft, hygienic and breathable. It is time for you to immerse yourself in timeless and comfortable products led by the knowledge of Sile women, passed on through generations. loom.ist’s new Muslin collection can also generate a great addition to your closet,made from 100% Muslin cotton. Muslin is a plain-woven cotton fabric exemplifying better quality, fine texture and soft finishes.
Turkish Craftsmanship & Cotton
What Is Turkish Cotton?
Turkish cotton is great long fiber cotton grown unmistakably in the Aegean region. Like Egyptian cotton, long strands make the yarn more grounded and smoother than customary cotton. Moreover, like Egyptian cotton, Turkish cotton becomes milder and more pleasant as time goes on.
As early as the seventh century, asserted “Turkish cotton” was used by neighborhood individuals to make surfaces for dress, carpets, and various assortments. It wound up being a huge asset for their overall population and an establishment of culture. Today, Turkey addresses around 40% of the world’s regular cotton and is the world’s leading market power.
Due to the warm climate and productive soil, farmers have seen an exceptional yield of crops that was necessary for this productive dominance. For quite a while, a huge piece of the cotton made in Turkey has been hand-woven by talented laborers in neighboring homes using weaving and weaving systems gained from times of aptitude.
Exactly when the Roman Empire came to drive nearby, Turkish towels or “Pestemal” transformed into an indication of the public shower “Hammam” animated by the Roman showers of the time. At first, woven from material and bamboo strands, the cotton goes over are significantly retentive, solid, and popular. This wobbly texture was comprehensively used for a collection of purposes and progressively became famous on the water.
Sustainable Fashion – What Is It?
There’s a lot of disarray with regards to what sustainable design is, that having a far-reaching guide on the matter is central. With a carbon impression representing more than 10% of the worldwide ozone harming substance outflows, there’s no mystery that the fashion business is obliterating the climate. A change is truly necessary, from adopting more mindfulness towards manageable design practices, to playing a functioning job in rolling out an improvement.
Luckily, positive changes in the design scene are occurring; more moral brands, clients requesting sustainably-sourced dress items, and surprisingly a devoted moral apparel web crawler. However, this form of change traditionally doesn’t come simply and easily. Any change that goes amiss from the business’ financial projections is dismissed or, best case scenario, delayed.
The main sustainable arrangement is a sluggish shift from quick to a practical style, yet, without affecting funds too much. According to a few sustainable design specialists, this is the most acknowledged definition to date for sustainable fashion and design practices: “Sustainable design is a comprehensive term portraying items, cycles, exercises, and entertainers (policymakers, brands, purchasers) planning to accomplish a carbon-unbiased style industry, based on balance, civil rights, creature government assistance, and natural uprightness. “
Data refers to eco-conscious fashion as: “a development and cycle cultivating changes to items and the design framework, pushing towards more noteworthy natural respectability and civil rights. Economical design concerns something beyond tending to form materials or items. “As indicated by a review in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, sustainable design contains the following: “neighborhood sourcing and creation, straightforwardness across the production network, detectability of work cycles and unrefined substances, harmless to the ecosystem natural substances, safe working conditions, and reasonable wages.”
One of the most posed inquiries is, does the world need sustainable fashion? Put simply; yes, it does. Worldwide, there’s one vehicle of material waste unloaded at a landfill or consumed each second. This huge measure of waste is made by quick fashion organizations that dispatch week by week styles and satisfy them with low-quality modest value items.
In the examination, sustainable brands center around apparel quality items from enduring materials. In addition, maintainable style marks seldom follow quick design trends. Cheap, quick design pieces of clothing are made conceivable by unforgiving working conditions for articles of clothing laborers. Most quick-style brands produce pieces of clothing in non-industrial nations where laborers are paid under the residing wage.
Helpless wellbeing and medical issues, long working hours, and the consistent strain to deliver all establish a toxic labor climate and strenuous conditions for workers. Incessant child labour allegations have additionally been brought against fast fashion brands. In correlation, sustainable dress brands need reasonable wages and safe working conditions for all employees. Fast design has a tremendous carbon impression coming about because of material creation, assembling, transportation, and surprisingly material waste disintegrating in landfills. For instance, most quick design garments are produced using oil-based materials. When considering acrylic, nylon, and polyester, creation and removal of these items require a lot of energy. Then again, sustainable design uses biodegradable materials from regular or reused textures. These materials expect practically zero substance treatment, less energy, less water, and no pesticides or composts to grow.
