No Sweat Apparel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No Sweat Apparel is a United States-based clothing company devoted to the production and promotion of union-made, sweatshop-free clothing, shoes, and accessories.
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[edit] Production
All No Sweat products are created by independent union members in the United States, Canada, and the developing world, including Indonesia and Nicaragua.
The company boasts that it is the first "open-source" clothing manufacturer, likening itself to the open source codes of the computer world. Typically, it is nearly impossible (sometimes entirely so) to trace a particular product to the place where it was originally made. No Sweat Apparel, however, makes every attempt to show consumers exactly where its products come from as well as the working conditions they were created under.[1] A complete list of the companies used, as well as a short biography, is provided on the No Sweat Apparel website. Each item sold comes with a factsheet detailing the wages and rights afforded to the factory workers who created it.
[edit] History
The company was created in 2000 and since then has become popular worldwide. It even counts Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams, Oscar-winning screenwriter J. Larner (The Candidate), and musician Billy Bragg among its customers.
[edit] Advertising
No Sweat Apparel advertises minimally, relying instead on word-of-mouth and free product placement, but it still claimed a 750 percent increase in sales in 2005. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, there are several public transit benches with No Sweat advertisements, featuring the white hemp sneaker.
[edit] Environmental Issues
No Sweat Apparel states on their website that it believes the exploitation of humans and the environment to be "intimately related".[2] However, because people who are struggling to survive are less likely to be concerned with environmental problems, No Sweat Apparel is primarily focused on human rights issues. They do offer some ecologically responsible products, however, and claim that they will add more if demand is sufficient.
[edit] Waste Reduction
Some products are sourced through the help of Jimtex Yarns, a company which collects cotton fibres and trimmings that would normally end up in a landfill, sorts them by color, and mixes them with acrylic or polyester before providing them to ecologically sound fabric producers.[3] This reduces the amount of useful waste that would otherwise be discarded, and as the cotton is not re-dyed upon being collected, the amount of harmful chemicals used as well.
Also offered are organic t-shirts and hemp shoes.
[edit] Veganism
No Sweat Apparel is not an entirely vegan company as it sells products made from wool, fleece, and mohair, but it does offer a number of specifically vegan items.
