News

We're thrilled to have taken home a bronze award in the Best Eco-Fashion Brand category of the Smallish Design Awards 2017

Eco and production is part of our DNA at THE BRIGHT COMPANY, so to have that recognized by the industry and not just our customers, makes us more than a bit happy!

Welcome to our journal.

Thanks for reading. This is the first in a series of short pieces where we'll write a little something about what we're currently thinking or getting up to. Plenty of it inspired by you, our customers.

This week, 18-24^th April, is Fashion Revolution week. (Follow the link for more details.) In short, the Fashion Revolution organisation aims to:

"bring people from all over the world together to use the power of fashion to change the story for the people who make the world’s clothes and accessories." 

On 24^TH April 2013 1,134 people were killed and over 2,500 were injured when the Rana Plaza complex collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.  No one in the world deserves to work in the conditions that the workers in the Rana Plaza were subjected to, and yet I’m sure there are plenty more, and sadly worse factories out there. Undoubtedly children are still used across the world in factories. This is why we need a fashion revolution.

Our planet can’t sustain the current level of cheap 'fast fashion' clothing. In fact it has been named the second dirtiest industry (only behind oil) in the world  We need to take some more active steps to reverse this trend.

Perhaps i've got rose-tinted glasses, but "things have changed since my day as a child". Disposable fashion wasn’t ‘a thing’.  My mum made us clothes and we had one party dress each. I had many things passed down from my big sister. I remember aged about 10 my dad buying me a new (denim) shirt and it was a really big deal, I really loved it. I obviously didn’t get new clothes very often! And this was fine, I was happy and well cared for, loved, I had everything I needed. 

There is another way. Another choice. An alternative to such 'fast fashion' that exploits so many people and resources in the endless race for cheaper and cheaper clothes. We can all buy less, buy better. It’s not that hard. We don’t need to have bulging wardrobes with millions of clothes in them, that fall apart after a few washes.

It means we just need to think a little more carefully about what we're buying, where has it been made, what has it been made with. Ask the questions of the brands and retailers we buy from and get involved in the Fashion Revolution #whomademyclothes.

And ultimately let's try to reduce, re-use and recycle. So reduce the amount we buy, re-use items on siblings, cousins, friends etc and recycle them. When a garment has holes in it, patch them or re-work it into a new garment. Check out Mini Magpie for the best recycled knitwear around!

Here at The Bright Company we are very clear about ethical production. It's not something we compromise on. It’s at the core of what we do. The factories we use we know, we visit, we see the workers and they are all part of the EU, meaning their working conditions are standardised. At the moment we use only OEKO-TEX dyes to print our clothes, which means they do not have any harmful chemicals in them. We are also thrilled to say that from AW16 all our cotton will be organic. 

In the spirit of Fashion Revolution week, here is who made your clothes;