A material difference

Founder of ethical fashion brand Kowtow, Gosia Piatek is constantly looking for ways to do better. Despite a world-wide boom in popularity and partnerships with some incredible companies, she tells reporter Kate Green she has recently gone back to basics.

How did the Kowtow journey begin?

I started the brand 15 years ago with this idea; how cool would it be to know where a garment comes from, how it’s made and how it ends up in the customer’s hands?

It was a bit radical at the time. Then the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh happened and people became more conscious of where their clothing comes from.

Under the Labour Government we got a work-start grant of $5000 to start a business. It felt like so much money at the time.

I sent emails to producers and got replies from all around the world, and started a conversation with one of the producers in India who we still work with today.

Now we employ 36 people, and every six months we’re hiring more.

What makes cotton fair trade?

Where things like coffee, bananas, and sugar are boxed and sent to New Zealand by boat, cotton has a much more complex chain.

Our cotton is rain-fed, no irrigation, so farmers rely heavily on monsoon rain. We order it in raw bales, then we make the yarn for every single garment. The prices go up and down depending on the rain, and our clothes go up and down in weight, because it’s a natural product.

We design all aspects of the garments, from yarn to finished product.

What happens when the cotton leaves the farm?

We use SA8000-certified organisations, which means manufacturers use socially acceptable practices in the workplace. Workers get guaranteed minimum wage, social security fund, pension fund, paid holiday leave, sick pay, medical insurance, subsidised lunches, overtime pay and union access.

Prior to Covid-19 we would visit the factories every six months. I went by myself for 10 years, then I had a child. Now I can empower other people at work to go and build that collective knowledge. We speak with our team in India daily.

Are there some materials you avoid?

It’s about looking deeper. All it takes is someone saying, ‘‘Well, what’s in it, actually?’’

Eight years ago we were using a recycled hemp button, but realised there was a resin filler in it. We now source natural agoya shell buttons from Japan, and natural corozo nut and recycled hemp buttons from Italy.

We’ve never used zips, simply because we haven’t found a sustainable option.

Making ethical choices is often a privilege though, right?

I sympathise with people, it’s hard. But even chain stores will have a polyester option and a cotton option.

Polyester is plastic, and it will never break down. A poly-cotton blend is far harder to recycle than plain cotton.

Tell me about your recent decision to go back to basics.

What gets me out of bed is the same reason I started this 15 years ago. The hardest thing, I’ve learned, is to stay on track.

We’d been accumulating warehouses in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand, and creating partnerships – merino wool from down south, regenerated nylon swimwear, Tencel fibres from Switzerland – and it all got a bit much.

At the end of 2020, we decided to go back to basics, back to 100 per cent cotton. We call it reductive design.

How do you keep sight of your direction?

It’s about constantly questioning ourselves, making sure we aren’t just responding to the market. Now we’re working on our circularity mission.

The way we design is very robust, everything is machine-washable. If it can be repaired we repair it for free.

If the garment is beyond repair, we take it back. We’re storing it all at the moment, because we need volume. Once we have the volume we can partner up with a recycling company and repurpose it.

Some we can shred and make into new yarn, some we could retouch and resell. Right now, there isn’t a solution. We don’t have the answer yet, but it doesn’t matter, because it starts a conversation.