All about us
One of the reasons our name is a question is because we want to make people think about what goes on behind the scenes on manufacturing - who *does* make your pants? Where? We also want to make some connections between purchaser and producer - it's happening more and more with food, so why not clothes too? And it seems only fair that if we are suggesting that people ask these questions, that we step up and answer them ourselves.
So.
whomadeyourpants? is a worker co-op specifically formed to empower marginalised women by providing flexible employment, education and a social and community space. We make gorgeous ethical pants from materials sold on by industry at the end of season, from the sorts of fabrics used for the pretty, lacy, three pairs for £10 pants we see in the big high street stores. Our founder, Becky, had the idea back in 2006, work started on the business full time in July 2008, we were legally incorporated on December 12th 2008 and we launched officially on the 1st December 2009.
We have a Committee of four members, like a Board of Directors, who are the founder members of the co-op. We have one full time member of staff, our Becky, 11 part time workers making pants, and five regular volunteers coming into the premises to help with operational stuff and long term planning, and general admin like answering the phone, filing and helping us turn whatever we have donated to us into something useful. We will employ another 12 women in February 2010 when they finish their training, and are aiming to train and employ at least another 30 women - we try to maximise our impact by ensuring that lots of women get some work, rather than a few women having a lot of work. When our workers have gone through their probation period, and as long as they meet our membership criteria, they are eligible to become a member of the co-op if they want - and this means that they own the business, are responsible for it, and could, down the line when we are making masses of profits, share in those profits.
We're based in a building called Fairways House in Southampton, which is perfectly situated as it's within a safe walking distance of a lot of the women's houses - it's very close the where a lot of their children go to school. We've got a giant cutting table, assorted sewing machines and the strangest looking knife which cuts vertically through loads of layers of fabric.
The women we employ and work with are primarily refugees, from Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sudan, Iraq, Turkey, and Kosovo. We aim to support women who want to work but have either had no opportunity to, or have opportunity removed from them - so we would also work with women who, for example, had not managed to get an education here in the UK due to an abusive childhood. We find potential workers through agencies and organisations who work with the women we want to support, and women are also now approaching us direct - we have a waiting list but can't taken any more women on until we are established. We are not a support service ourselves, but we do work with lots of support services and can point the women in the direction of them should they want to get some help.
Each woman who joins our training course is assessed at the beginning, and the training courses are designed to fit around what the women already know, and so they are always bespoke. English classes include lots of technical terms and words, and so we work with some women now who might still struggle to get a bus by themselves, but they can say 'chain mail glove' and 'four thread overlocker'.
All the profit we make goes back into the business to provide more jobs and ongoing learning, advice and support. The overall idea is that we are a first entry on a CV not a last one, and that the women we work with can go our and get other jobs after working with us. Some of the women we work with have never worked before but others had very responsible jobs - headmistresses, businesswomen, doctors. What they all have in common is that most of them just can't get jobs in this country as they need some initial support and few employers, it seems, are prepared to give it to them. We're prepared to - will you help us?