I keep the torch high for people who want to change our way of consuming fashion. Therefore I would like to introduce you to the IOU- Project. IOU founder Kavita Parmer and Ricky Posner decided two years ago to produce clothes which celebrate individualism and on the other hand make the production process visible and transparent. Through the use of e-commerce tools, social media and digital marketing they are trying sell their clothes to people who want transparency, accountability and authenticity.
The basic of each garment is the traditional Indian Lungi, a 2 meter piece of woven cotton fabric, usually solid or in madras plaid. The design of each Lungi is unique and depends on the creative imagination of the weaver on the day of the production of each individual Lungi. Every piece of clothing is therefore different.
The garments are produced in Italy which helped to innovate new ways of productions since the garments are produced from these individual pieces of clothes instead of meters and meters of the same machine woven fabrics.
The use of videos make it possible for the customer to connect to the bottom of the production line and encourages the customer to follow up how his garment is being made and even connects to the individual weaver of your garments. Furthermore IOU encourages his customers to take photographs of themselves in their IOU's, so that this again connects people on on different levels.
I think there is so much stuff going on here and in the end I was a bit reluctant to see the products, but after what I have seen, the designs are brilliant too by keeping a basic stable of items like simply cut shirts, ties, dresses and even espadrilles, and let the fabric speak for itself. I am absolute behind the IOU and they will go live on its website at the end of the this month. After the first ' appetizers ' of their collection below I will put all further information about the IOU- Project at the end of the post. I hope I made you curious for the clothes and please spread the word.
 |
| All photos taken from the IOU's facebook website |
For further information please visit the following links:
IOU- Project on facebook : http://www.facebook.com/iouproject#!/iouproject
IOU- Project on youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yybe3hB3Ix4
IOU- Project interview with FashionablyMarketing.Me : http://fashionablymarketing.me/2011/04/iou-project-craft-fashion/
Organic cotton madras is hard to find but when I get some I nab it and make a line of shirts from it. I really like what other labels get up to and the more ethical labels, the better.
ReplyDelete