The London experience...

Yesterday I went to London.
The weather was nice, it was extremely crowded and everybody seemed to wear fur...

First I was shocked. I couldn't believe it.
Then I started to wonder... and went into the first 3 stores that I could image to sell fur fashion - Primark, Topshop, Next.

I checked the fur coats, gloves,
scarfs and caps and couldn't find any piece that was actually fur - it is all faux!

What a relief!

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Another group fighting unethical companies: PETA

PETA = People for Ethical Treatment of Animals

I'm sure everyone has seen a PETA campaign before. But what is PETA?

- It is the most famous and also largest organisation that protects animals and their rights in the world. The organisation has more than 2 million members and supporters as a lot of celebrities who are for example appearing in their campaigns.

PETA is not only active in the clothing industry where they try to stop people from buying fur but also in the food industry. The organisation tries to end the use and abuse of animals in harmfully and deadly experiments in laboratories in the food industry or in the cosmetics industry (learn more about the campaigns).

Click to see Peta Campaignes 2010

Why can Trigema operate successfully?

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Indeed this is a really good question, but the answer is not too complicated - it's the company's philosophy!

Trigema on the one hand only produces a relatively small range of garments, mainly for the sports or leisure sector and a lot of the products are unisex shaped. The clothes are very basic and casual and of course not the "latest fashion" but still everybody needs some basics... Trigema clothes are offered in a great variety of colours and the products are always affordable for the vast majority of german people. I mean the prices are more or less the same than Adidas or Nike, but they have a smaller margin on every piece because Trigema spends more money on resources and the production process. And people who care about the whole social responsibility issue might be more likely to pay the same price for Trigema clothes where they can be sure not to harm anyone by buying their products instead of purchasing Nikes garments on the other hand because their clothes are considered to be more fashionable but produced under inhumane conditions.

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In my opinion the company focusses on making profit as every other company does but they never ever lose the attitude of being responsible towards people, nature and the rest of the economy. I consider Trigema to be very different from other textile companies all around the world because of their philosophy of taking responsibility for all of their actions, processes, products and people involved in the business. The company itself might not be as profitable or valuable or fashionable as any other large fashion company but at least every member of the management and all employees can face theirselves in the mirror without being ashamed.

Doing my own research...

Hi everybody,

my online survey is limited to 10 days and it will expire on Nov, 17th. Please help me out and fill in the questionnaire. It won't take more than 5 minutes!

Thank you so much!

Start now...

A good example for ethically correct behaviour...

Trigema is a textile producing company from a city close to my home. They have about 1200 employees. The business was founded in 1919 and since than has a unique position among all german clothing companies. Trigema is a family run company eversince and during their history of nearly 100 years the company faced several recessions, but always survived. 

Nowadays Trigema is Germany's largest producer of sports- and leisure wear. 3rd generation CEO Wolfgang Grupp still keeps up the company's tradition and philosophy:

- "100% made in Germany"

- preserve Germany as a production location

- use garment suppliers only from Germany and the EU

- follow the Oeko-Tex® Standard 100

- achieve an outstanding level of social and economic responsibility

In detail this means in economical terms to use environmentally friendly production processes, run company owned power plants and reduce emissions. Besides Trigema supports local businesses and communities (by paying taxes for example) by keeping their own production in Germany.

Social responsibility can be seen in the skin kind and not chemically stressed garments, but more important in the company's attitude towards their employees.

Since 1969 there haven't been any enforced redundancies or short time work. Moreover Trigema guarantees employment to all children of their employees after they have finished education. 

A very old but still very genuine aphorism...

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."             
                                                   Plato ( 427-347 B.C.)

To proof that this thought is still adequate for our contemporary world you just have to open a newspaper or watch the latest news on TV. And there are so many "around the law" things going on that we don't know yet and that we don't want to know I suppose. It's not only the fashion industry but everything and everwhere else...