Positive Social Impact
I want to explain here in which ways I try to have a positive social impact through La Luna Lädeli, and how you are participating in that!
When I started in 2012 placing my first order of Goddesswear pants I was not so much aware of the disastrous social conditions of the mainstream fashion industry, and my motivation to start with this was because I had found the most comfortable and nicest pants I had ever worn, and was eager to share my discovery with my friends.
But for my second product, the reusable bamboo utensil sets, my intention was very clear from the beginning: to contribute with a way to reduce the use of disposable plastic.
Since then, my awareness and knowledge have expanded, and since my discovery of the WomenWeave scarves and my many visits to their projects a whole new reality opened up for me, and I have slowly but surely changed many of my habits towards contributing as much as I can to the common social good. We are not isolated and the ways we behave have an impact in all of us! We all know this, but sometimes it's hard to change our ways, until something really inspires us to take bigger steps.
And I am happy to say now that even though Godesswear might not even be aware, and does not classify itself in those terms, it acts in many ways as a Slow Fashion industry: since it started in 1999 it produces always the same models, changing only the colors, and producing only the amounts that are ordered by their re-sellers, never producing more that it sells to its customers. Because the models stay the same, a pant produced last year it as actual as the one produced this season.
Of course the hand-made shawls, that are now at the heart of La Luna Lädeli, are a as much a social, ethical, ecological and sustainable product as it can get. Of course it's a product that has to be imported, but if we consider that to produce something similar here in Switzerland we would have to import the raw material anyways. The social impact is much higher and the price for us as consumers lower, if we import a finished product with added value from a country like India, where many people really depend on such activities to survive. For us, it's a luxury.
Hand-loom requires no electricity, they use local materials, push for organic local cotton production, promote the self-sustainable village way of life, empower women and local communities, ...
It is very difficult to find products that are made in ways that are 100% sustainable: made with natural local materials grown in the best of ways for the environment and the farmers, made and distributed with the minimum use of energy and with a maximum of social impact. But I believe that the best way is to find balance taking those things in consideration and slowly but surely move in that direction.