Images Magazine November 18

IS BRAND PROFILE www.images-magazine.com 34 images NOVEMBER 2018 the further back you go, the more murky it gets.“ Bespoke USPs Orn is now keen to educate its customers about the garment- making process and the ethical and environmental issues involved, as it has found that current awareness is, on the whole, quite low. To this end, Jane visited a partner factory offshore last year to produce a video that shows what happens from the cotton field to the finished blank garment, documenting all the processes and stages in between. This attention to detail is particularly relevant for the large-end users such as big corporates, explains Ivor, as “for them, it‘s a very hot issue”. Orn‘s bespoke service isn’t the sole preserve of multinational corporations, however: Ivor reports that numerous small and medium-sized decorators are now using the service to take full advantage of what bespoke manufacturing has to offer. According to Ivor, one of the USPs of Orn‘s service is its use of triple stitching on the garment’s main seams. The company actively steers customers “I n India, often if a woman‘s husband dies they end up being an outcast from their families and society,“ explains Orn‘s marketing director, Jane Peters. “What this factory does is house these widows and give them jobs. Otherwise, they‘d be out on the street.“ For Orn Clothing, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, selecting factories such as the one described by Jane to manufacture its garments and that of its bespoke clients is a long and strict process where environmental and social considerations are placed first and foremost. “We will not compromise on our ethical standards,“ confirms managing director Ivor Tunley. “It doesn‘t matter how ‘glittery‘ it looks, if they can‘t prove they‘re ethical, then there‘s no point in us going there.“ The minimum requirement is that the factory is SA8000-certified, which confirms social accountability, and that there is no child labour. Wrap and Sedex are also preferred; Orn is a Sedex B member. The company opened an office in India in 2015, which now has 15 staff, and one in Bangladesh that opened this year and currently has one member of staff. “It‘s boots on the ground for us,“ says Ivor. “We‘re a lot more visible in factories than we ever have been before. We‘re overseeing factories, overseeing production and handling the day-to-day orders from approvals to the end product – the whole process.” Orn adopts an equally rigorous approach with regard to the factories’ environmental impact. “We‘ve tried to take a lead in going beyond just what people regard as the factory; the typical understanding of the factory is actually just the stitching facility. But that‘s the final mile, so to speak. A lot of the damage happens before that. The polluting element can come from the dyehouse where the chemicals are used, it can come from the actual cotton plants. So we‘ve put a lot of effort into drilling down to the supply chain behind the factory, to actually find out what goes on and make sure that they‘re ethical as well. And that‘s not an easy task because As Orn celebrates its 10th anniversary, Images talks to managing director Ivor Tunley about a decade of rapid growth, ethical and bespoke production, and a move into promowear Orn to lead Workwear items such as trousers form the basis of Orn‘s garment offering towards using this option and for two very good reasons. “Firstly, we know that it works,” explains Ivor, “and secondly, the stitching lines in our main facilities are set up for three-needle stitching.” He adds that some customers may question whether they really need the additional Orn insists on checking the ethical standards of every part of the production process