Adili is the Swahili word for 'ethical and just' and Adili feature men's clothes, women’s clothes and children’s clothes and clothing accessories. As a company Adili believes that it is possible for fashion to be both stylish and made in an ethical and just way; in a way that gives rather than takes from people and the planet; in a way that upholds the dignity of those along the supply chain.

There are organisations, initiatives and companies showing that trade can be done differently, that working in fashion can have dignity, can respect the world around us and can be a way for individuals and communities to trade their way out of poverty, to save fast-disappearing skills, to gain new ones and to have the resources to educate their children.

Some brands trade fairly and directly with producers while others have a focus on the environmental cost of growing and producing fibre and fabric. Some brands achieve both these objectives and many aspire to. Adili showcases these pioneering brands which are tackling head on one or more of the ethical issues involved in fashion production.

It is a challenge. Growing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, stitching, embroidering, printing... a garment passes through many places and many hands before it ends up in our wardrobes. Adili has developed a framework of the ethical issues that arise in the fashion industry and the various ways these can be addressed. Each brand is evaluated against this framework before it can be considered as a supplier of ethical fashion. All of the Adili suppliers must clearly demonstrate against defined criteria how they are ensuring their production is ethical and just.

Many of the Adili brands have also achieved, or are working towards, external certification that provides an independent assurance that they are actually implementing and living up to their stated ethical ideals. For example:

• organic certifiers check the farming and also the flow of goods to ensure that the cotton in, say, your t-shirt actually came from an organic farm;
• IFAT, the International Fair Trade Association, holds its members to account to check they are actually trading fairly with their suppliers; and
• Fairtrade Labelling provides an independent guarantee that the cotton farmers got a fair deal.

The Adili team is not just passionate about these issues, but also has professional experience in this sector and, in particular, in the management of ethical supply chains.

Adili - demonstrating that fashion can be stylish and ethical!

Fashion can be a dirty business!

• Seven tablespoons of chemicals are used to grow enough cotton to make just one t-shirt. Conventional cotton represents 3% of the world's crops, yet uses 25% of all insecticides and 10% of all pesticides. The chemical residue can still be present in our clothing so 'pure cotton' clothing is often anything but. And it's not just the environment that suffers, the chemicals poison the farmers and the cost of buying them leads to debt.
  Pesticide Action Network
• Over 14 million tonnes of synthetic fibre are produced each year - a massive increase from almost nothing 50 years' ago. Synthetic clothing is made from oil: an unrenewable resource that pollutes as it is extracted and never rots away.
  CIRFS [International Rayon and Synthetic Fibres Committee]
• Fibre is spun into yarn, yarn woven into fabric and fabric made into clothes in factories spread out across the globe. A garment, in the process of being made, may have been shipped and flown to three, four or even more countries leaving behind a toxic trail of energy consumption and polluting waste.
• The dye industry is listed in India's 'hyper red' category reserved for the seventeen most polluting industries in the country where it lies alongside the oil, cement and steel industries.
• The 40 million workers, mainly women, in the global garment and textile trade are the ones that pay the price for our love of cheap clothing and fast fashion: long hours, poor wages, unsafe working conditions, no industrial representation, abuse, harassment, discrimination... sweatshop conditions are well documented.
• On average garment industry workers receive just 0.5% of the retail cost of clothes sold in the high street.
  Labour behind the Label
• Small scale producers and traditional artisans are also losing out. 12 million people live by handloom weaving in India - the largest industry after farming. But now in many areas three out of four looms stand still, their owners sliding ever deeper into poverty and debt.
  BBC News Report Sept 05
• The problems don't end when a garment has been made. In the UK alone more than one million tonnes of textiles are thrown away every year.
  Dr. J. Parfitt, WRAP, December 2002

But it doesn't have to be this way:

There are pioneering brands addressing one or more of these issues, showing that ethical fashion is possible.

• Brands that use organic cotton - kinder to the environment and the farmer.
• Brands that trade fairly with small producers - supporting artisanal production, using the garment trade to overcome, not contribute to, poverty.
• Brands that use alternative natural fibres: hemp, silk, nettle, flax - thus reducing the dependence on cotton and synthetics.
• Brands that use recycled textiles and clothing - reducing our waste and saving the energy needed to create new materials.

Adili showcases these pioneering brands which are tackling head on one or more of the ethical issues involved in fashion production. Adili - demonstrating that fashion can be stylish and ethical!!