Folktribe’s New Years Manifestations

Well, we have welcomed a new decade - a great time to reflect and an even better time to set intentions. It's been an extremely challenging beginning, witnessing the environmental devastation of the horrific bushfires and having Kel involved on the frontline of the firefighting efforts both here in the Grampians and in the Eastern areas of Victoria. Despite being busy and exhausted, we are finding more desire to continue to push change in the fashion industry, to offer better, more sustainable choices and encourage, empower and applaud conscious consumption.

Last year, we reached some major milestones we had been working towards including; producing our garments in Australia, using only upcycled fabric or pure hemp and making our pieces to order.

This year, we are setting our intentions to create a clear direction for what we'd like to achieve with Folktribe in 2020. As always, the forefront of our conversation is based around how to reduce environmental impact and how we can support environmental regeneration. We have set six exciting goals to ensure we continue to keep Folktribe in alignment with our values.

1. Transition to exclusively using hemp fabric

We're constantly going on about how amazing hemp is but seriously, it's amazing and we believe it is the most sustainable fibre in existence so this year we are planning to make the transition to exclusively using hemp fabric. If you'd like to learn more about sustainability and hemp, read here.

2. Donate to environmental charities

We believe it is so important to support organisations that are actively engaging in environmental protection and regeneration, this year we’d like to provide our customers with the choice of donating a portion of their purchase to a selection of environmental organisations.

3. Collaborate with like minded businesses

On a personal level, we love to support businesses that are doing wonderful things for sustainability and we'd love to integrate that into Folktribe so we'd love to collaborate more with businesses that are in alignment with us.

4. Build our knowledge base in our blog space

One of our greatest passions is providing open and transparent information and education about sustainable fashion, we believe that if everyone had access to the knowledge they need to make better purchase choices then that's a huge step in the right direction to reducing our impact as a society. We have already started to work on this space, you can read our blog about ethical fashion here and our favourite sustainable brands here. 

5. Explore sustainable alternatives

As you may know, we choose to create our garments so that they are fully compostable which means that things like zippers, conventional elastic and plastic buttons are off limits for us. This year, we are aiming to trial some biodegradable elastic to allow a greater opportunity for design expansion and comfort in our pieces.

6. Bring you styling tips

We are a fashion label after all! One of our foundational values is longevity which essentially means that clothing can stay in your wardrobe for many years and be worn for many different occasions, so this year we'd love to bring you styling tips of how to wear our pieces for different occasions and seasons to ensure you can buy less and buy well. 

So there we have it, that is our intention set for 2020 and given that it's getting towards the end of January already, we best get to it! Stay connected on socials or join our email list to ensure you keep up to date with us as we strive to achieve our 2020 vision.

Until next time, much love

Kel and Em x