Ecological creativity
How do you make an ecological outfit or artwork and how do you promote it?
Evi Wielemaker, Noa Hiemstra, Giovanni Kindts & Stepan Seba
Evi Wielemaker, Noa Hiemstra, Giovanni Kindts & Stepan Seba
Moois&Meer is an ecological clothing shop located at the Sint Janstraat in Middelburg. We didn't know the shop, so we were looking forward to our visit. We interviewed one of the owners. We just walked into their shop one day. We should have done that better because it was a Saturday and it was very busy in the city of Middelburg. We made the questionnaire together in a geography lesson. When we got there, we got to talk to one of the owners. She is called Eva Smits (56 years old). Evi made the summary of the interview:
Eva said they buy the clothes because it's the most honest and nicest. They buy buys most of their ecological clothes. The buying used to be quiet difficult, she said but nowadays it has become easier. In our province Zeeland there aren't many ecological-clothing-suppliers, but there are some designers, for example in a village nearby called Biggekerke there is one. They go to those designers. They like it when the designers have their own taste. When those designers have designed something they go to an ecological-clothing-supplier. Moois&Meer tries to get their clothes ecologically, but they also look whether everybody gets paid enough in the process. There are many cotton farmers in Africa that get a very low amount of money. They want to be honest and pay what is needed. This sometimes makes it quite difficult to find a supplier that makes their clothing ecological and honest. This also makes their clothing more expensive. Due to the prices most people don't just walk into their shop like they would at for example Zara, or Hema (Dutch shop). They have got regular customers sharing the same passion and honesty. It also takes the suppliers more time to make this special clothing. They never go to clothing fairs, because they want to be and stay original. They also recycle, we for example saw jeans, made of other jeans. Eva admitted that it was quite difficult to get their shop on the market, but that they succeeded by passion and keeping to their goal. She also said they sometimes had to do steps back, but they started small, thought tactical and they were original. They used Instagram to promote their shop, and it works really well, she said. |
'Imagine buying a T-shirt costing 25 euros. 21% is tax, it has to be transported to The Netherlands, the shop needs to make a profit, the T-shirt needs to be made, and so only a very small part is payment of the farmers.' Owner of Moois&Meer.
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Kirsten said that the idea started a few years ago, when white carpets with black stripes from Morocco were trending. She and YKON were interested in the story behind the carpets and how they were made, so they went to Morocco. They found out that they’re mostly made by women in the High Atlas mountains. The way they did it was very inspiring, she mentioned, because they did it handmade with wool from their own sheep, and they got a lot of the used products from nature.
She mentioned that it is difficult to make ecological carpets, because of the making with the hand, and they also make their own paint for example. The making only (exclusive the making of the paint) takes about 8 weeks. Their products are ecological because they work with local wool (local: not much transport), and wool is a sustainable material. Wool is way better for nature than cotton, because to be able to use cotton for a carpet, you need a lot of water. They wash the wool in the river, so they don’t use tap water. They only paint with natural materials. To be able to do this, they even stain their wool ecologically. As last, their carpets are handmade. Kirsten mentioned that it was and still is difficult to get/have a shop on the market. Their products are very expensive due to the more expensive process of making them. Most people choose for a cheaper carpet, so they have a specific group of consumers, and how many times do those people have to buy a carpet?! Social media helps, and she said they also really make an effort for a nice site. They also participate in so-called pop-up concerts (exhibitions). Kirsten also gave us many tips on how to make an outfit ecologically. Unfortunately for us we got the mail quiet late, so we had to search for an alternative. We were happy with our results of the making of the bag line, as you can see beneath. |
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Main differences/similarities in research |
Main differences/similarities in results |
At first, they made an interview made with google forms. We did not do anything like this. With google forms people can answer the questions themselves. The Indian students spread the interview online. A total of 238 people responsed. They mentioned the people’s answers, and also what they got to know from the answers. They interviewed one ecological clothes manufacturer called ‘doodlage’, so that was the same because we interviewed an ecological clothes company too. As second interview they interviewed an ‘earth warrior’ called Kashvee. This was very different from our second interviewee, Kirsten from YKON interiors. The processing was also quite different because they wrote down all the questions and answers and they made a small summary while we made a big summary.
