What is an Ethical Apparel Brand?

December 06, 2015

You say you’re building an ethical company.  What does that mean? 

We think about this in two ways:

One, esoterically: ethics is very tricky.  Despite the best efforts of philosophers and theologians throughout history, there has been no unanimous consensus on what doing good means.  Especially in practical terms when it comes to making clothes.  Where do we make our trade-offs?  Because there are always trade-offs.

Two, concretely: we look at it through the lens of the awful events in Beirut, Paris, Mali, San Bernardino, and, as well as the ongoing tragedies in Syria, Nepal, North Korea, Ukraine and countless other natural or political disaster zones.  Bad stuff happens a lot out there in the wider world.  What does that mean for Anywhere as a company?

We can’t change everything.  But we can do our part.  We believe we can help make the world a better place if we can help people to go out in it, and not just see, but experience the differences, understand them, and forge new connections.  It’s good to wish the best for an abstracted idea of a culture or country far away, but to have family, friends, and new relationships over there humanizes it in a way no amount of idealism can replicate.

We also can’t be too unfocused.  Just as we want to specialize in items that can improve traveling the most, we can’t spread ourselves too thin.  We try to do right by everyone involved in the process of getting your clothes to you.  We are trying to use:

• environmentally-friendly fabrics
• fair labor practices
• transparent marketing
• equitable pay and benefits for employees and partners  

And, in general, we try to just be good people to work with. 

 

We won’t always be perfect, but we try.  We don’t donate to charities as a company.  We don’t espouse political causes.  Our purpose is very specifically to better empower people to experience more of the world.  Those people can then decide on their own charities and politics: we believe they will, on the whole, make better choices and a bigger impact than if we take their money and do it for them.  We trust you, our customer.

We don't post about the parade of world tragedies which have been occupying headlines for years.  We focus on the positives of traveling, and the potential and hope we believe in.  The awful things in this world already get a lot of press, and there are many, many good people trying their hardest to do something about them.  But these events don’t often encourage hope, or an unbridled passion to explore.  Our company vocation lies in this positive aspect, and it’s what we will try to cultivate as best we can.

And for what it’s worth, everyone at Anywhere has opinions on which politics, charities, or tragedies are deserving of attention or support, and in our personal lives we work at them as best we can, just like everyone else. 

In short, Anywhere does right by its partners and travelers, and we help you to discover more of the world.  The rest is up to you.

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