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.