MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Fashion founder Safia Minney

safia Minney MBE, 52, set up fairTrade fashion label People Tree in 1991. she is also the managing director of ethical shoe brand Po-Zu. separated, she has a daughter, 20, and son, 24, and lives in London.

IN 1989 I moved with my husband, an investment manager, to Tokyo.

I wanted to carry on buying organic food, shopping for clothes in second-hand shops and recycling, but back then Japan was a corporate, consumerist society.

I knew there was a gap in the market for well-designed, ethical products. At the time Fairtrade fashion, which treats workers in developing countries fairly, meant ethnic prints and shapeless designs. I thought: ‘I really want to wear it, but it all looks horrible.

‘What could I, as a 25-yearold, possibly wear out on a Saturday night or go to a work meeting in?’

It was the inspiration for dresses and knitwear made with FairTrade groups in India, Bangladesh and Nepal, using traditional organic cotton, hand knitted and hand woven materials. The idea was for workers to earn a fair wage and stay in their villages with their family, rather than move away to sweatshops in the city.

People Tree was run from my kitchen table. At one point we had 15 staff working in the house. It was mad — I couldn’t put the children to bed! Our first store was in Tokyo in 1998, and by 2007, we had moved back to London and were stocked in TopShop and Selfridges.

To date we’ve collaborated with designers including Zandra Rhodes and Thakoon and actress Emma Watson. We’ve been a catalyst for change in the fashion industry.

It’s good to question the ethics of fast fashion. After all, how can a top cost less than a sandwich?