By Scott Leonard, CEO and Co-founder of Indigenous Designs
Over 18 years ago, while traveling in the high Andes of Ecuador, I developed a great interest in the hand knitted garments crafted by local Indigenous artisans. In particular, I noticed that the women who produced these wonderful garments were not necessarily being honored for their masterful weaving and knitting skills. They clearly weren\’t being paid the wages that they could have been, or they didn\’t have the knowledge for how to apply their skills to the marketplace.
Indigenous co-founders, Matt Reynolds, Joe Flood and I all had similar goals of wanting to make a difference in the world surrounding social justice and helping women in economically marginalized communities. We saw that bringing in fair wages and technical assistance, and marrying premium, environmentally friendly fibers with more sophisticated fashion designs was a way to make a difference. We realized that Ecuador provided the opportunity we were looking for to launch a never before social economic production model. As young social entrepreneurs in the early 90’s, we were proud to be fair trade and organic pioneers, and we were inspired to start Indigenous Designs and to overcome the many challenges that lay ahead in building a true Eco Friendly Fashion line. See the complete line at- www.indigenous.com/shop/womens
In the beginning, there were two major problems that confronted us: quality control and financing. How do you build and elevate a cottage industry’s quality control when you’re dealing with 1,500 artisans and they’re in pockets of three to 30? How do you aggregate their work and have continuity and consistency that produces a truly premium product? We encountered a large number of quality-control glitches, from fibers to knitting, to consistency of sizing and fit, to timing of delivery. Systems integration was also a significant issue for us. We were dealing with a unique production model – one that is diversified and spread out in desolate hard to reach locations. It was clear we had to create a new systems model, and this took a lot of time and collaboration and money.
With the help of social investment leaders like Josh Mailman we began to look for a consistent way to finance the fair trade and organic supply chain we had pioneered. Around 2001 our management team began working with The Barred Rock Fund and Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF) http://rsfsocialfinance.org on financial modeling and purchase order financing.
In 2005 we engaged with Willy Foote and his amazing Root Capital team www.rootcapital.org/about-us to pilot them into the handicraft and textile sector. Root Capital is a nonprofit social investment fund that grows rural prosperity in poor, environmentally vulnerable places in Africa and Latin America by lending capital, delivering financial training, and strengthening market connections for small and growing agricultural businesses. There was abundant synergy as the RC social investment fund cared immensely about our Indigenous mission to create jobs that honored both people and the planet. Root Capital was a crucial element in helping us to financially scale our fair trade artisan supply chain in the base of the pyramid (BOP). Root Capital continues to lend capital, while delivering financial literacy, within our supply chain partners, today.
Progressive financial partners like Root Capital and RSF were vitally important during our first decade of growth. Conventional banking was just not going to work for us back then – our balance sheet lacked luster and leverage, making access to capital a difficult hurdle. These two financial institutions, along with Josh Mailman, provided us with working capital, purchase order financing, helped us to formalize our financial strategies, and even assisted us in attracting other socially minded investors. They also provided pioneer and supportive spirit in trying to push the social and environmental return aspect into financials and into evaluating the success of a business. As financial partners they encouraged us to report and track our social returns on investment (SROI), and the SROI section of our business plan during our Series A ended up being the aspect that some of our investors were most impressed with.
In 2010, RSF provided Indigenous with a PRI Fund loan to assist in creating standards and procedures for the Fair Trade apparel pilot program and to develop the new Indigenous Fair Trace Tool™. The Fair Trace Tool uses mobile-enabled web technology, allowing shoppers to scan a hang tag QR code to find out where the garment originated, who made it, how the fibers were raised, and learn about the social impact on the communities. We believe that this tool is a way to measure SROI to all our stakeholders. The Fair Trace Tool is one more way that Indigenous is raising consumer awareness of the vital importance of fair trade and organic fashion to artisans in the developing world, and to the environment. The Fair Trace Tool made its debut in the fall of 2012, with Indigenous hoping to share the traceability platform tool openly with other socially conscious brands. Indigenous continues to stand as a catalyst of supply chain integrity, and we believe that collaboration surrounding transparency innovation is a cornerstone to that commitment. The Fair Trace Tool™ offers a brand video, artisan profiles, an origins map and social impact data, including results of artisan workforce surveys. See the video here- www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKFs28bZUgQ
Today, Indigenous is a successful and profitable company that produces a full line of premium Organic Clothing sold online at- www.indigenous.com/shop/womens and at 500 independent stores across the country. Fair Trade + Organic are what we stand for and it is what drives our company’s deep social responsibility initiatives. We are keen on sharing and collaborating with other brands. A significant part of Indigenous production includes clothing for major brands and private labels that hang in stores such as Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom.
Eileen Fisher is one of our major private label brands. Amy Hall, Director of Social Consciousness for Eileen Fisher, and I first met at a Social Venture network (SVN) conference. After the event, Amy shared an Indigenous Designs sweater and catalogue with Eileen Fisher’s sweater design team, and by the end of the year, a partnership had been struck to provide the brand with truly sustainable, organic and Fair Trade Fashion. Eileen Fisher has been a mentor to Indigenous by helping us achieve new levels of rigorous quality standards. Amy believes that the company has benefited just as much from our partnership. Indigenous Designs was Eileen Fisher’s first foray into the artisanal product world, With Indigenous, the company learned what reasonable expectations were for the production timeline of an artisanal fair trade supply chain. We collaborate to use our respective strengths in the fashion industry to promote this Indigenous Designs fair trade and organic model and set the pace for other brands.
There are more and more sustainable choices to most consumer product sectors. We believe that people can change the world by how they choose to spend their money. When a customer chooses Indigenous and other conscious brands, they are using their dollars to vote for a just, equitable world. Along with being a producer of Fair Trade Clothing for premium retailers, we can proudly say that all Indigenous garments are made from organically grown fibers. To ensure environmental sustainability, we use organic certified cotton, GOTS processing, and Oekotex 100 approved dyes.
Making the right sustainable supply chain choices in this world is not the easiest road traveled. As consumers and business leaders alike we need to step up and rise to the challenge ahead. We are determined to change industry to demonstrate that you can do the right thing and be profitable in business. Indigenous will continue to lead as a sustainable fashion pioneer, producing premium fashion that is worth buying, worth wearing and worth talking about.
Article by Scott Leonard is CEO and Co-founder of Indigenous Designs Corporation, a leading apparel brand and producer of hand-crafted natural fiber clothing. Scott is responsible for directing the Indigenous Brand identity and Indigenous private label production model. Founded in 1994, Indigenous Designs develops and markets premium quality apparel to high-end fashion retailers around the world. Indigenous apparel is designed in-house and produced to specification by artisan cooperatives located primarily in South America, Guatemala and India.
In 2009, the company was selected by Apparel Magazine as a “Top Innovator,” in the fashion industry. The company has received the national Socially Responsible Business award from Co-op America. Scott and Indigenous Designs continue to be heavily involved in promoting sustainability in collaboration with Organic Exchange, the OTA, SVN, BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), and B-Corp.
Scott is an ardent advocate about the positive power of business for the benefit of people and the planet. He has been a pioneer in the areas of fair trade apparel, organics, social justice and the sustainability movement. Scott has served two terms on the Steering Committee for the Organic Fiber Council, where he collaborated with the USDA to help set the standards for organic cotton. Scott has also worked with Root Capital to establish a breakthrough financial model for funding the fair trade artisan apparel sector in South America. In 2005, Scott founded the Green Steps program to raise business awareness of sustainability issues.
