Our Challenges

Fabric of Humanity uses intelligent, heart-centred design and production processes to honour ancient cultural textiles traditions and the people that practice them. 

 

Humankind is urgently seeking solutions to monumental environmental, ethical and social problems due to industrialisation. The modern textiles industry gobbles up fast-depleting, non-renewable resources, emits huge quantities of greenhouse gases and uses massive amounts of chemicals and water. Synthetic dyes used in mass production directly expose workers and the end user to a harmful cocktail of carcinogenic chemicals, dyes, salts and heavy metals that not only contaminate the land but pollute drinking water through run-off and wash cycles. This must stop.

Before these destructive methods were introduced, for thousands of years handloom cloth and natural dyes made from local botanical resources were the backbone of rural economies. Spinning, farming and weaving skills were handed down through generations.

Sadly, many of these traditional artisan communities and customs have been all but lost over the past century thanks to the relentless march of modern machinery and industry.

In 1918 Mahatma Gandhi recognised the empowering benefits of hand-spinning and hand-weaving in the face of industrialisation by promoting the human-powered Khadi movement. At Fabric of Humanity we follow in Ghandi’s footsteps and recognise the positive political force of Khadi in providing regenerative agriculture opportunities, employment and particularly benefitting women who make up the majority of global textile workers and artisans. While organic fibres are of particular importance to us, we strongly believe they cannot come at the expense of our artisan communities. Our vision is to revive the Khadi movement and support an industry that is fair, restorative and sustainable.