Wish magazine supplement, May 2014, Simone Cipriani & Ethical Fashion Initiative

Top row, from left: creating accessories for Marni; the luxury label Marni partnered with the EFI to create bags to be sold at Japanese department store Isetan; Karen Walker’s sunglasses campaign with the EFI. Second row from left: African workers; Marni bags for Isetan; Simone Cirpriani; producing bags for Stella McCartney. Third row from left: Karen Walker sunglasses campaign; models in Vivienne Westwood’s EFI range; Sarah-Jane Clarke in Kenya

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BY CONNECTING TOP DESIGNERS WITH ARTISANS IN AFRICA, SIMONE CIPRIANI’S ETHICAL FASHION INITIATIVE HAS BECOME A WAY OUT OF POVERTY AND A BOTTOM-LINE SUCCESS FOR ALL PARTNERS STORY CARLI PHILIPS

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uscan-born Simone Cipriani is late to our scheduled interview.

The timing had been carefully planned to accommodate the time difference between Melbourne and Cipriani’s base at the UN in Geneva. We finally Skype with each other two hours after our agreed time, but Cipriani has one of the best excuses I’ve ever heard: he had forgotten about his Swahili lessons. The gregarious and multilingual Italian has been busy making high fashion in the slums of Africa and, as a result, has needed to expand his repertoire of languages.

“It’s quite incredible to think,” muses Cipriani, “that we might save the world through fashion.”

Cipriani created and now helms the International Trade Centre’s Ethical Fashion Initiative, a joint body of the World Trade Organisation and the UN, which connects African micro-producers with global fashion houses and brand distributors, creating job opportunities for impoverished communities and women in particular. Since 2008, he has been responsible for turning the ideals of ethical fashion into a sustainable and practical reality, changing thousands of lives and businesses in the process.

The EFI focuses its operations primarily on the luxury sector and has worked with brands such as Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and Giorgio Armani.

The emphasis on luxury stems, in part, from the skills inherent in the handmade and the simple fact that highly specialised artisans cannot produce on a mass level.

Premium consumers recognise the value of artisanal products and the luxury industry can absorb the higher price points of ethical production.

Cipriani, however, remains positive that ethical fashion will eventually go mainstream. “The fashion industry and consumers are becoming more and more alert, aware and conscious on the social and

environmental impact of the supply chain of fashion. I like to think that soon we can talk about responsible fashion as just ‘fashion’, without the words ‘ethical’ or ‘responsible’ before it.”

This year, Cipriani made his second visit to Australia to speak at the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Business Seminar and at the Holmesglen Fashion Institute. His presentations, delivered with trademark Italian showmanship, had people in the audience rushing to meet him afterwards and a list of Australian designers wanting to work with the EFI. While audiences were captivated with Cipriani’s charisma and infectious altruism, he was frank: “I’m not here to spin stories on the romance of Africa. I’m here to talk about work. What we do is to harness fashion as a vehicle out of poverty. We work with the poorest of the poor, but this is not pity; this is not charity; this is work.

And you are our partners, so welcome to Africa.”

The EFI has built a solid relationship with Australian designers Sass & Bide and New Zealand designer Karen Walker, and is about to add accessories brand Mimco to the mix. These are mutually beneficial collaborations that guarantee viable, long-term jobs for thousands of African craftspeople and unique, artisanal products for fashion brands.

Despite Cipriani’s venerable employer, the 49-yearold is endearingly approachable. Whether he’s in Paris liaising with luxury fashion houses, or spending time in the Rift Valley with “some Masai friends”, or accompanying fashion designer-activist Vivienne Westwood and internationally acclaimed photographer Juergen Teller through northern Kenya, he does so with effortless geniality. With up to eight months of the year spent travelling, it’s a gruelling schedule but one that Cipriani recognises as necessary, both in terms of practicalities and promoting the EFI. In 2005, while living in Ethiopia and Kenya and managing a large intervention by UNIDO (UN Industrial

Luc Perramond, chief executive of La Montre Hermes, at the

Bottom row from left: Sass & Bide’s Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton in Kenya; Vivienne Westwood’s “I love crap” clutches; Vivienne Westwood in Africa; Stella McCartney look book

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Development Organisation), Cipriani met Gino Filippini — a missionary who had spent 40 years living in the slums of Korogocho, creating work for locals. Cipriani began spending weekends with him and learning about the informal sector of African micro-producers. This, together with his experience in the leather industry, gave birth to the EFI. “I was due to go to Geneva to participate in a competitive selection to set up a program on leather in the developing world, but when I arrived I went to the executive director with another idea and gave her a business plan. She said, ‘I’ll give you a budget for one year and you can do a pilot. If you fail, you’re out and if you succeed, you can stay.’ And here we are,” says the tireless humanitarian who has consulted for the European Union, the UN and a host of international agencies, establishing and directing various development cooperation projects and export consortiums across Asia along with NGOs and private companies.

“What we [are] trying to do is to build a bridge between isolated, informal slum economies, which have few rules, and the world economy,” says JeanMaire Paugam, deputy executive director of the ITC. “Only an external intervention forcing the introduction of new resources into the slum can make that convergence possible.”

Championing the philosophy Not Charity, Just Work, the EFI maintains that the long-term reduction of poverty can be achieved only through trade and dignified employment. “Charity is important to build schools and hospitals. These things are important before there is work,” says Cipriani. “But to get people to produce a fashion bag that is sold for charity? That is not sustainable because it’s not about work. Work is about meeting quality, deadlines and production targets. That is why

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we have set up a solid business support infrastructure.

