Images magazine Digital Edition April 2018

BRAND PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 48 images APRIL 2018 Everything is okay Danish brand Neutral is now available in the UK. Images talks to founder Lars Bech about the need to reduce pollution and pay workers a proper wage A growing awareness of the pollution generated by the garment industry was what led to Lars Bech and Christina Larsen setting up Neutral. “I’ve been in the industry for 30 years,” explains Lars. “I made millions of T-shirts in Bangladesh every year. The dyehouses in Bangladesh, they sometimes leak out water and it goes through this channel down to the river. You could see if they were doing black [dye] because the water was black. And when you looked up, you could see that all the dyehouses were there and the river was full of amazing colours. Which would have been amazing – if it wasn’t for the chemicals. “So, the pollution was a very big factor. For us, it was an eye-opener that what we were doing was wrong. It was a process. When you see it first time you say, ‘Oh my God!’, and then you say ‘What is it?’. Then you start to get interested.” The brand, which started a decade ago, promises to be okay. Which sounds a somewhat modest ambition. “What is the opposite of being okay?,” asks Lars. “Not okay.” “Exactly. Everything should be okay.” And everything really is okay at Neutral. Its approach is to adhere to the highest social, ethical and environmental criteria for clothing production. One of the first concerns Lars had was about improving the pay and conditions for people working in the factories and dyehouses: “The working hours are long and the salary’s low.” Then he was introduced to “organic guys” in India. “They taught me about cotton. They told me about GMOs [genetically-modified organisms] and how much chemicals, insecticides and pesticides are used to grow the cotton. “The use of chemicals, insecticides and pesticides in growing the cotton is enormous. And it pollutes the ground water, it pollutes the soil. In the organic cotton fields, you have birds and they are eating the insects so they [the insects] don’t eat the cotton.” The plants growing cotton for Neutral’s garments are sprayed with sugar water to attract ants, which in turn protect the cotton plant. “It’s a smart little trick, right?” enthuses Lars. “Offer the ants some candy and they’ll protect the plants.” He continues: “All this is gone in the conventional industry. The more you learn about the cotton industry, the more you understand how we all need organic.” The need for GMO-free cotton is imperative as well, he believes: “It’s very important because the farmer can use the seeds to plant again and again and again. If it’s GMO, you’ve got to buy new seeds every year, and that’s very expensive.” It is, however, more expensive to produce garments that are made from non-GMO, organic, Fairtrade cotton in wind-powered factories that pay their staff fairly, and use dyehouses that clean their wastewater and use less polluting dyes. The price difference is not extortionate, however, and Lars believes that the processes they use add value to the product. Each Neutral product comes with labels and a hangtag (which is made from leftover cotton, as are the buttons), detailing the certificates the garments