Artisanal Fabric Sourcing with Jackie Corlett

Are corporations doing enough to combat greenwashing? 

We talk about the secrets of building sustainable, ethical supply chains in Bangladesh with textile designer Jackie Corlett. As a seasoned expert in the fair trade sector, she shares invaluable insights into sourcing artisanal fabrics and the importance of relationship-building between suppliers and designers. Learn about the complexities of labor, price negotiations, and living wages, and how to navigate these challenges to form successful, ethical partnerships. Jackie also introduces her innovative initiatives, such as workshops aimed at educating designers in the US and Europe on sustainable fabric sourcing and design, with the goal of increasing the prevalence of fair trade products in the market.

Always growing.

Benno Duenkelsbuehler

CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN

reALIGNforResults.com

benno@realignforresults.com

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Hey, welcome to the Third Growth Officer podcast, where we talk about all things growth, yes, even and especially those hard parts where you shed some skin and pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Hey, I'm Benno Dunkelspüler, growth Sherpa and OG hashtag growth nerd. We're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside the business, one TGO episode at a time.

Speaker 2 0:33

Hi, I'm Jackie Corlett and I'm a textile designer working together with Hand Weavers in Bangladesh. However, right now I'm located in central Illinois.

Speaker 1 0:46

Welcome to Third Growth Option Podcast, Jackie. I am Benno, the host of this podcast, and I'm really looking forward to having a conversation. Learning, really, number one. You have tremendous experience on the supply side sourcing. You've lived in India for many years and you know, I think listeners can learn a lot about this sourcing supply side. I want to talk a little bit about the interesting work you're doing on the demand side, working with designers in the US and Europe, working with designers in the US and Europe and then kind of wrap things up with, hopefully, some ideas you and I can brainstorm a little bit about. How do we help make sustainable and ethically sourced fair trade products, you know, more successful, more. You know, sort of bring it, just make it a bigger part of the overall market. So talk a little bit. You know, let's start with Motif Handmade, I think, is the name of the company. Just talk, um, you know what does it take to source successfully in india?

Speaker 2 2:11

um, I will just bring you geographically a bit more to where I'm really based in bangladesh, just oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry okay, that's all right. My it's okay. It was once part of the whole deal, but yeah.

Speaker 1 2:26

Okay, that was very embarrassing, but you know what? It's not the last time I've been told. Pride is a renewable resource.

Speaker 2 2:34

Ah, there you go. It's a very good thing, yeah. So yes, in Bangladesh. I've actually been connected with weavers and craft makers in Bangladesh since 1989. And you know, when you ask what it takes to source successfully at an artisanal level, I'd have to say that one of the main factors is relationship and actually being able to engage with people where they're at, in their language and enjoying that relationship and kind of growing with that relationship. Now, obviously it doesn't mean that everybody has to sign up to 10 years worth of relationship building before engaging in sourcing artisanal fabrics, but it does mean, especially when we're talking in the fair trade context, that the core element I feel that differentiates fair trade from other trading systems is the quality of relationships that are built and maintained and sustained in the fair trade network. So, in terms of sourcing, relationship is a very, very big part of what that takes.

Speaker 1 3:58

Yeah, but so talk a little bit more about, um, you know, I mean relationship building has to be. I mean there's obviously a human, interpersonal aspect to relationship building, right, being respectful and being engaging and asking questions, right that kind of thing. And then there is a subject, you know, then there's all kinds of subjects around building relationships inside sourcing. There are labor aspects, there are price negotiation aspects, there are living wage aspects. Just talk a little bit more maybe around the economics and the business of sourcing in Bangladesh in a constructive and sustainable way from a relationship perspective.

Speaker 2 4:58

Yeah, I think that's really what makes it all doable in a way that is mutually respectful, because, I mean, one of the frames that people often put on artisanal work is, you know, this kind of romantic element of you know it's handmade and it's beautiful and all of this stuff and all of that's true.