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The main differences between their answers and ours are that they interviewed a lot more people than us. Hence they have a better picture of what their surroundings think about the ecological creativity. We have only interviewed two companies which is a lot less than they did, because they used a google form to interview more than 200 people. Also we kept our research quite local while our indian counterparts expanded their research by thinking about ecological cities and buildings. their product was an ecological home which was a lot more complicated. Although they made nothing physical, they made an entire plan for an ecological home. They named ecological, isolating materials for example, but also techniques that could be used for for example smarter heating.
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EviThis was definitely one of the bigger projects I have done and I really enjoyed it. We had a great group. We all wanted to make the best project possible. In the end I definitely think we did a good job regarding the circumstances. In the beginning we had some difficulties with finding shops and art galleries we could interview, but our teacher helped us. I learned a lot from this project, not only about ecological creativity but also about the clothing industry, working together and how we take better care of the environment. We interviewed two completely different companies, which resulted in a lot of information we could use for our report and for our own bagline. I really enjoyed making these bags. We had so much fun making the blueprints and making the bags themselves. We worked on them for 2 days and all of us worked hard on them. Also the fact that we did this project together with India was amazing. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about their culture and the differences between theirs and ours. We set up a meet ourselves to really speak to them and I really enjoyed it. We got to know each other quite well, and I think that is really amazing because without this project I would have never come in touch with the Indian culture like I did now. Overall I think this was an amazing experience, where I learned a lot.
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NoaThis project was a new experience for me. I have always thought awareness about the environment was an interesting topic, but in all honesty I was not very fanatic in consciously handling things. I can certainly say that I have learned a lot by doing our project about ecological creativity. Reading conclusions of topics of other groups within this wide subject was very interesting as well. If everybody makes small changes, we can already influence the environment and everything around it in a positive way.
When we decided to make an ecological bag line, we had to be open to ideas for purchasing materials in an ecological way. By interviewing an ecological clothing shop, I heard how difficult it actually is to make it work in our region, due to the lack of consciously produced clothes to purchase, etc.. It made me understand even more why there are so many cheap fashion stores. The cooperation within our group was good, and making bags with used materials was something I would love to do again. I am satisfied with the results and we were in this together. Of course there were things that could have been done differently. The Corona measures definitely made it more difficult for us to really be in contact with some of our information sources. Luckily, stores were still open when we interviewed moois & meer! We could have started a bit earlier with certain tasks instead of finishing it a day before the deadline, but at the end we handed everything in on time and we have put effort into our work. All and all, this project contributed to my knowledge about going green and I had fun working on it. |
Giovanni |
Stepan |
My experience with the EUmind project was positive. I liked the google meets and cooperation with the people from India. Besides that it was very interesting to try and find out how you can make ecological clothing and how other companies and other countries do it.
Together with my group we made multiple assignments to find out everything about that, we made bags of old clothing and interviewed shops and companies. The things that worked out were: Making the bags, at first it was a bit hard to find the right clothes and to cut the clothes right to make a useful bag from it, but after that they turned out to be great. Sometimes the communication could be better because we wanted to call each other to make an assignment together or to look if we did another assignment correctly. But then one of us could come because he or she had to do something else and forgot about it. We learned very much about ecological creating of clothes etcetera. For example how to make an ecological carpet, with wool from a country that’s closeby and after that you paint it with ecological paint. So that was very interesting to hear. We also know now how they do the project in India and how their life-situation is nowadays. |
This project was one of my first real projects where we had to do quite a bit alone, which was nice. It also helped us learn more I think then when we would have had to search everything on the internet. It was challenging, we have had a few problems but it was a nice project. I truly learned a lot and not only about ecology. At first, I wanted to start early, because I know out of experience it’s handy to hand things in before the deadline. In the end we did hand the parts in on deadline day though. We didn’t get an ideal start however, we had difficulty finding an ecological clothes shop, so when our teacher named one it helped. When we went there I was a bit nervous, because it was a busy saturday in the middle of MIddelburg, and we thought we would be wasting the owner’s time. We definitely should have contacted her first to ask whether we could interview her. Thankfully she was generous and we got an almost perfect summary from Evi. When Giovanni and Noa made the second summary and I processed it, I already thought our page looked extremely nice and splashy. The making of the bags was actually quite fun to do too (I learned how to sew lol). The contact was fine too, I thought it was a good idea to set up a meet ourselves, because in class we only had 4 minutes or so. Next to that I hoped (still hope) the jury would admire it. It was fine, and we talked quite a bit. Next to that, I had had much private contact with Sawya too.
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