The creaking floors of the Charlotte St. Arts Centre auditorium didn’t mask over the voices of Alleson Kase and Ellen Agger, owners of Tammachat Natural Textiles. The women held a show on Saturday to promote eco-friendly, fair-traded clothing, fabrics, and weaved-baskets.
Both ladies purchase their cloths from co-ops in Thailand and Laos. The cloths are prepared in their natural state, processed in traditional ways and dyed with natural dyes- rather than boxed store cloths that are processed in factories with poisonous chemicals and shipped to stores that do not give the clothes a price they deserve.
Kase and Agger use their show as a tool to educate people about buying fairly-traded cloths.
“If you are really aware that the products you are buying are made by women from a community, and that community is situated in an environment and that the production and the selling of that piece will impact those people, then it’s not just about maximizing your purchasing power,” Kase said. “You start to realize you are having an impact on someone else … and the public will be educated to care about those people.”
The quality of the cloths are amazing, the silk feels natural in your hand and not over-processed and “slippery” like those bought in a clothing store. The silk scarves are not cheap – $49 and up depending on length, material, and colours – but Kase hopes that customers will skip past the price tag and look at the real value.
“From their point of view [the women in Thailand and Laos], they are producing a very good quality product and people should be willing to buy it. They wouldn’t cheat anybody so why should we cheat them,” Kase said.
Agger and Kase purchase clothes from a co-op group called Prae Pan, situated in Northeast Thailand. Two-hundred women form the group and have been operating for 20 years.
Prae Pan’s principles for producing high-quality, eco-friendly clothing is to preserve the traditional dyeing techniques and weaving patterns, provide a lasting career and steady income for women, encourage women’s participation in all aspects of community affairs, and preserving the environment by using natural dyes and using sustainable planting and harvesting.
Tammachat follows Prae-Pan’s principles. They don’t consider any way to do so but fairly.
“I think fair trade is paying a fair price, building a long term relationship with producers who are using eco-production methods themselves, in their families, and in their communities,” Kase said.
Lynda Brine, head of the Fibre Arts Studio at the Fredericton College of Arts and Design, attended the show. She hopes that the Tammachat show will encourage locals to purchase eco-friendly hand-made crafts from developing countries, but also at home in Canada as well.
“I am really excited to see the hand-weaving from Thailand and Laos. I really love the idea of the notion for dealing with co-ops and empowering women in these developing countries,” Brine said. “It gives them an opportunity to sell their weaving to broader markets. I am a weaver so I really love to see the work from other people of different cultures and their traditional patterns. It really educates the locals when they come in.”
College of Arts and Design weaving-graduate, Ashley Watson, finds it difficult to purchase natural dyes and eco-friendly materials close to home. She purchases her materials for her baskets from British Columbia and California. But she wouldn’t do it any other way.
“It is very important to educate the public about fair-trade and organic product and supporting women. I, myself, really support fair trade and organic materials,” Watson said. “I also support eco-agriculture and to bring it mainstream and for people to be able to buy these products everyday.”
