Bishopston Trading Company

- Published on Ecojam.org -

In the first of my series of pieces taking a look the ethical fashion designers and brands in and around Bristol, I thought it only right to begin with the founders of ethical fashion. Happily enough, they’re right on our doorstep.

Bishopston Trading Company

Recently in the blogging community, there has been some debate establishing ‘just who started Ethical Fashion?’

Bagsful, written by the clothing researcher of Ethical Consumer, lists Bishopston Trading Company as the first on the scene. 

In 1985, Carolyn Whitwell (a Bristol local) travelled to K.V.Kuppam, a village in South India. 

Her mission: to set up a tailoring unit with the sole aim of fair trading with the locals, providing them with work - not charity.

26 years later, Carolyn is still designing and Bishopston Trading Co. has 4 retail stores with HQ here, in our own Bishopston, on Gloucester Road.

Fair Trade Certified and, with the Spring/Summer collection made entirely from organic cotton, Bishopston Trading remains steadfast in its primary objective:

“Trading and retailing with regard to helping to promote the social welfare and wellbeing of suppliers and producers.”

Sourcing their fabrics from GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards) accredited Agrocel farming group, the collections’ ethics are refreshingly transparent. Sub contractors are regularly checked. Members of the Bishopston Workers’ Co-Operative are paid a living wage. Alongside this, they are given maternity leave, retirement gratuity, sick pay and a bonus for festivals. 

But with the recession falling heavily on the retailing sector and global cotton prices suffering a crippling inflation of 120%, how is Bishopston Trading coping?

“Like most other retailers, we have had to raise some of our prices in response to the sharp increase in the cost of raw cotton. At Bishopston Trading, we are adding new and accessible designs to our collections each season - allowing customers to make ethical purchases regardless of their style or budget. We refuse to compromise on our ethics, and over the last 26 years, we’ve built up a pool of incredibly loyal customers. The new designs are now beginning to reach a wider market - and are attracting interest from a younger generation of ethically minded consumers - despite the economic crisis.” 

With an exclusive preview of the new Spring/Summer collection due to arrive from late February, it does not fail to deliver. Inspired by Crete, deep blues & purple tones are the predominant colour themes. Expect clean lines in their range of shirts - checked patterns are trending and will appeal to a younger market. The ladieswear range embraces the  season’s colours and white tailored blouses, which can be teamed with  the trousers and floral jackets for stylish effect.

But whilst you wait for the new collection to arrive, their Autumn/Winter sale is in full swing with many items better than half price. Luxurious velvets and corduroys took over the collection last season, with colours of charcoal, berry and a sumptuous mallard keeping the cold weather out with a clean conscience. Sale ends March.

Join Ecojam.org for an exclusive discount on the Bishopston Trading Co. range.

For more information on Bishopston Trading Co., go to www.bishopstontrading.co.uk

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Next time, I’ll be updating you on what’s new in the Bristol Ethical Fashion world - Look out for me at The Swish at the CREATE Centre (13th February, 11am-3pm).

Yet another minor blunder.

“OI OI!” Yeah, cheers.

Dear Reader, may I begin by humbly suggesting the following as guidelines for general adoption:

1. own more than one pair of jeans 
2. have a pair of ‘sensible’ shoes by the front door at all times
3. if your waxer begins to apply ‘after wax oil’ with a trowel, decline immediately and ask for after-sun lotion
4. avoid any attempts to blot away surplus oil with tissue.

This morning, I’m walking the 60-second journey from my waxers’ to my parents’ house in a pair of red, 6in stilettos, and an oversized Barbour (“borrowed” from my mother on a permanent basis). 

The sun is shining, after a week of pissing it down. Glorious.

The waxer has applied so much ‘after wax’ oil, to help residue wax be removed in the shower, that I’ve decided against my jeans - I need to wear them to Top Drawer at Earls Court this afternoon, and I don’t need dark suspect patches to appear.

