Who says eco-friendly fashion has to be all tent skirts and baggy trousers? New designer Mimi Rogers tells us about setting up Pardess, a stylish ethical label for real London women.
Mimi has been designing and making clothes and textiles since she was a young teenager, but it wasn’t until about six years ago that she decided to incorporate organic principles into her work. “When I was 21, I spent a summer working on an organic farm in France, doing everything from picking carrots to cooking, to making beauty products,” she says. “Organic is a whole way of life and it really does make a difference to people. For those French producers, it means saving water, using what you have and putting back anything you have left over, which I found really inspiring. I was studying fashion at the time and that organic lifestyle has informed everything I’ve done since.”
Pardess evolved from a conversation Mimi had with friends who felt equally passionate about fashion and having an ethical conscience. “We decided there really wasn’t the quality of organic clothing available that we would wear. The typical eco-warrior style of organic has its place when you’re 19 but when you get older and you want something for the office or just going out you shouldn’t have to compromise your fashion sense just because you want to wear clothes which are socially and environmentally responsible. There’s no reason why organic clothing has to come in just one style and we wanted to make that a reality.”
Another important aspect of the business is the production methods, Mimi continues. “London has a great history of fashion and we want to restore that. All of our clothes are made by hand in our London studio and our organic practices extend throughout: our packaging uses recycled tissue, paper and card, our printing is from Soil Association-approved organic printers and we only use organic and biodegradable cleaning products.” Pardess is also selling bags, from which 20 per cent of the profits will go to The World Land Trust, and producing its own Pardess bag made up of material recycled from the collections, ensuring there will be practically no waste produced at all.
Sourcing is given equal consideration, although the options are still fairly limited in that department. “We ensure 100 per cent traceability and only use internationally certified organic fabrics, from North America, Peru, Europe, India – all over,” says Mimi. “The organic fabric industry is still quite small but it’s growing and smaller farmers around the world are starting to see the benefit to themselves as well as others of converting to organic. There is no single certifying body for organic clothing at the moment but we are pushing for it and the more the fashion industry gets behind it, the higher the demand there will be for one.”
The Size Zero debate has not quite died a death yet but Mimi insists the Pardess collection will not reflect the continuing obsession with skinniness. “Our clothes are not for the catwalk but for real women who live and work in London, who love fashion, and we offer a bespoke service so customers can have our designs exactly as they want them,” she claims.
While Mimi is keen to watch the business grow, with pieces in boutiques across the capital, she is determined to stay true to the ethos of the label. “In order to maintain the quality and personal approach of the business we are not looking to take over the world,” she says. “It is really about producing something that we love and we hope the women wearing them will love, and demonstrating that fun in fashion can go hand in hand with caring for the world around us.”
See www.pardess.co.uk or email mimi via mimi@pardess.co.uk for more details.
