Happy New Year!
Sorry for the rather long silence. I’ve been working at People tree in Japan for three weeks on some amazing projects. We were so busy, I only got two days off over Christmas!
Back in London now, times are exciting too. Two new people have joined our design and technical support team full time, adding energy and dynamism to the design process for our next collection. And that is not Spring Summer 2007 – that collection is at sea at the moment, to be here in time for Fairtrade Fortnight at the end of February. And it is not Autumn Winter 2007 - as that is already in production. We have just had the kick-off meeting for Spring Summer 2008!
All our products are designed to give the maximum benefits to our partners in developing countries. The more work they can do by hand, the more work we can create for them. But handweaving fabric takes a good deal more time than textile production on industrial power looms. Many of our producers are based in villages – not easily accessible cities - so getting products and samples back and forth takes is time-consuming too . As a result our lead times are LONG. Instead of the 4-6 weeks turn around of “fast fashion” production, our collections take 6-8 months to make.
At the kick-off meeting, we start by looking at the skills each group have and then we build up the designs for the next collection with that in mind – all good fun! You can see us at it in the photo!