My jeans - incidentally - are stuffed under my arm inside my Barbour.

My newly waxed, oily-as-fuck, pasty legs are now being paraded through this overly middle-class suburb. That’s okay. 60 seconds.

But, as is within accordance of The Buggeration Factor, today is the day that all residents of Glanville Drive are having building work and/or their windows cleaned. 

So, I’m walking along, Barbour on, heels high. Hair-free legs reflecting every beam of sunlight to hit them. 

One pair of delightful fellows put down their cleaning accoutrements, and simply watch me walk past. A wolf-whistle from atop a nearby scaffolding structure. 

Tarmac. Swallow. Please.

On immediate consideration, it occurs to me that - unshowered and eyeliner-smudged as I am - that I am the first class ‘Walk of Shame” candidate.

Well then. I employ the only sensible resolution to this entire situation. 

Strut.

Legs stretched, head up, back straight. Take your time, and don’t - for god’s sake - trip up.

Arriving home (a whole 30 mortifying seconds later) my mother opens the door and bursts out laughing at the sight of this grubby, bare-oily-legged and scruffy excuse for a 22 year old.

What neither of us has realised as I hop in the shower, to my eye-rolling exasperation, is I’ve had tissue paper stuck to the back of my legs the whole time. 

Bristol Green Doors: A Greener Option

The idea was simple. For one weekend across Bristol, homeowners opened their front doors to the public, welcoming them to see how they had taken steps to a more eco-friendly and energy efficient approach to home life. 

If you were expecting cliches of 'Green Living', Bristol Green Doors quickly dispelled all notions of stereotypes at the porch.

The eco-friendly homes of the initiative emphasised the eclectic mix - the varied and diverse aspects - of ethical approaches to everyday living for real people. By 'real', I mean people that have kids, jobs and mortgages.

The hosts were warm, but quintessentially down to earth.

Sitting in the Sarah's living room (York Road, Montpelier), I was envious of her draught-proofed french doors, sky lights and huge windows that let in streams of light from the densely green garden.

It turns out that whilst the builders were fitting the under-floor insulation with Celotex (celotex.co.uk), she was heavily pregnant and accessing the adjacent kitchen via an obliging plank.

Clearly, undertaking an environmentally sound & energy efficient building project does not only require bundles of admirable vision and determined forward-thinking but nerves of steel.

I could empathise with anyone who left a selection of the homes feeling thoroughly underwhelmed. Most measures taken are largely invisible - insulation in the walls is undoubtably a wise, cost-effective and eco-friendly method of keeping your home warm, but you can't see it. Resin between the cracks in wooden floor boards to keep out up-lifting drafts - smart, certainly, but no show-stopping extravaganza.

But in Subtly's defence this is, perhaps, a positive thing. This weekend, ethical living and eco-homes have been offered forth, blending in very neatly with the original architecture and existing lifestyles of the houses and their occupants.

But everyone loves a spectacle, and Bristol Green Doors does not disappoint.

Ushered through to the dappled sunlit patio of Simon's garden (also York Road, Montpelier), his emphasis on ethical living is placed here. He does this for a living (thegreenhouseproject.net) but, among many things, he's made a working studio on a raised platform with a rooftop garden - notably sporting pumpkins, beans and sunflowers. Naturally, it's complete with solar panels to supply the water pump.

The final property I visit is owned by Footprint Building (footprintbuilding.co.uk) (Lansdown Road, Clifton) who are currently renovating the Victorian house with modern eco-friendly building methods and materials. Judging by the kitchen and the finished en-suites, these certainly haven't had a negative impact on style.

Al, Director of Footprint, enthused me with his energy. "Weekends like these are great...it heightens the reality that there is a rapidly growing market for sustainable construction and energy efficient living."

Shamelessly ear-wigging others' conversations, a couple walked in and seemed to confirm Al's confidence; they are renovating their own home and were "going around, asking questions and getting more ideas."