Speaker 2 5:24

But you know, these artisans are all very savvy business people themselves. You know. They know what it takes to make a living, and so we do. We are able to come together at a point where negotiation takes place, because I'm able to communicate very clearly what's involved in all the different steps to bring their product to market and to actually put it in front of a customer. And that is often very surprising for artisans to recognize just how much cost is involved to actually sell a product that they make and that it's not a quick turnaround for getting money straight away. You know there's a lot involved in product development and price negotiations with the buyer side of things which have to then translate back to discussions with the artisans. So it is, it's complex, but when you have a good relationship as the base, then you are able to recognize each other's spaces and the the challenges that each other faces.

Speaker 1 6:42

So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you know, whenever a buyer and a seller get together right, whatever they're called merchants or buyers, or importers, or retailers or factory owners, what have you? The buyer always thinks that he or she is providing 80% of the cost of and the value. And you know, each the buyer thinks that and the seller thinks that. But, the truth is that the seller is providing more value than the buyer thought and the buyer is providing more value than the seller thought.

Speaker 2 7:23

Exactly.

Speaker 1 7:24

And is unfamiliar with. You know they're unfamiliar with each other's um challenges that that both of them uh, each of them needs to overcome. Um, so let's jump into the over the last, uh, pre-covid 2019. Uh, you started, um, uh, you felt the timing was right to make sustainable fabric sourcing and fabric manufacturing and design a bigger part of the business. The business, and you know, your passion for fair trade work just got you thinking that how do I work on the demand side? How do I work with designers to think about the fabric differently? Just talk about your workshops and your thought process behind those.

Speaker 2 8:22

Yeah, it's a great time actually, benno, to be talking about it, because tomorrow will be the third in our six-week series that we run once a quarter, and the courses really have been born out of an evolution since 2019, where I recognized that, as you said, you know, I saw that the market is now ready for ethically sourced raw materials. Like when I first set up Motif in Bangladesh in 98, people were fair, trade was there for finished goods, and that was great, but that prior step of ethically sourced raw materials wasn't there yet. So that was when I shifted and moved to production of finished goods, carrying on with that all these years and then in 2019, recognizing hang on a minute, things are right, we can move into this now. And so, moving then, it seemed to me the most obvious thing that I would make a collection and sell it, which would have worked pretty well at the start. Only that my first collection landed about the same time as COVID, so that put everybody in a spin and a blur.

Speaker 2 9:43

So it wasn't until 22 that we could actually do trade fairs and I could get the fabrics into designers' hands to actually feel what handwoven feels like to work with. And that was where I met my first challenges because, I mean, people were intrigued with them. They loved the feel. So many would say, oh, but this is linen, and I'd say, no, it's not. But I know why you say it is and one of those reasons part of that is the hand weaving process has so many minute changes in tension going on in a, in a fabric as it's being created. It gives that very lively feel that linen often does. But what would happen is, you know, as people were engaged in the fabric, I would begin to share about the fair trade aspect of it or the recycled yarns that we use, so it's zero waste fabric and those kind of things. And I mean, you know what it's like at a trade fair. It's like you've got that much time to catch somebody's attention.

Speaker 2 10:59

Oh my goodness. And so you know I might have got maybe five or 10 seconds out of somebody that was more interested, but then, whoosh, they have their agenda, they've got to get on. And so then our fabrics just became one of the gazillion textiles that's on display in a regular trade show, and so the follow-up was difficult because obviously people have to remember you and it was just a real challenge, and I thought, you know, as that went on for a year or so, I was like I can't do it, I can't make this happen. I'm not a sales person by nature to be able to do the hammering at the doors and stuff, and so that was when I really realized the only way I was going to be able to get all of the information about the incredibly holistic, sustainable offering that handwoven fabric is. I could only do it by having people sitting down in front of me, listening with attention to what I had to share. And that's how the workshops have been born, because I've developed now this five-class project which goes out over six weeks. There's a gap in the middle so people can catch up because everybody's busy.

Speaker 2 12:26

Um, and yeah, through that I take designers, through the zero waste yarns that we use through fair trade production and what its impact is on the communities, the transparency of all of that that is possible for them through photography, through videos that they can then share on their own social media. Lots of different elements I'm able to bring alongside of training them in a very simple software to create their own patterns, with a palette of recycled yarns that I send out in a swatch pack. Before everybody starts, we have swatches of these gorgeous recycled yarns and different fabrics I send out to get the weight of them. And so, through all of that together and our one-on-one calls, by the time they come to the end of the six weeks, most everybody has a fabric ready. Um, we talk together about the weight and all the technical aspects, but the actual patterning, the the designer has created and then it goes to production.