The style & fashion industry is one of the biggest water buyers on the planet at present. The water is devoured for washing articles of clothing as well as during assembling, coloring, and completing cycles. Just to place that into viewpoint, it takes around 2,720 liters of water to make one cotton shirt and an incredible 7,000 liters to make one set of pants! On top of devouring water, clothing creation impacts the climate by contaminating freshwater with harmful synthetic compounds that track down their direction into streams.
In correlation, most sustainable design brands have “water spending plan” strategies that cutoff water use during attire creation. Also, sustainable design focuses on natural materials produced using cloth, hemp, and natural cotton, which expect next to zero water during the creation phase.
Animals are an indispensable piece of our biological system, each assuming a vital part in guaranteeing that Earth is livable. Thus, any danger to wildlife and other creatures’ security ought to be a worry to every one of us. Calfskin packs, shoes, fur garments, and different products produced using animal cowhide, plumes, and fleece, influence wild populaces and, subsequently, the endurance of humankind on this planet.
In correlation, sustainable dress brands secure animals by utilizing cowhide and hide choices in their items, saving wildlife from double-dealing and demise while saving the environment’s equilibrium. That is why leading brands ought to prioritize moral and fair exchange in the way that brands like loom.ist champions.
Ethical Fashion
Moral and fair-exchange exercises are identified with government assistance of individuals working in the business. That is, child labor, sexual orientation freedoms, safe working conditions, reasonable exchange assembling, and any remaining civil rights perspectives are provided.
Both “Ethical Fashion” and “Fair-exchange Fashion” can be additionally pointed dependent on the exercises led. Moral fashion organizations, activists, and brands manage individuals and their government assistance, be that psychological or physical. On the other hand, fair-exchange associations and brands guarantee the creation and upkeep of supply chains where ranchers, makers, get a decent amount of the cut in return for their items. Together, the two terms cover the financial parts of the style and fashion business. All things considered, all entertainers associated with these activities are looking for ways of integrating working conditions, wages, and reasonable exchange rehearses.
When examining “moral” by word reference, we track the meaning of moral quality and plainly restrict it from problematic data to phenomenal. While applying, you can pose the accompanying inquiries consistently: what are the ethical issues with the business of fashion? For sure, from slave work and sweatshops to commitment and sexism, there is absolutely no absence of moral worries today. The double-crosser is enormous in light of the fact that fashion exists in the current extractive and shady approach.
Despite consistent moral dilemmas surrounding the industry, there is light in the end of the tunnel. There seems to be a transition where brands are prioritizing ethics and morals in their practices, promising a more moral future for fashion. This movement involves everyone in the industry from farmers who pick cotton, to weavers who make materials, to sewing laborers who cut and sew all dresses from retailers…
While thinking about it all, it is hard to really separate individual subjects from standard subjects in the fashion industry. Everything is indistinguishably related. Natural crises straightforwardly influence the quest for people, while contamination unmistakably influences human achievement, etc. We are vital to this environment, and, thus, sustainable fashion transformation cannot be approached in a funnel focusing on either the systematic angle or the humanitarian angle.
Why is Morality Significant in Fashion?
As per a brand overview by the Clean Clothes Campaign, 93% of brands don’t pay a necessary living compensation to their workers. One more report by Fashion Revolution expresses that the figure is actually closer to 98%. This recommends that only 2-7% of sewing laborers get an adequate living compensation.
Fashion is an industry where the creator of the dress is just as essential as the CEO of the company to produce and distribute quality products. That is why fair compensation for all in the organizational chart is key. Clean Clothes Campaign reports that the ordinary pay of a female piece of clothing specialist is one-20th of the compensation needed to have a respectable existence when a laborer and her family are in question. This is generally an after effect of the way that nations have acquired the legitimately perceived lowest pay permitted by law for a standard dress, which unfortunately represents a long way from living remuneration.
