Call of the Brave: ethical t-shirt design

Do you ever open your drawers, sift through your wardrobe and think, ‘where have all these clothes come from?’

Like the majority of the population, you ask no more questions – pick out a t-shirt and move on with your day. Or if you’re like I was a few years ago, open your laptop and order a garment that will be destined for the back of the wardrobe. But you need new clothes; you’ve got nothing to wear- right?

Consider this: each item of clothing in your wardrobe has a story and these stories are important.

The Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh killed 1,134 garment workers. They worked inside a fashion industry that has no consideration for health and safety. If you stopped to consider that purchasing a £2 vest top was perpetuating a garment worker’s plight – working in sweatshop conditions, would you still buy it?

Now this is where we introduce ourselves. Call of the Brave exists to change all this. We want to challenge you to value your clothes, to ask where your clothes come from and to rebel against the fast-fashion industry.

Would you rather have a sweatshop-made t-shirt that a million other people also have or one that has unique artwork from local artists and is ethically produced?

We believe that by making simple changes to how we consume, we take the first steps towards fixing the fashion industry.

Sure, cheap and fast-fashion can be great when you’re broke- but what percentage of your wardrobe do you wear? In the UK alone, 350,000 tons of used clothing goes to landfill each year, all because we buy cheaply, and feel less attached.

We crowdfund our artists’ designs, so t-shirts are only printed if there is a proven demand for them. This means we can ensure all the t-shirts will end up being cherished and not sat in a shop waiting to be discounted.

It’s not just about how we value our clothes that produce the waste. Heard the phrase ‘get what you pay for?’ Well, that’s exactly it.

At Call of the Brave, we use only the highest quality t-shirts made from bamboo, a material which holds its shape over time and is super-soft too – what more could you want?

For Bristol’s Big Green Week, we’re teaming up with local up-cycling gurus Kecks Clothing, to prove that a waste-free lifestyle doesn’t mean sacrificing style. We’ll show you different ways to transform your old t-shirts and breathe new life into them.

We will also be live-crowdfunding designs from Bristol artists that you can then stencil onto your up-cycled creations, fabricating your own unique clothes – perfect for this year’s festival fashion.

Tickets are available from the Big Green Week website, are £5 which covers all the materials, commissions to the artists AND you get to take away a t-shirt that you’ve up-cycled/stenciled as well!

To start crowdfunding your designs today visit:

www.callofthebrave.org