The Bristol Green Doors weekend made it abundantly clear, in these well-loved homes, that there are simple measures that can make a big difference - for everyone.

It's a wonderful penny dropping moment when you encounter a good idea in practise and think, 'Oh! I could do that!'

The Return

I am back in the UK.

I feel restless, not to mention COLD.

I have a few round up blogs I'd like to post shortly, but these may take another day or two. Now I'm back, I need to throw myself vigorously into the task of finding a job.

I am not used to the food in Britain anymore and I keep going to talk to strangers who provide services (taxi drivers, waiting staff) in Arabic.

I was taken aback when a woman spoke to me on the street asking, 'sorry Love, you got a spare fag on you?' I gaped at her for a moment. I didn't know her! And she was a local?! Why was she speaking to me? 'No, sorry,' I mumbled after a pause.

I was caught in a downpour the other day and fell into a mild meltdown - what did I used to do? Power on to get home or hide until the dark clouds and cold water went away? There's nothing more soul destroying, I have remembered, than wet feet.

Backwards culture shock. I had no idea it existed until I was in the depths of it.

'Buy One?'

I won't ever know her name, but this little girl lives in Dahab.

She spends her days marching and scrambling over the edges of the man-made bank of the Red Sea (where restaurants & cafes jostle for space along the shoreline) with a look a fierce concentration.

She stops occasionally to thrust friendship bracelets in holidaymakers' faces, demanding they 'buy one?' in a (I'd guess) 4 year old's most commanding tone. I have always refused them, with (I hope) a kind smile.

Yesterday, as the sunset approached, she jumped onto my sun-lounger where I was precariously perching, in a vain effort to catch the very last rays of the sun.

'Sahlan,' I said, smiling. After the usual, 'buy one?', 'la, shukran,' she didn't leave but stayed seated, apparently interested in Steve taking photographs (of the scenery that I would have attempted sooner if I knew, say, even how to hold the camera right).

She was full of a restless energy. She spoke simple Arabic, which made conversation much easier.

I noticed the small bag that never left her side. It was a treasure chest of plastic, colourful jewellery. For sale, of course.

She played with the pink cotton friendship bracelets she was clutching, before carefully placing them down with her bag and reaching out demanding the camera - with a huge, almost sly, smile.

'Soura?' I said. I wasn't surprised she wanted to take a photograph; the day before I'd seen her and she'd stopped at us, looking at us through a pair of binoculars - enjoying the new sights from both ends. It was charming to see, but equally desperately sad. Things like this were novel to her.

She nodded, and took the camera. Her little fingers couldn't press hard enough to take the photo but, after some gentle coaxing, was clicking away with paparazzi gusto.

Her elder cousin (Naliah) arrived some way into the impromptu photoshoot.

Naliah was more effective than our attempts to regain handling the camera. Between barking instructions at the little girl, she explained to us that she'd thrown the last camera into the sea.

It was given back immediately, with a venomous scowl at Naliah. I thanked the little girl for taking all the soura with a little baksheesh (some loose coins from my purse).

Soon we were sitting making staccato conversation in Arabic and English (their English was far better than my Arabic, naturally), pawing through Naliah’s larger, more colourful collection of friendship bracelets.

It wasn't until the little girl, quite forgetting to look thunderous anymore, had tugged the loop atop one of her bracelets onto my middle toe, fondling the trailing strands of cotton, that I asked in surprise, 'did you make these?!'

Yes, they had. Steve and I took immediate interest in them.

After some light haggling for propriety's sake, we bought two.

Naliah pulled out some cotton reels from her bag and offered to wrap one of Steve's dreadlocks - almost as proof that the they were definitely her own handiwork.

She was resourceful too. In the absence of any scissors to cut the cotton, she jumped down onto the shore & started searching for sharp rocks.

As she set to work on his hair with the roughly-cut cotton, the little girl had taken my unemployed sunglasses and placed them on her small nose.

She looked fantastic, her small face swamped by obscene 70s-dad-inspired sunglasses, framed by the curls that hadn't been swept up in her plait.

