Giving Compass' Take:

• Elisha Brown, writing for The Atlantic, interviews Harper Poe, founder of Proud Mary Global Textiles, about her trajectory in ethical fashion and her beliefs on the direction of the industry. 

• How can donors identify opportunities to support ethical fashion? How does social entrepreneurship support the ethical fashion movement?

• Here are five traits of truly sustainable and ethical brands.

In a world of fast fashion, sustainable-fashion brands tout their dedication to transparent and ethical production. While goods from these companies can be expensive, the goal is to pay producers a living wage while creating fashionable, high-quality clothing.

The idea is that Proud Mary is a business-to-business relationship. A lot of people are like, “We’re empowering women.” That’s awesome, but there’s something wrong with that. When you say you’re empowering someone else, that’s insinuating that you have the power, and you’re saying, “Oh, I’ll give you some of my power.” But the artisans who are making these products—I can’t weave like that, I can’t make that embroidery—they already have a lot of power. We wouldn’t be in business if it wasn’t for these artists.

Conscious consumerism has come a long way, but there's a long way to go. We’re at risk of exploiting some of the producers and some of the artisans, from a marketing standpoint. I fear that terms like “ethical fashion,” “artisan-made,” “empowering women,” all those buzzwords, people are not going to think about the women—which could be a bit dangerous. The brands that are doing this work should be honest and informative, not overzealous in using another person’s story to sell their products.

I had listened to the news, but knowing people in a place, understanding their point of view and why things are happening, changed the game for me. Some of our artisans’ spouses were killed in the war. Since then, the security situation has deteriorated. A lot of artisans we were working with there don’t really have an outlet for their products anymore.

Terms like “ethical fashion,” “artisan-made,” “empowering women,” all those buzzwords, people are not going to think about the women—which could be a bit dangerous. The brands that are doing this work should be honest and informative, not overzealous in using another person’s story to sell their products.

Conscious consumerism has come a long way, but there's a long way to go.

Read the full article about ethical fashion by Elisha Brown at The Atlantic.