“I’ve seen co-operatives in the slums of Nairobi with the best intentions fail because they were selling their products to a charity. It was not serious on standards because it was not-for-profit. And when it folded, the workers were left with nothing. They had never met the challenge of working for the market, of meeting a deadline. This is temporary assistance, not real help. It had given people monetary help on the spot, but long term didn’t create anything.”

In Kenya, the EFI has established a central social enterprise that operates as a management and product development hub, processing orders Cipriani has brokered with partner fashion brands. The hub buys materials and distributes workflow to a network of microproducers all over Africa. Support and skills training facilitated by the EFI ensure that these co-operatives function as legitimate businesses with embedded logistics for quality control, delivery standards and transactions.

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Says Cipriani: “We do continuous capacity-building for the artisans every day. I would say it’s one of our main expenses, if not the biggest one.

“It enables people to work independently, so much so that many people are now working for domestic markets. They have acquired the ability to manage their own businesses. We invest in the poor as they are the most important factor of growth for humankind, not only for Africa. When this enormous potential is connected to the global market, people can change their lives and the lives of their families.”

The EFI also provides training in generational crafts such as beading, screen-printing, tailoring, patchwork, crochet and embroidery. Currently focused in Kenya for accessories, the group has recent expanded to Haiti for jewellery and the West African nations of Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso for hand-woven textiles.

Although no longer involved, the first companies to sign with the initiative were the Max Mara Group along with Italian distributor Coop Italia in 2008. Then came loyal supporter Ilaria Venturini Fendi’s brand Carmina Campus and Vivienne Westwood, who visited Africa in 2011 with Cipriani. Big brands come by way of United Arrows, Macy’s, Manor Switzerland and Myer Australia/Hands that Shape Humanity.

Currently, clients include Sass & Bide, Stella McCartney, jeweller Chan Luu, Osklen/Instituto E, Takashimaya, Maiden Nation and 10 Corso Como.

“Our involvement is not a one-season-only charity project; it’s a long-term commitment to collaborate with African talent while also making fashion more fair,” says Heidi Middleton of Sass & Bide, who has collaborated with women from the Kikuyu, Masai, Samburu and other East African tribes on two bags, and is set to expand the range further. Indeed, the success of the EFI depends

heavily on the commercial viability of products and a long-term brand commitment to repeat orders. “It’s about making beautiful products that sell well, that are appealing to consumers, and then have a story,” he says.

These are not token tourist pity products. “We always try to make products that are a bit detached from the traditional image of Africa but instead feed into collections,” says Cipriani. “I always get very upset when people ask us to create ethnic things because this is not what we do. It’s very difficult to explain to people in the institutions, the governments, the donors. But the fashion industry understands. We want to bring Africa’s skills into the mainstream. We do not do ethnic and we won’t work with anyone who wants to.”

With Sass & Bide’s brand aesthetic rooted in embellishment, the pairing with EFI made perfect sense.

“We have been taking inspiration from the quality, detail and craftsmanship that have formedpart of the African culture for years,” says Middleton.

The benefits are indisputable: wages paid according to fair labour standards with provisions for health and safety, and 100 per cent ethical production with minimal environmental impact. So what’s in it for the brand?

“Beautiful, ethical luxury with a touch of uniqueness.

Handmade, yes, but not in a shack. In a proper place and decent working environment. Not small quantities — quantities that are suitable for the industry of fashion.

We do business, and we do it in a new and dynamic environment.”

Cipriani firmly maintains that EFI fashion partners can reap bottom-line profits while being both socially and environmentally accountable at every stage of production.

It’s what he refers to as the “ethics of responsibility” and insists it must be built into the value chain right from the start. “At present they [businesses] know they don’t have

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to give anything back,” Cipriani said in a 2011 interview with Imran Ahmed, editor of the Business of Fashion blog. “So, it’s about being profitable, otherwise you’re not sustainable and you’re not responsible to your stakeholders, shareholders. It’s about organising and allocating resources in such a way that this profit is also shared with the first stages. This is ethical fashion.”

Regular independent auditing through impact assessment reports and monitoring from the Fair Labour Association prove that it’s working. Data collection from a recent study in Kenya indicates that 90 per cent of employees have been able to make improvements to their homes, while 88 per cent report their ability to make independent financial decisions as the most important change in their life. With more than 7000 craftspeople, 90 per cent of whom are women — and sole breadwinners — Cipriani has witnessed most of these empowering changes first hand.

“I’ve seen girls precluded from schools go and do

better than the boys and receive higher education.

Women becoming company CEOs. Women getting the respect of the community. Women speaking openly against awful practices such as female genital mutilation and refusing for their daughters to go through it. I’ve seen the flourishing power of women. Women, women, women!” he declares zealously.

“And I come from Italy, a country that has changed a lot of over the last 20 years but where you still don’t see a lot of women in the top positions. So for me to see this change in the African society is wonderful.”

But there’s still work to be done, and Cipriani’s short-term ambition is twofold: to expand the number of beneficiaries to occupy more of the market, and to have more people established in the domestic market.

“I hope to see change,” he says optimistically. “In the immediate term, I want to see more people at work, more and more women who helm small independent companies in Africa.”

Long-term, he wants to “have new generations of small entrepreneurs in Africa participate fully in the political and social life of their country — to take over the economy and become full-time, responsible citizens who pay taxes, hold their politicians accountable and start being vocal about civil issues. In a very long-term perspective, I hope to see Africa rising up and fulfilling its own potential”.

While the success of the EFI is undoubtedly a result of Cipriani’s steely determination and business smarts, he is also its heart. But this passionate man from Pistoia shrugs off any adulation, humbly stating that he is merely participating in “something that is much bigger, way beyond us”. Fulfilment, he says, comes not from personal merit but simply because: “In general, it is the right thing to do. And it is like this.” W