Winner of two Re:Fashion Awards

What an incredible evening we had last night! Shoreditch Town Hall was the setting for the very glamorous Re:Fashion Awards, the world's first awards dedicated to ethical fashion.

I really hadn't expected to win - and certainly not to win two awards! The list of finalists was impressive (Pachacuti was up against the likes of People Tree and Pants to Poverty) and there are so many of the finalists who didn't win but have made such a significant contribution to ethical fashion, such as Junky Styling. Walking away with two awards - Re:Business and Re:People - on the night was amazing recognition of the integrity of Pachacuti as a fair trade, sustainable fashion brand. I feel so honoured to have received such a high level acknowledgment of my work as one of the very first pioneers in the world of ethical fashion and also the current groundbreaking work we are doing in the pilot for the new standard on fair trade, sustainable product certification. It really is a very exciting time for all of us at Pachacuti!

In the past, we have often felt that being out of the fashion epicentre of London works against our business; somehow the idea that you can't have a credible fashion label based in rural Derbyshire. I think that these two awards have catapulted us into the spotlight as so many people hadn't heard of Pachacuti, although they have probably seen a lot of clothing and accessories which are own-labelled for major retailers without being conscious of the fact that they are produced by us.

The Re:Business Award was the first of the night and when Pachacuti was announced as the winner I just about leapt out of my chair in excitement. However, when I went forward to collect the award, there was no obvious way to reach the stage and when Mark and I looked up, the award had been taken off the stage. We went back to our seats and thought that it was a bit odd that the awards weren't actually being presented to the winners. As the shortlist for the Re:People Awards was being announced, I was told to go around to the backstage area to receive my award and so missed the actual announcement about the winner of the next category. I went onto the stage expecting to now receive my Re:Business Award and was confused to receive the People Award instead - a beautiful, giant recycled glass construction. We came off stage and mentioned to one of the organisers that we had been given the wrong award. It was only when I got back to our table and asked who had won the Re:People Award as we had missed it, that we were told that we had in fact won that as well! It just had never crossed my mind as I had thought that People Tree would undoubtedly win the People Award. So I left clutching two huge, and rather fragile, glass trophies which we will exhibit with great pride in our shop window.

I really hope that winning this award will raise Pachacuti's profile and that this will, in turn, result in more orders for our producer groups. Having just returned from South America, the one thing every group wanted was more work and so I hope that, through these two awards, our clothing and accessories will become known to a wider audience.

Re:Fashion Awards Finalist

The RE:Fashion Awards are the first awards dedicated to ethical fashion and I am very pleased to have been selected as a finalist in two categories, Re:People and Re:Business. The awards are designed to recognise designers and manufacturers who are making the fashion industry more ethical and sustainable through improving social and environmental standards.

The judging panel includes Katharine Hamnett, Hilary Alexander and Jane Shepherdson. It sounds as if it will be a very glamorous evening culminating in a fashion show featuring outfits by Vivienne Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, Preen and more.

Having spent the past three weeks in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia carrying out a busy schedule of producer workshops to analyse and improve ethical and environmental standards with our producers, I certainly feel that the nomination has come at a very appropriate time. We are carrying out the pilot for the Sustainable Fair Trade Management System which will certify the production process, as opposed to the current label on the raw materials. As such, we have worked with each producer group to look at issues ranging from a fair price to health and safety to recycling of waste.

The findings were fascinating and we have strengthened the relationship with our producer groups as a result. In addition, we now have an action plan for the next year, both for ourselves and each producer group, in order to improve any areas where we have identified the need for improvement. This has ranged from undertaking to pay for sight tests and finding charities providing reduced price glasses for the embroiderers of our childrenswear to looking into the creation of a Spring/Summer range of alpaca/silk knitwear for 2010 as many of our knitters desperately need more work in the early Spring.

On the whole, we were incredibly impressed by all of our producer groups and their commitment to Fair Trade values and environmental compliance. Whilst carrying out an Eco Map of our panama hat associations premises, we found they had recently installed a complete water recycling system to re-use all water used in the production process. In Bolivia, our natural dye group had a solar water heater waiting to be installed.

The most common problems were probably the most easy to address: health issues resulting from workers not wearing face masks, which in most cases they possessed but they didn't like wearing them!

We worked with several of the groups to look at their pricing policy, calculating everything from the cost of raw materials to the minimum wage for everyone involved in the production process down to final cent for the bag to deliver the goods to the shipper. It was very rewarding to hear from groups about how excited they were to have a Pachacuti order as they knew they would earn more money.

However, there is still a lot more to do and many more of our producers who, although paid a good price for the items they make for us, are just not making the volume of products to earn a good living. Despite the economic gloom, I know that the clothing and accessories we make sell incredibly well for us and for our trade customers - I just need to find more outlets for their beautiful products so that I can keep these women in year round employment, supporting their families and strengthening their communities.