Sustainable fashion isn’t about seeking out one solve-all solution to the industry’s harmful ways. In reality, it’s about nurturing localised fashion ecosystems that include a multitude of sustainable fashion designers, organisations, artisans, and changemakers.

This is exactly the ethos of POLO’s Purpose Initiative. Alia Peer, Creative Director at POLO South Africa says:

We have started a Polo Purpose Initiative to support smaller community projects, especially women in Africa. We see the need to shine a light on the beautiful craftmanship and talent in Africa and to support women economically on our continent.

As part of the Purpose Initiative, POLO launched their limited-edition, handcrafted handbag in collaboration with Mifuko in October. Mifuko is a non-profit organisation and a Fair Trade member, striving to improve the lives of women in a community in rural Kenya. The organisation employs Kenyan women artisans who make baskets using traditional weaving techniques. POLO and Mifuko were entirely aligned in their goals of creating sustainable fashion and creating sustainable livelihoods for women in Africa.

“We are guided by our core values in everything we do: unique, joyful, and socially responsible. With timeless design and high-quality materials, we want our products to bring joy for a long time and at the end of their lifecycle, they can be recycled with minimal environmental impact,” reads the Mifuko website.

Each bag is handmade, unique, and aligns with POLO’s values of sustainable fashion. The basket is woven from eco-friendly paper, sourced locally in Kenya, and the leatherwork is finished by Missibaba in Cape Town. Each bag has a handmade bead by Madilika, a community of women in Skukuza who recycle glass bottles to make beads.

“Their innovation and creativity, to collect glass bottles and to upcycle them into jewellery is inspiring.  We spent a most memorable afternoon making clay beads with them,” says Alia.

The bags are wearable, functional art. But, beyond the product, they have a much deeper story to tell about how we should be rethinking the production of fashion and accessories in a way that creates a positive social impact and preserves natural ecosystems.

With a strong focus on supporting women in Africa, this project also aligns with POLO’s larger sustainability strategy through collaborating, upcycling, and pushing the boundaries of innovative design starting from raw materials.

According to the Woolmark Company, “Every 25 minutes, an Olympic-sized swimming pool of oil is used to make synthetic clothing.” POLO predominantly uses natural fibres in its collections and minimal polyester. This need to move away from synthetic materials is reflected in the decision to support more natural fibres in their collections.

“It is also a fair trade product and beyond the design of a great beach bag, we are aware of our social responsibility and the need to support incredible basket weaving skills,” adds Alia.

Small fashion businesses and organisations, that prioritise local production, are often more in tune with the needs and contexts of the communities they work in, allowing them to act with more care and consideration for their contexts.

The brand acknowledges that the fashion industry is highly polluting and socially damaging, meaning that there is a greater urgency for new material innovation and reimagining what the future of the fashion industry could look like.

Alia adds:

Beyond our own factory outside of Cape Town that employs 300 staff, we believe in people and collaborating with the larger design community to solve the challenges that face our industry.

Most of the 300 people in POLO’s Cape Town factory are women, which is a reflection of the brand’s commitment to investing in the livelihoods of women across Africa. This commitment is affirmed in the POLO x Mifuko bag collaboration too.

“On average, the time women spend performing unpaid labour amounts to seven more years than men.  That’s the time it takes to complete a bachelor’s and master’s degree,” Melinda Gates told Business Insider. Sustainability in the fashion industry needs to be firmly rooted in social justice too. POLO sees gender justice as an essential part of this.

With women in Africa striving to earn a living despite numerous social and economic disadvantages, POLO plans to work more closely with community projects to support job creation, skills development, and where possible to establish a vertical supply chain in Africa.

The POLO x Mifuko collaboration reminds us that – when it comes to innovative design and sustainable fashion futures – we need to look no further than the vast design traditions, and artisanal skills, already present within African countries. Sustainable fashion has a long history on the continent and it’s time we embraced it.

 

• The POLO x Mifuko bag is available in select POLO retail stores across South Africa: Ballito, Gateway, Mall of Africa, Menlyn, Sandton, and V&A Waterfront.
• POLO South Africa was a sponsor for the Twyg Sustainable Fashion Awards 2022, and presented the Innovative Design and Materials Award
• Images supplied by POLO South Africa