Speaker 1 13:47

So you're teaching product designers who are used to designing finished products. You're teaching them how to design and create and conceptualize the raw material to the fabric stage right. What kind of pattern, what kind of fabric, material? How do you you know? Is it a tight weave, a loose weave, et cetera, et cetera. Exactly, how are students reacting so far? So I mean, what kinds of questions do they come up with? What are they telling you they're learning? What's frustrating them?

Speaker 2 14:29

Yeah, one of the really wonderful steps that's happening is, you know, designers I've spoken with face-to-face. They're the ones mostly that are coming onto the course right now and they're like but I don't know how to weave. You know, where do I even start with this? And what happens is when they have just one class on this software, the next week they're coming back. They are overwhelmed with how many design options they've got available that they can work with. Um, because essentially I just say look, if you can draw a stripe, you can design a fabric. It is simple, because we are only dealing with plain weave and we're dealing with a fixed palette of colors. Um, I can get into why it's a fixed palette of colors, if you like, but it's this that is, a hundred percent recycled yarns. And essentially what what the designers are getting excited about is the fact that their creative problem solving skills because that's what I'm trying to call out in every designer we are essentially creative problem solvers constraints that are given to us. Then we can actually be part of the solution of this process of creating truly deeply sustainable fashion in a way that when you're just I won't say just, but you know there are sustainable fabrics ready-made available.

Speaker 2 16:16

But, as a designer, what's happening often is that you're simply switching sources.

Speaker 2 16:23

It's like you've been sourcing materials that you didn't know where they came from, you didn't know what they were made of, whatever else over here.

The Impact of Sustainable Fashion

Speaker 2 16:31

Now you know and are better informed, so you're sourcing fabrics from over here where there's transparency, there's you know whatever else going on in there, but it's still just kind of like switching out. Your inherent skill as a problem solver is not being engaged at a deeper level. At a deeper level, whereas by coming into the process of actually creating your fabric and knowing the I mean for all the wonderful sustainable fabrics that are out there, you're not going to know who the designer is. That is pretty definite. But you, as the designer, knowing exactly who it is who is weaving your fabric and being an in an integrated process with that, means that you are involved in a way in which you can communicate more about sustainability to your audience than than you ever could simply by sourcing a sustainable fabric. I mean that's obviously you can't use hand loom for everything I'm not even pretending that but where you can use a hand-woven fabric, why wouldn't you?

Speaker 1 17:53

Right.

Speaker 2 18:09

And I know it can feel incredibly overwhelming, Right that many are still trapped into. That makes it fast.

Speaker 2 18:19

A hand-woven production process is you know you have the six weeks of the course, then your fabric goes to production and, depending on various factors involved, it'll be three to four months before the fabric is on your cutting table right and so, like I have one designer who works with me and she now has built in this to the rhythm of her collections, she knows that it's going to take a full year from when she's making her mood board to developing the fabric design together to having it ready, going to production, getting it to her manufacturing unit, receiving it for doing all the photography and the marketing and then the final launch. All of that is going to take about a year from when she does her first mood board to when she has it on her website and it sounds like she's embracing that, as opposed to complaining about it.

Speaker 1 19:23

Oh my god, it takes so long. Right, she's embracing it, and I bet you, uh, those designers that are embracing the entire process, uh, you know, beginning to having created the raw material themselves, or or having designed and influenced certainly uh the raw material, uh, the fabric itself.

Speaker 1 19:45

I I bet you it changes their uh product design. I bet you changes the finished product. I bet you it changes how they talk about the finished product, how they sell the finished changes how they talk about the finished product, how they sell the finished product, how they market it how they brand it all of that right, because, let's talk, I think that you know the passion that you have for fabric and design and Bangladesh and fair trade.

