Your Garment Stories
TG2Y1MDW – The story of your Ethical Jeans for Kids
A Cotton Plant
Ladies showing us the raw cotton
Your ethical jeans have been created from handwoven denim. Denim is made up of cotton and we use cotton grown in Saurashtra, Gujarat which is in North West India. The cotton crop is sown in May & June and harvested from September to December. The cotton balls are plucked from the plant and collected in a gunny bag. Seeds from all the cotton are removed through a process called ginning. The fluffy cotton balls are then processed and turned into slivers.
Spinning on Amber Charkhas
Let’s meet one of the spinners!
Home spinner Meena Ben Parmar
“Hi! My name is Meera Ben and I am 30 years old.
I live in Rajkot and I spin from home. My spinning is educating my two children – I pay their fees every year. I enjoy this work because I can spin whenever I have time. I usually spin in the night as I have to look after my family in the day. I come here every month and give my spun yarn and get my money through fair wages. I am from the Darbar community and women are not allowed to work outside their homes, so spinning has really helped me. ”
‘‘In other workplaces, they command us -pick that up,
clean that- but here, they say, ‘‘Kem Cho*?”
Medha, another spinner, talks about why she did she choose spinning for work.
*Kem Cho is a Gujarati greeting which means ‘‘How are you’’?
Each Amber Charkha has a bit of it’s spinner’s personality with it!
Pictures of Gods and Goddesses adorn the spinning machines. Like your own customized desktop.
A spinner’s bank account pass book along with her work tools. Spinning is a means of livelihood and support to the families for all the girls who work here.
When the cotton for your ethical jeans has been spun into yarn it is bundled into units and dipped in a mordant, to make it more receptive to dyes. Then it is put into the dye. The dyes used are Azo-free and environment friendly. The bundles of yarns are rotated to ensure an even dye. Then these hanks are hung to dry. Let’s meet the family!
“Namaste! I am Chiman bhai and these are my two sons. My family has been practising dyeing since generations. We specialize in dyeing hand-spun yarn through Vat Dyes. Most of the surrounding Khadi units get their yarns dyed from us. We use Azo free dyes and maintain our quality. Khadi Denim uses Natural Indigo with hydros. We dye small quantities and do not have any harmful impact on the environment.”
W – Where Does It Come From? – Bringing it all to you…..
Hi I’m Jo Salter, the founder of Where Does It Come From? – the clothing business that brings you ethical and traceable clothes. Currently based in Ipswich, Suffolk (UK) we work closely with our partners in India to create and develop the designs to ensure that the wonderful fabrics are made into garments that will work for you and your children. We hope that finding out about how your clothes were made and the people who made them will make you love them just a little bit more…..
From idea to business launch took two years, with launch happening in June 2014. You can read more in our Blog section, including newspaper and radio coverage. It’s been wonderful to be acknowledged for our work – 2015 brought us 3rd place in the ‘Greenest Product’ category at the Suffolk Green Awards as well as being selected as a Green 100 business – the top 100 ethical businesses in East Anglia.
Thank you so much for buying from us – the more we sell the more difference we can make. We have lots of plans for new designs, new partners and new projects so stick with us and together we can change the world!
If you love your ethical jeans for kids then please head back to the product page Ethical Jeans for Kids and leave us a review – thank you so much!