In India, the greatest decrease in legal wages is 33% of living stipend. Conditions are severe in other parts of the globe too. In Bangladesh, the lowest pay permitted by law is 21% of everyday costs. In Sri Lanka, the lowest pay permitted by law is just 13% of the living compensation. Regardless, this subject can’t be separated into the Global North and Global South issues. Los Angeles represents one of the primary fashion capitals in the United States. Dress specialists in Los Angeles, for the most part, get $ 5.85 each hour. Regardless, the city has lawfully allowed a minimum wage of $ 15 every hour, while the industry workers in fashion are subject to lower compensation.
A report on Boohoo’s sweatshop in Leicester similarly uncovered a reality with regards to the circumstance on some UK designer lines. Without a doubt, this is a much more pressing issue, particularly considering the awful circumstances industry workers have to face in developing nations; wages signify an extremely critical phenomenon for proper livelihood. Fashion creators are not just horrendously scant, they are regularly neglected in crises.
Similarly, as retailers felt the effect of COVID 19 in March and April, style brands dropped colossal quantities of running dollars and shockingly shut out requests. This left behind the consideration of factories that did not have the resources to pay laborers, right now chipping away at critical edges, and brought a lot of food and asylum indulgences under attire. This is a key time for responsible brands to come together in line with moral philosophies and grant means of employment for those workers in need. loom.ist supports local craftsmanship and women, particularly living with limited socio-economic wellbeing, granting them means to support themselves and their families.
An Examination of Ethics & Morals in Fashion
Under the concept of abusive work conditions, we see over-the-top working hours, perilous conditions, and savagery. Material specialists generally need to work 10-12 hours, and surprisingly as long as 18 hours, as the cutoff time draws near, as displayed in the Clean Clothes Campaign. Laborers might even need to work seven days every week, and there are practically no special occasions on holidays. Because of the limits of independent audits and the inability to consent to laborers’ shields, it is hard to get a clear and comprehensive image of how drastic this issue is.
In any case, as the World Women’s Fund shows, 68% of Cambodian women track down hazardous patterns in the working environment, remembering a few individuals from India encountering coordinated savagery at work. 33% of Vietnamese women similarly said they work in harmful conditions in line with their health and psychological well being.
A key item under the concept of ethical fashion is the lack of intrinsic workers’ freedom. Material workers should not be construed as not experiencing these unjust situations. Many material experts are looking for production lines and brands to work, where they are seeking better wages and conditions. Most material workers require basic special privileges such as the ability to regulate or arrange better terms and pay. However, these efforts are regularly undermined.
These work problems do not occur on their own; most of the world’s fashion designers and producers are colored women, and most of the wealthiest people at the top of the design chain are white men. This is not a regular incident or a coincidence. In fact, like any other real industry, the design business is based on boundaries.
Very wealthy leaders and big investors are often seen to benefit from the craftsmanship of marginalized communities and minorities. Looking at this framework, it is not difficult to understand that there has been no major change in a country like Bangladesh since the end of expansionism. There are many articles on how fashion brands are continuing the legacy of this colonial past.
The basis of prejudice and the reality of fashion can also be seen today in advertising and internal power structures. For a long time, design magazines, brand ads, and catwalks needed good wording. The theme of diversity near the surface of the earth is also gradually changing, but this needs to be a permanent transition.
One must consider: Who is at the top of the most popular style magazines? Who sits at the top tier of the most famous style brands? Who is the CEO? Which fashion designer stands out so much that it gets noticed? Who runs the largest design retailer and decides which brands offer retirement space? According to a 15% pledge, black-led companies make up only 1.3% of all US retailers. Who is the donor for fashion initiatives? One must recount all this information to see what must be done to fully transform the fashion industry, limit the problematic nature of certain practices, for a more optimistic outlook to the future of fashion.
That future is in our hands. That is why loom.ist founders are paving the way to take leadership in the way we rediscover our approach to fashion. Bringing together key themes of empowering local artisans, prioritizing sustainable fashion, and building up from the values of ethical fashion, loom.ist should inspire the next generation of women in fashion.