Speaker 1 20:15

When that passion comes through all the way in the finished product, when it sits on a retail shelf or a landing page. Right, that is, I think, when we have something right, because you have to compete against so much greenwashed product. Right, the word sustainable and fair trade and eco-friendly is being thrown around callously in an inflationary way, in a dishonest way. Let's talk a little bit about. You know how do we make sustainable and eco-friendly accessible to more consumers? Because, at the end of the day, if we don't win with the consumers, it doesn't matter in a commercial market.

Speaker 2 21:06

Yeah, it doesn't. And it's been interesting in recent weeks. I've seen a number of reports coming out basically showing and anecdotal moments too, showing that, for all the education that is being put to the consumer, that is not enough. Is that if your peers are talking about? Oh, you know, they found this great little piece on Shane and it only costs like $10 and it's really cute for the theme we're going to go for in our party next week? You know, for all the education that, oh well, I've heard that they don't treat their workers very well. Yeah, I know, I've heard that too.

Speaker 1 22:00

But you know it's going to arrive just tomorrow.

Speaker 2 22:02

Just tomorrow, you know, you won't have to wait for it very long.

Speaker 2 22:04

You know those kind of things and and so it's those kind of um peer elements, that it's the culture of buying that has to be addressed, as well as the educational aspect, because, at the end of the day, I think for so many people who are shoppers, who do look to get another outfit for this, for that, for whatever, it's a huge shift for them, and I think one of the problems we have this came up at the future fabrics expo that I was at just in june.

Speaker 2 22:47

I was at I only managed to get to one of the wonderful seminars that they put on, and part of the discussion was how, as consumers, so much of the responsibility of sustainable fashion is being put on consumer habits, and that's not wrong, you know we do have to make a change. But when all that is presented is the fast fashion alternative, where does the responsibility really lie? It actually lies at the corporate level of making choices to put in front of consumers the options that they can then choose, and that's where the greenwashing is really just running roughshod over those kind of possibilities, because many companies they're there on the internet, whatever. I don't need to name things, but they are. They're putting out the same stuff, but using all of these grand terms, and it totally confuses the customer. So if the customer is thinking, anyway, oh, I'm doing the right thing, well, maybe you're not, I'm really sorry and you're not to blame.

Speaker 1 24:18

Last time you and I spoke, you were telling me about one of your students or customers maybe Emmy Harris. I want to say Emily. Oh, emily, okay.

Speaker 2 24:34

Yes, I wrote it down wrong.

Speaker 1 24:37

Pride's a renewable resource and you shared with me how she does a very great job in storytelling, in branding, to really bring this whole process, put this whole process in front of the consumer in an engaging way, in a way that the consumer understands it, appreciates it, falls in love with it and knows this is not greenwashing, this is a thing. Talk a little bit about how she does that.

Speaker 2 25:15

Yeah, and actually she's the designer who has embraced it as part of her protocol throughout the year her looping, so she's the one that knows it takes a year to go through the whole process. So, yeah, the way Emily does this, she is very transparent. She's always been very transparent about her own journey as a businesswoman and fashion designer on her social media space, so that level of transparency and honesty about her is already in place. Her, her tribe, expect that of her, and so it was really special when, in 2020, I mean, we lived in nearby towns to each other and Emily would normally take her trips to New York to buy her fabrics. She was making her own products then.

Speaker 2 26:14

But, of course, 2020, she couldn't, and so we met and she came and, by her own admission, she says she fell backwards into fair trade. It was, I mean, she knew about fair trade coffee, fair trade chocolate, you know whatever, but the fact that fabrics could be created in a fair trade manner was absolutely new to her, and so, as she came onto this journey, unknowingly, she has met, she's met with a number of challenges along the way. It's certainly not been easy, but, you know, together we've been able to figure out what does fit best for her and I I have to say she's been just a wonderful partner in making this offering possible for more and more designers, because she's she's kind of been my working model, if you like, um, and has just been an incredible comrade because she's caught the vision. She recognizes the value of what's happening in Bangladesh amongst the weaving communities when they have regular orders right so, yeah, she's she.

Speaker 2 27:37

She brings that whole process into her social space, in the same way that she's always had that kind of honesty with her people. Really.