I offered them both the abandoned remnants of my pizza (a bad move - I was leaving shortly for the overnight journey to Cairo & I thought I needed some stodge. I managed two slices).

The little girl didn't seem so much interested in eating the pizza as the opportunity to use a knife and fork. I rearranged them in her hands - after she initially tried to pick up an entire slice with the knife.

She set about clawing the slices to pieces before opening her mouth as wide as she could - I leave it to you to imagine her expression - and putting in a tiny piece of the base. She ate it, open mouthed, grinning.

Naliah tied off Steve's wrap and they made to leave. The sun had now set, and the Ramadan feasts were beginning.

I dug into my bag and gave the little girl the only pen I had on me. I know that having a pen doesn't equal the privileged status of The Literate, but it does potentially allow them to participate in lessons and practise their writing at home.

I shall never meet them again, but I am glad we spent our last sunlight hours in Dahab with them. Soura, bracelets and a wrapped dread are our only tokens of their existence, but I hope whatever fate befalls them as they grow into women, they will be safe, well-fed and loved.

Same Shit, Different City

Fitness fanatics! Take heed of my words!

Do away with your stomach crunches, your sit ups, your planks!

If you really want to work your lower abdomen then I recommend sitting on an overnight bus from Dahab to Cairo with a case of the shits.

My god. You will never clench like it again.

The shifting-in-seat, the utter churning fear that you might let slip a little ‘parp’ that could splatter everywhere - including over the neighbourly young French guy you’d been pleasantly conversing with in an odd mixture of Arabic, French and English.

I’d managed not to shit myself as we pulled into Cairo - just - but I was off that bus, grabbing for my suitcase, running for the nearest door to the main building as fast as my limpy legs would carry me.

‘Feyn il-twalet?! Minfadlak?’

‘No inglizi.’ I was in too much of a desperate clench-and-trot to point out that I’d spoken in some vague (albeit poorly-pronounced) form of Arabic, not English.

‘Feyn… il- aahhhh- twalet? Please?! Toilet??’

I was directed ‘that way’.

God bless that ancient and noble art of point and nod.

I found the toilet. Correction, I found the toilets. Shit, which one was the Ladies’?! Of all the damn Arabic phrases to learn by sight that was probably one of the more vital.

There was a bloke washing his feet in a sink visible from the entrance to one of the two rooms.

His presence, of course, shouldn’t be taken with any real sense of authority on the matter, but I knew this was going to be a venture which required some privacy.

My stomach churned, and throwing caution to the wind, I dashed into the adjacent set of toilets and looked for the nearest open door.

To my utter horror, I saw no toilet. Or, no Western toilet.

Rather, a dirty pit into which I was about unload the sloppy contents of my bowels.

This, I thought, required me to leave my dignity at the door, and take the alcohol gel in hand.

I rammed my suitcase against the door in place of a lock.

Imagine if you will - but you needn’t - a 20-something girl, squatting over a large pit that was once white, but now was covered in a thick layer of…various substances. Only she’s not squatting, so much as bent down hitching her trousers away from the floor, clutching at the walls for support.

Someone walked in, shuffling around, as the most hideous noise escaped my person. I will not pretend it was oral.

Finally, it was over.

Sweating, I left the toilet. For now, it was over and I started to calculate its rough half life as I was rubbing alcohol gel into my hands looking for the taxi rank.

I got into the first taxi that had the squashiest, most comfy looking seats.

‘Al’an faan da… funduk Bella Luna?’ And to my great surprise he understood me, driving off to my hotel with the chaotic speed of any good Cairene driver.

Blood-stained Beach

‘Swimming pool or the sea?’
‘The sea. Yes.’
‘Okay, okay, I’ll take your key and see you later’.

I handed my room key to Ahmed - the hotel receptionist with whom I had a bet on that we would have matching skin tones by the time I left the Sinai.

