Visible is a new clothing label where everything behind the clothes is made visible - No nakedness - just visibility of costs, people and impact so you can know everyone is being treated fairly.
We will be producing a range of clothes - starting with t-shirts. We need money to get off the ground and become a place where you can source affordable, desirable clothes, where everyone from the cotton farmers to the factory workers have been treated fairly.
Who are you?
We are Andy and Andy and we gave away all our clothes at the end of 2013. All of them. We have spent the last 3 months building our wardrobes from scratch with clothes that we know were made fairly.
We are friends who until the Rana Plaza disaster paid, at best, lip-service to trying to be ethical in our choice of clothes. We knew that sweatshops existed but preferred to remain largely ignorant. We decided this needed to change; we needed to align our buying choices with our values.
Check out our journey on www.whomademywardrobe.com. We have loved the journey so far and learned a lot. But our wardrobes are not enough. Our goal is to help everyone who has thought about buying fairly made clothes to be able to do so at an affordable price.
Vision
Our vision is to see a clothing sector where everyone is treated fairly.
Who will make Visible clothes?
We have met with a number of clothing suppliers across the developing world and are delighted to have established a partnership with an extraordinary social enterprise in India who have been producing Fairtrade certified clothes for a number of years.
They are getting ready to produce our basic tees (see the photos of the black tee samples taken by the people who are making them!) and as soon as we have reached our target in this campaign we will put in our first purchase order.
We have also gathered a team of fashion designers who designed our basic tee, and they are itching to design more clothes - a lot more clothes - both men's and women's.
First Product: The Visible Basic Tee (Black or White)
These basic tee's will have the following logo printed on the left sleeve (black logo on the white t-shirts, and white logo on the black t-shirts):
There will also be a small woven tag stiched into the bottom of the t-shirt with 'Visible' printed on (black tag with white writing on the white t-shirts and white tag with black writing on the black t-shirts).
Photographs of the samples - taken by the people who made them
Women's Front and Back
Men's Front
Men's Back
How do I select my size and colour?
Our basic tees are available in Black or White. Sizes range from men's S, M, L, XL, XXL and women's 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18.
We will be in touch a few days after you have made a pledge to confirm size(s) and colour(s). The t-shirts will then be made once we have reached our target. Once they are made you will get them. It is that simple!
Postage to the UK / USA / Canada is included. Please add £10 to anywhere else.
How will Visible sell its clothes?
When we reach our target for this campaign we will develop www.visible.clothing (before you ask there is no '.com' at the end of that!) - an online market-place where we will stock all future lines of Visible clothing, as well as other brands that have been produced fairly in developing countries.We will sell Visible clothes on a pre-order basis. Production will commence once we have reached a tipping point of orders. Customers will be invited to join us on the journey of seeing what happens in the production of clothes all the way from first ordering to final delivery.
How Visible will the clothes be?
We desire far greater visibility into the fashion industry. We will therefore tell you, and all our future customers, three things:-Visible people - We want to connect you with the actual people who make Visible clothing and provide opportunities for those workers to let you and us know whether they are happy with their working conditions.-Visible costs - We will tell you where every pound goes when you part with your cash, leaving you to judge whether we are selling clothes at a fair price.
-Visible impact - We will charge a fair price for clothes which are made by people who are treated fairly and by doing so will create opportunities for extreme poverty to be eradicated.
Core Values
Our desire is that everything we do is in line with our core values:
Fair - We seek to ensure that all stakeholders are treated fairly.
Quality - We aspire for the best quality as wise stewards of limited resources.
Integrity - We communicate and act with openness, directness and honesty.
Innovative - We challenge & disrupt the status quo by embracing innovative approaches.
Why Crowdfunding?
"Crowdfunding is a way of raising finance by asking a large number of people each for a small amount of money. Until recently, financing a business, project or venture involved asking a few people for large sums of money. Crowdfunding switches this idea around, using the internet to talk to thousands – if not millions – of potential funders." (The UK Crowdfunding Association)
In return for giving money to enable Visible to 'get off the ground', we are excited to offer you a number of incentives; including Visible's first t-shirts. For those outside the UK and prefer US$; at the time of writing the exchange rate is 1.68 US$ to the British Pound (£) and therefore a £100 pledge equates to approximately $168 US.
What happens to the money I pledge?
If we don't reach our target your pledges will be returned to you and unfortunately our first run of t-shirts will not go into production.
As a social enterprise our goal is to keep our costs to a minimum without squeezing our suppliers. We will be producing a full range of clothes – starting with t-shirts.
Help us to reach our target; the t-shirts will be made and you can learn and connect with the people who make your clothes by following the journey of the t-shirts from when the order is placed to when it arrives on your doorstep. Reaching our target will also mean we can develop www.visible.clothing, develop future products, and find new suppliers in the developing world who treat their workers fairly. We can then all wear clothes that we know have been made fairly.