INTERVIEW #7 WHITE LABEL PROJECT
“We wanted to provide a digital platform and marketing services for impact-driven design brands to grow their businesses and to tell each brand’s story”
Why did you start White Label Project?
White Label Project connects you with designers and artisans all sharing the same ambition to preserve artisanal traditions by bringing them into a modern design context, generating stable incomes for the crafters behind each product and using natural fibres and sustainable materials.
With WLP we wanted to provide a digital platform and marketing services for impact-driven design brands to grow their businesses and to tell each brand’s story - about their makers and inspirations, artisans and communities, and culture and traditions. We do not want to re-brand any product, but rather provide a platform for brands to showcase their outstanding designs.
We studied together in Paris, went into different professional directions and met again in London years later where in a small bar the idea for White Label Project was born. With backgrounds in enabling small businesses to trade sustainably with international organisations as well as in marketing strategy and digital design for international consumer brands, WLP is interdisciplinary at core.
How do you pick your products and collaborations?
We currently feature 12 design brands from 9 different countries: Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Ghana, Morocco, South Africa, Kenya, Cambodia and India. We recently started to expand our offering beyond design brands and started a collaboration with the artist and designer Artsi Ishraf, featuring photographs of him on the platform,.
The majority of the brands which are featured on our platform we found through our personal travels to the countries as well as friends and family who recommended the brands to us. We have also found them through Instagram and other online platforms. Finally, many people give us tips and advice on brands to check out and some brands directly contacted us.
For selecting the brands we do not have a fixed checklist, since until now we have the time that allows us to directly engage with each brand individually. Firstly, we request all the information of their social and environmental sustainability answering the questions such as: How do you engage with local artisans? Do you offer a fixed term contracts? Or: Which materials and dyes do you use for your products? Many times they have to develop portfolios for that since other buyers did not request this information beforehand. Secondly, we go more in-depth though Skype calls to understand how the brands work and interact with artisans and their communities, their design and production processes. So far, we had very good experiences and selected each company, with which we had engaged in more in-depth discussions.
We are always looking for unique design so the brands don’t compete with each other on our platform. The designs should bring traditional production techniques and production methods into a modern design context. Most of the brands happen to be led by young women, they’re designers and entrepreneurs. They have built their own studios and support people to get other jobs in the future.
All of them have a high sense of community belonging. For example, M.A from Mexico works with a women artisan groups in Oaxaca using traditional ways of producing red clay ceramics and wool carpets and pillow cases. The women are not only producing the unique design pieces, but they are also fully involved in the design process. That’s very interesting and inspiring.
“We do not want to re-brand any product, but rather provide a platform for brands to showcase their outstanding designs.”
What has been and is the major challenges?
The current Covid-19 crises is definitely the biggest challenge for us and the brands we feature. While we always have been working remotely across different cities, countries and even continents, we are missing to the opportunity to organize pop-up shops and directly engage with our customers.
The brands we feature have been even more impacted with cancelled orders not being able to ship and produce products, operate their design studios, stores and in some cases not being able to leave their homes in cases of complete confinement.
What has been and are the largest gains?
The largest gain for us has been to collaborate and get to know all the amazing founders of the brands we are working with. We have the pleasure to work with amazing designers and experienced entrepreneurs, who we want to support as well as learn from. Gaining even more insight into production processes, the traditions and the impact their work has on local communities has been incredibly inspiring. Over time we built personal relationships with many of them and are keeping track of what is happening in each other’s lives, not the least during the Covid-19 pandemic which has been quite a rollercoaster for many.
What do you think needs to change in the fashion industry to make it more sustainable?
A huge part of making the fashion industry more sustainable is of course about the production itself, better materials and fair working conditions and so on. Brands that keep exploiting workers and countries need to be held accountable by consumers. But that is easier said than done.
Buying fashion isn’t a completely rational consumption choice where everyone has access to all information and evaluates every purchased based on mentioned criteria. Especially with all the greenwashing going on in the industry. It’s a highly emotional purchase where the brand and the visualisation of the product play a very big role. The perceived image of the product is not only shaped by how the item was made, but by the entire industry that exists to market and present it i.e. photographers, stylists, models, social media strategists and many more. Those are the ones that share and shape the stories of the products and the brands and who influence our desires and our tastes both consciously and unconsciously. In order to change the industry, there needs to be a joint effort in prioritising and promoting sustainable options in all leads of the marketing chain including retailers who become gatekeepers of which products become accessible to the end customer and which not.
What do you believe is “greenwashing” and what can producers and consumers do to avoid it?
Greenwashing comes from empty claims, for instance, when adding sustainability claims on the label tags that only account for a small part of the production process or business, the attention from an overall unsustainable supply chain is taken away. It’s often about a rationalisation (“efterkonstruktion” in Swedish) of a business or brand. Supporting and marketing a charitable project that doesn’t contribute to making the overall business more sustainable, while making you believe that the business is committed to sustainability. Luckily, more and more up and coming fashion and design brands make sustainable production part of their original business idea communicating their prices and value chain transparently to the consumer. We hope that eventually the greenwashing’s blinding effect will fade next to that and force those business to follow the new rising norm.
What would you advice consumers to do who seek to create a sustainable closet and lifestyle?
· Educate yourself and read about it! Be bold, face your mistakes and get on a conversational journey. All of us have examples of behaviour we’re not proud of, now or in the past. That doesn’t mean we can’t change and learn for the future. Educate yourself so you know what you consume and from whom when you do it.
· Get to know the good brands out there that already get it right. There are plenty of them, waiting for you to find and follow them.
· Consciously diversify your feed. Get your daily fashion inspiration by a healthy mix of people and brands so that the next “insta craving” comes from an impact-driven jewelry brand or a fashion rental service, rather than due to low prices and copied design of fast fashion.
· Don’t be too strict with yourself. It’s a journey to change one’s behaviour and learn from mistakes, so do it step by step.
· Become an ambassador. Share the stories behind the products that empower you when wearing them – be it the inspiration behind the pattern, the ancient craft the community that thrives by producing it and being compensated and respected for their work.
“Share the stories behind the products that empower you when wearing them – be it the inspiration behind the pattern, the ancient craft the community that thrives by producing it and being compensated and respected for their work.”