Like every late afternoon in Dahab, it was warm and I was sticky from the layers and lashings of suncream I had applied during the course of the day.

Despite wearing SPF40, and remaining in the shade over a long lunch, I still had developed pink forearms, which I’d only noticed as the sun had fallen behind the rooftop terrace of the hotel.

I lay in the seawater, welcoming the cool waves as they washed over me. It had been a windy day, and the seabed had been thrown up into the shallow waters, making it impossible to see the floor beneath the water.

I stood up, stepped forward, trying to hold my balance and as I took another step I fell through an invisible gap in the dead coral to the sandy bed below.

I felt a sharp tear.

I leapt to shore and as I fell to the gravelly sands I saw my foot, red.

Staggering to the beachside hut, I cried out; blood was trailing behind me, great droplets congealing in the sand.

Ahmed came running over as I clutched for the trunks of palm trees that made up the bones of the hut. Within seconds, I was surrounded by hotel staff. Shouting instructions, Ahmed held up my foot, another was drenching it with bottled water, and another had run to call the doctor.

I was shaking. Ahmed lifted me gently into the seats, further away from the sand and water, where I lay back. Tears fell down my cheeks.

It hurt, but I was more upset that on my first day alone, I had seemingly proven that I couldn’t cope with ‘Travelling’. I struggled with Tourism and The Third World Way of Life. I struggled with the appropriate response to utterly dire poverty I had encountered behind the glass windows of an air-conditioned minibus in Middle Egypt. And now I was struggling to keep a steady footing in the shallows of the Red Sea.

The young doctor appeared a short while later.

I was grateful for the privacy I had been afforded whilst we awaited his arrival, but now I felt disgusted with myself. How stupid could I be?! It’s a coral reef, dead or not, I should not have been paddling about without my boots. Now a doctor was missing out on celebrating breaking the Ramadan fast with his family because I was too much of a blundering tosser.

My dressing, now soaked with a ghastly mixture of blood and betadine (antiseptic favoured in tropical climates), was removed. ‘Yes. It is deep. You will need stitches.’

Ahmed lifted me again, and I was carried to my room. I lay on the bed, shuddering, as they cleared off the day’s accumulated sunbathing accoutrements that had been carelessly dumped earlier in the afternoon.

In the calm of my room, I felt a stabbing pain in my lower abdomen, and it took me a moment to realise that it was my screaming bladder. I limped, wincing, to the bathroom.

With two men in your room, and walls that rival paper on soundproofing, it was a long, awkward, piss.

Empty-bladdered, I lay back, wrapped only in my beach towel, and the doctor opened his briefcase. I heard the clunk of the catch, feeling a sense of foreboding.

I screamed, cried and sobbed between strained gasps as he injected me with the local anaesthetic at 5 points around the gash in my heel. Ahmed grasped my shoulder, whilst I clenched his free hand.

The doctor looked up, and assured me he would not start stitching until my heel was numb.

5 minutes had passed whilst I was breathing deeply, still sobbing, unable to coherently compose a sentence, nor think with any real clarity.

Recovering myself slightly, the doctor tested the feeling in my heel. I could still feel substantial discomfort as he pressed on the tip of the tear with his latexed hand.

He began to stitch. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I screamed and shrieked at the searing pain of the needle, and the tug as it was tied off.

4 stitches, and it was over. He dressed and bandaged my heel and ankle.

(Swollen and stitched, taken 2 days later)

I couldn’t help but lie motionless, a blubbering mess of sweat, salt water and tears on my face and chest. Regaining some vague sense of composure, the doctor began to calmly explain how to care for the wound. He left, leaving my bedside table loaded with dressings, betadine, painkillers, antibiotics, and a receipt.

It’s been 3 days and I am still limping.

The stitches will come out when I briefly return to Cairo on Thursday and I must wait until then for a verdict on whether I can snorkel once more when I return to Dahab on Monday.

I have promised myself that I will follow Doctor’s Orders.