A pair of jeans for a few tenner sometimes seems quite normal these days. But is it really? With the rise of the fast fashion industry, clothing prices have plummeted. How is it possible that fast fashion brands charge such a low price, but you pay a lot more for a pair of Kuyichi jeans? In this blog, we tell you how we stand against fast fashion, why you pay more for our 'pure goods' and why we think this should actually be the 'normal' price.

Quality and sustainable materials

At Kuyichi, we constantly work on the quality and fit of our products with our suppliers. A lot of time and work goes into this. We use high-quality, fair materials, such as organic cotton, cotton in conversion, linen, hemp, TENCEL ^TM Lyocell, TENCEL ^TM Modal and pre- & post-consumer recycled cotton. We choose materials that are better for the earth based on our research on materials. Unfortunately, these materials are often a lot more expensive than conventional materials, such as polyester, viscose and conventional cotton. Nevertheless, we choose these fabrics because they are the basis of clothes that last a long time and feel comfortable when worn.

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Certification

Many of our products and materials are certified. For example, all our cotton is certified organic by either GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) or OCS (Organic Content Standard) and recycled fabrics mainly through the Global Recycled Standard (GRS). This entails certification costs. We ourselves and manufacturers pay annually for these certificates. Every year, every manufacturer in the chain is audited by an independent organisation on the environmental and social criteria of the certification. These certifications are important; it ensures that we work with manufacturers who have the same mindset, shows how we prioritise sustainability, and promotes the path to a more sustainable textile industry.

Better working conditions

Clothing passes through a lot of hands during production and we believe these people deserve a safe and good working environment. Therefore, we select our factories with care and continuously work to improve working conditions. We mainly produce close by in Turkey instead of in Southeast Asia where the bulk of the clothes are produced. Labour costs are a lot higher in Turkey than in South-East Asia and so our production costs go up as well.

Fair Wear membership

We continuously work to improve working conditions with our manufacturers. This is why we have also chosen to become a member of Fair Wear Foundation. Fair Wear is progressive in this area and supports us through expertise and best practices. Fair Wear also has local teams conducting audits and making sure they keep abreast of local changes. This is how we know we are striving for the highest standard in the industry when it comes to ethical production. For this, we also set aside budget for audits, training and projects to improve conditions, and we think it's totally worth it!

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Fast fashion fairy tale

So you might conclude that a small price for jeans is not as normal as it seems. In this blog, we only tell a small part of the whole story. We also pay more for our buttons and zips, for more sustainable washes and dyeing processes with safe chemicals and so on. We are constantly working to leave a positive impact. When you pay a small price for a pair of jeans, it often means that either nature or that factory worker pays the price in the form of pollution and/or exploitation. Honest, high-quality clothing simply cannot be that cheap. That is the fairy tale that fast fashion wants us to believe in.