What Does GOTS Certified Actually Mean?
Building a brand from scratch is not easy. Let alone building a brand that has all the considerations it should have towards the planet and its people. Nowadays it’s the only way. It’s daunting, overwhelming and sometimes you wonder “is it worth it?”.
It is.
It’s not certain when people first started wearing clothes, however, anthropologists estimate that it was somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 years ago. It's fair to say it won’t be going away anytime soon. And as a designer, the best thing I can do is create clothes that fit better not just on people, but in our current world. To be honest and to quote Alanis Morrissette “I haven’t got it all figured out just yet”.
What I do know, is that working with a combination of already existing materials, deadstock fabrics, upcycled vintage pieces and ALSO creating something new from scratch are all my jam. It’s the creating something new part I’m focusing on today. More specifically, the tongue-in-cheek vulva t-shirts I wear almost every day.
They feature an embroidered vulva with a powerful message. The design of the vulva comes from an illustration of 20 vulvas I designed one night. On my bed, with my headphones on blasting Patty Smith.
These are the messages you can choose from:
That’s all lovely and joyful. But the key is in the actual t-shirt. It’s made from organic cotton and GOTS certified. GO-what? I hear you ask…
The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is the worldwide leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed up by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain. This ensures the organic status of textiles, from harvesting of the raw materials, through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing up to labelling in order to provide a credible assurance to the end consumer, i.e you! (it’s a farm to wardrobe approach, a bit like farm to table for food).
The world of sustainable, organic, ethical and slow fashion is a total mind fuck. But the GOTS certificate is very complete. For example, working conditions are safe and hygienic, employees are paid minimum wage, have a right to unionise, it’s prohibited to add toxic heavy metals, formaldehyde, aromatic solvents and genetically modified organisms. And if you’re thinking “formaldehyde? In my clothes?” yes, some textile production can include this toxic chemical which makes those “wrinkle-free/ anti-crease” fabrics, actually, wrinkle/crease-free. Yummy, formaldehyde all over your body!
If you want to read their entire criteria then go here, it’s a lot of info but ignorance is NOT bliss.
I know ironing sucks, but either don’t iron (who said wrinkle-free is the way to go???) or find the joy of ironing. I don’t want to produce toxic clothes, and I know if I go deep into everything, I do, there will be things that need to be changed for sure. And this organic cotton GOTS certified VULVA tee is only the start.
Have you bought yours?
They’re currently 20%OFF with code WEARYOURPOWER20 there’s only a few left and when they’re gone, they’re truly gone!