Speaker 1 27:50

And you also mentioned the word business and businesswoman. Right that she embraces the entire process, the entire process. I've worked with many designers throughout my career and very poo-poo the business side of it. Well, that's the merchants, that's the buyers, that's the Excel geeks and nerds. We don't want anything to do with that.

Speaker 1 28:34

Designers are problem solvers. The problem is getting a great product idea from you know, between our ears concept on a piece of paper and all the way to the retail shelf, which in the end requires all kinds of people in addition to designers. It requires, you know, the artisan or the producer or the factory. It requires logistics of ships and airplanes getting it from place A to the retail shelf. It requires merchants and buyers and marketing people and finance people to make all of that happen, right, exactly people to make all of that happen, right, exactly um and uh. I I wonder, maybe you and I should have uh. If you have a five, five uh workshop series, maybe we should add a six workshop in there somewhere to talk about that part of you know, the left brain and the right brain working in unison to make it happen.

Speaker 2 29:41

Yeah, but I'll tell you what is fabulous about the workshop environment because the designers who are coming on board they're ranging from people like Emily, who has a single product in a sense it's a skirt, but a multitude of varieties in the skirt and she's going as a an own brand manufacturer. We have people who are only just starting up. I mean, emily's been in business over 10 years now, so then we've got people who are just starting up. And then there are people who are engaged, who've been designers for many years in different high end companies and looking to kind of bring all of that knowledge into their own act now. And the thing is, is that what happens in our space, in our workshop space together, is this incredible camaraderie that develops and people sharing such fabulous information together and encouragement together about things such as the business aspect and where do you find a decent accountant and how on earth do you deal with this kind of importing? Or you know there's lots of the, the, what appears tangential but is in fact absolutely integral to every part of running um business, let alone a fashion business. But a fashion business you have so many layers involved in production and there's this mutual support system, a real kind of kindred spirit kind of coming together, and it's actually for that reason they've encouraged me to now.

Speaker 2 31:40

On third Thursdayss this is another thing that I'm doing. On third thursdays at 10 o'clock central we have what we've called the kind fabric collective and that's basically a zoom call open to anybody who wants to come and we're talking about fabrics and fashion and you can bring a thing to chat about. I'll have something to kind of start the conversation going. It's just for like 40 minutes or so, but they have so enjoyed having a space. Because what happens as a designer as soon as you leave design college, you know, and if you are fortunate enough to go straight into the industry or your own business, it becomes very lonely for many designers siloed yeah, um, and that kind of know, the mutual crits and the encouragement that you had at college suddenly goes, and so the real world hits you over the head with a two by four.

Speaker 2 32:50

Yeah, and so what happens is when they're coming together as designers who are involved in bridal wear or maternity wear or you know, whatever it might be. They're in such different fields but they're creating something together, they're working on their fabrics together, They've got encouragement over each other's mood boards and excitement over them and it's just sparking them in great ways. It's really encouraging to see.

Speaker 1 33:18

Well, I think it's great what you're doing. I I have so enjoyed this conversation and, you know, just learning about, um, not only the you know sort of supply side, uh, sourcing part of you being in bangladesh, uh, in workshops, but then also on the demand side, working with Western designers, whether it's US or European designers, that are helping to bring it all together in front, you know, so it can end up on a retail shelf or a landing page. And, yeah, if you, if there's anything I could do on a third Thursday, you know I'd be happy to jump in for a few minutes.

Speaker 2 34:04

Thank you so much, oh great.

Speaker 1 34:05

Thank you so much, jackie. This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 34:09

Benno, I've really appreciated the opportunity to share and to hopefully get the message out Make a choice, whatever choice it is, whatever little it is, make the sustainable, fair trade choice. You can do it.

Speaker 1 34:22

Hallelujah.

Speaker 2 34:26

Okay.

Speaker 1 34:30

Thank you for listening to this episode of TGO podcast. You can find all episodes on our podcast page at wwwrealign4resultscom. You can find me, Benno, host of TGO Podcast, there as well. Just email Benno B-E-N-N-O at realign4resultscom. Let's keep growing, Thank you.