We are very excited to announce our new range of funky, organic baby and kids clothes from Animal Tails. Animal Tails clothes are all certified organic and ethically produced. They use lovely, vivid colours (often hard to find in organic inks!) to tell a story about endangered species, their habitat and a little about them. You can be sure that your baby or child will be safe and snug in these beautiful organic romper suits and t shirts. Animal Tails also stock a range of organic, designer kids clothing which are coming to Mimimyne shortly!
Here are some questions about Animal Tails, and their answers!
Why are Animal Tails ethical?
At Animal Tails we value people, and their potential. Therefore the founding principle of Animal Tails was to trade ethically, to protect lives and improve livelihoods. We are so pleased that we are able to present to you a collection that we can say without doubt was produced ethically.
You may well say, surely all companies manufacture ethically? Well some do, but not nearly enough, and unethical trading is a particularly acute problem in the garment (clothing) sector.
What grieves us most is that it is usually the most vulnerable young girls and women who find themselves working excessive hours for wages they cannot even start to live on, but because there is no other work available, they must work in these terrible conditions or live in even more extreme poverty.
You may think this is a problem confined to the developing world, where it is less hidden, but the reality is that the problem of sweat shops is endemic across the world, and one of the greatest offenders is the garment industry.
All Animal Tails clothing is certified against the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). GOTS has a robust tracking method through the supply chain to ensure that the International Labour Organisations minimum standards are met, and in most instances exceeded. The GOTs certification is currently the most robust available in ensuring that an entire organic textile supply chain meets an internationally accepted standard for workers.
GOTs certification standards are met by several international organic certification bodies, one of whom is the Soil Association in the UK. That is why our licence is from the Soil Association.
Why did you choose organic cotton and ink?
At Animal Tails we would not be valuing people properly if we did not care about the environment we all live in. It was therefore an obvious choice for us to use organic cotton.
In exploring the benefits of organic cotton we where staggered to learn of all the absolutely horrendous chemicals, a number of which are known carcinogens (cause cancer) that go on non-organic cotton.
We were even more shocked to learn that the production of non-organic cotton absorbs 25% of the worlds usage of pesticides and insecticides, for a crop that accounts for only 2.5% ( yes that is right, two point five percent … we had to read it several times too) of world crops! That is a lot of deadly chemicals to say the least…
With organic cotton you will encounter none of these nasties – all you have is beautiful, pure, wonderfully soft cotton – and the knowledge that no one was exposed to poisonous chemicals in their cotton field or during its production.
Why is Fair Trade important?
We are trading in a fair and open way at all levels. We have worked hard to make our supply chain as good as it can be. We pay a premium price for our organic cotton, and the Soil Association (GOTS) certification provides assurance for you that we are paying workers properly and that their rights are respected.
We are trading as we should from the field to you. That is why we say, have fun, enjoy wearing your beautiful organic, ethically manufactured, and fantastically designed Animal Tails T-shirt. It’s fair to people, animals and the environment.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever, its loveliness increases, it will never pass nothingness….” So goes the famous poem by John Keats. Yet the tragedy of our times is that there is an accelerating loss of many of our World’s most wonderful and beautiful species, through loss of their habitat from human activity and climate change.
It would seem if we don’t do something quickly many beautiful things will pass into nothingness. Ours and future generations will be poorer for the loss of so much of the beauty and diversity the animal kingdom offers us.
Buying a beautiful Animal Tails T-shirt means you’re directly helping to preserve these things of beauty, as we are giving 1% of our net profits to the AfriCat Foundation which seeks to preserve some of Southern Africa’s most endangered animals; so making Keats words come true, ‘it will never pass into nothingness…’
