hi friends !
so i have a confession and a story today, but a reminder first: there is still time to enter my giveaway, and thankyou thankyou to all of you who already did, i’m overwhelmed by your shares and kind words. it means so much ❤ any hoodie or sweater from raintower is part of the first prize so go to take a look at my previous post :) wearing our ‘dom’ hoodie here with pocket and extra large hood, a personal fav as it’s perfect for hiding in and roomy enough to layer. ok, confessing now: being engaged in sustainable fashion as a cause feels so weird to me!!! i never saw this for myself to be honest, i always thought i’d just be a painter and illustrator. i love clothes and always made them for myself but how i got to where i am now is a strange journey.
i realised about five years ago that in order to make a living as an artist, full time and sustainably (as opposed to on and off, when things went well ;) ), i could try creating things to sell besides artwork/prints. t-shirts, for instance. so i started doing research and realised there was literally no way at that point i could print my art on shirts without supporting sweat shop labour and harming the environment. it doesn’t take much reading to be convinced that the textile industry is destructive in the extreme and that mother earth cannot support us doing this.
so i decided to take all of it into my own hands and began recycling textile, sewing and dying it myself. at first it was just a little side project but it took off and got SO bloody difficult. steep learning curve is an understatement ;) i’m often a little cloudy in the head and i forget things easily, especially boring struggles … but i lay awake last night thinking about the first two years of raintower and how i often wanted to just give up because i couldn’t seem to survive and keep up with demand while adhering to what i consider simple, basic ethics. i still feel that way sometimes so if my clothing line disappears you’ll know why 🤣 i also had to find ways of explaining to customers that with natural dyes and recycled material the look of garments will vary a little. pre-loved energy of second hand clothes but made to fit you. wonderful as that may be it is not what shoppers are used to. i struggle with communicating just how much effort goes into this operation and how important it is to me. i’m not schooled in copywriting, activism, pr, social media, business. english is my third language.
i would like to give a little shoutout here to lovely maimagi who has a large following on youtube, featured my products lately and did a wonderful job of explaining some of these concepts. thankyou :) something she said in the video opened up my eyes a little: the fact that she knew of me and just one other brand who were on this level of sustainability and ethical production throughout. she also gave this smart tip for shoppers: brands that source ethically will shout about it. this goes back to what i wrote above, it’s a huge challenge so if you’re doing it, you’re probably gonna let people know ;)
we need a movement that goes beyond privileged folks who use ‘ethical consumerism’ as a virtue signal. this isn’t about that vanity: it’s about millions of workers in garment factories, compromised eco systems (yes, organic fibers are culprits too, not to mention fossil fuel synthetic fibres which are on the rise), the chemicals that leak into our environment, the animal habitats lost. there are a lot of small designers — we are in this together and i love and support you. small scale/handmade/uses organic fibre and therefore more ethical is wonderful. but fully sustainable, helping in closing the loop - like a thrift shop! - is a different thing. what we need is systemic change, paradigm shift, thought shift. it’s daunting but i look to changes in history and find hope.
we can do this and we are all part of it...ethics and sustainability are not buzzwords (looking at you greenwashers), they are important concepts and part of a bigger picture — if the same simple thought (not causing harm is more important money or self realization) seeped through all human endeavour we would have a beautiful thing going. we’re on our way but if my contribution requires me to step out of my comfort zone and saying ‘i do this well’ and ‘i wish more people would take a serious interest’, then so be it. i don’t wish to congratulate myself as a virtuous human because this is pretty basic stuff. it’s just that our current system has a vested interest in blinding us to it and numbing our natural compassion. i make many mistakes and i’m always working on bettering myself but i do good on the sustainability/ethics and i wish for that to be seen. hear that universe? ;) i’m truly and humbly grateful for all my customers and followers who allow me to stay creative. love you and love where this has taken me. thankyou for reading!! (and stay critical, stay punk ❤✊🏽✊🏻🐾). for more details on how we work with recycling please visit our info pages on raintower.se. i’m gonna go back to painting dragons now, something i always saw myself doing ;) xoxoxox
