Lucille Chi
This season, in search of the hottest summer organic tee, we @ FGS had the most serendipitous opportunity to interview Gali of brilliant BAN T-SHIRTS ~ Deconstructing Society->
1. How do you brainstorm designs for the shirts? More specifically, what is your favorite tee and why?
My inspiration for the designs comes from reading and using a little bit of imagination. It’s the kind of thing that takes practice, I think the more you exercise your imagination the more pleasing the results are. My favourite tee right now is Only sheep need a shepherd. It just represents what my site is about – doing things your own way and not following the crowd. It can be interpreted in various ways: religious, political, ideological, etc.
2. What does the word “Sustainability” mean to your organization?
Sustainability is about leaving the Earth in a better state than we found it. To me that is the simplest way of describing it. We are increasing the number of organic t-shirts that we have available, and I hope that soon they will all be organic. We also use American made shirts because we believe that the employees get a living wage.
3. Is your organization’s vision to drive social and environmental activism? What are the long term goals you’ve set out to complete?
I am interested firstly in making t-shirts available to the public that are not made in sweat shops and that are not damaging to the environment. There is so much product out there that is just toxic to the environment. The production of non-organic cotton uses huge amounts of pesticides and chemicals, which all ends up in our rivers, oceans, and ultimately, in our bodies. I think that offering the public a more ecological product is probably the biggest single thing I’m proud of. Secondly I want people to be more intimately aware of the dangers facing our planet – we are all aware on a logical level of global warming, war, etc, because we see it on the news, but I think that by wearing a message on your chest you identify more with the problems we are facing and might be more likely to take further action and to influence others. I don’t really like to use the word activist. At no point did I ever decide “I’m going to become an activist”, the term just reeks of pretension. I just try to do what I can and I’d like for other people to make themselves more aware of what is going on in the world, try and understand what is bad and good for the planet and live as closely as possible in accordance with their own beliefs.
4. Can you share some inspirational thoughts on eco-fashion with our readers?
Reuse what clothes you have, give them away or recycle them if you have finished with them. Just buy more clothes when you need them and buy what you think makes YOU look good, not what makes someone else look good.
5. Finally, are you focused on marketing to individuals or have you worked with groups like Rainforest Action Network (RAN) on campaigns or with AdBusters? Or any other organizations working to save our environment?
We market to individuals but have occasionally sold to organisations. All the profits from our shirt “Stop shark finning” go to Sea Shepherd. I urge everyone to find out about shark finning and to support Sea Shepherd. Sharks have roamed the oceans for 400 million years. They are in danger of being wiped out in a couple of decades because of the demand in China and other Asian countries for shark fin soup.
Image Source: http://www.bant-shirts.com/organic-t-shirts.htm
