Vivienne Westwood's Ethical Africa bags launch at ASOS

Vivienne Westwood launched the London-based label’s Ethical Africa collection on ASOS recently, with the line starting from an affordable £58.

These bags are ‘Handmade with Love’ in Nairobi. Produced in collaboration with the Ethical Fashion Initiative (EDFI) of the International Trade Centre; a joint body of the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which currently supports the work of thousands of women micro-producers from marginalised African communities.The EFI empowers informal manufacturers and craftspeople to enter the international value chain, providing an income for some of the poorest people in the world.

Fashion is being used as a vehicle out of poverty, fulfilling the ideal for this business to be more fair so with these bags, it is guaranteed that every beader and embroider earns not a survival wage, but a decent wage, which allows them to live in a dignified way.Vivienne Westwood, the British designer who blatantly stated the obvious, ‘everyone buys too many clothes’, begun to take a stand in environmental issues and is now pushing forward the vital change needed in the value chain of supply in designer fashion. The bags are made using recycled canvas, reused roadside banners, unused leather off-cuts, and recycled brass, each handmade in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

The collection include a range of bag styles for men and women, including unisex rucksacks, totes, patchwork drawstring bags, and handbeaded clutches and keyrings, inspired by African fabrics and the surroundings they were produced in. The new collection feature bold motifs; chose from an anchor print, Westwood’s signature Orb and squiggle-print.

Westwood has manufactured an accessories collection in Kenya with the goal of empowering Kenyan women and local artisans to help themselves, by providing valuable skills and a sustainable income as well as recycling materials, and the end-product is the perfect summer bag, bright in colour, bold in tone, and setting the tone an ethical vehicle for fashion to venture through, looking all the more stylish.

Yasmin Mahdy

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