Ethical fashion: the difference between Perus and Shein
In early May, the Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein opened a pop-up store in the Marais. This news did not leave us indifferent because Shein is a brand at odds with our values and ethical fashion and we want to explain why. If we created Perus, it is to try to thwart this inexpensive, disposable fashion, but whose impact on the planet and the men who produce it is devastating. With Perus, our goal is to offer another model, more virtuous and more attentive to environmental and social issues. Fashion for us represents a pleasure, a joy, a source of creativity and this should not be done at the expense of others, it is for this reason that we do everything possible to ensure that our brand brings something positive not only to those who wear our clothes but also to those who make them. Let's take a closer look at the initiatives we've taken to distinguish ourselves from companies like Shein that put profit before the collective good. 👀
Ensure the best working conditions for our manufacturers 🪡
As an ethical fashion brand, the first thing that is important to us is the impact that the manufacture of our clothes has on those who produce them. For us, it is important that our manufacturers can work in the best conditions. We produce in exactly six factories in Fafe in Portugal and one factory in La Paz in Bolivia and we are in direct contact with our manufacturers. In particular, we went to Portugal in February with our Parisian team to check the proper functioning of production and respect for the workers on site. Since we produce in Europe, the factories with which we work are obliged to comply with the European standards in force, which ensures decent and humane working conditions for those who make our clothes: this involves, for example, the assurance of a minimum wage and regularly monitored safety standards. This increased monitoring of our manufacturers differentiates us from ultra-fast-fashion brands like Shein, who use many subcontractors and who are unable to know how and under what conditions their clothes are produced. This leads to a large number of abuses such as the fact that employees are underpaid or that they sometimes work up to 75 hours a week without an employment contract. For these factories, everything is permitted to speed up the pace and reduce production costs.
Produce quality clothes 🦙
The second thing we pay close attention to is the quality of our products. We are well aware that to avoid overproduction and overconsumption, our clothes must last a long time. This is what prompted us to turn to certain materials that are more resistant, more durable and even more pleasant to wear. Far from polyesters, nylon and other synthetic materials that scratch and irritate the skin, we have chosen to use linen, Baby Alpaca wool (whose lifespan is 20 years!), 100% organic cotton certified GOTS or REACH certified leather. With such materials, I promise your clothes will not fray from day one and you will be able to wear them for many years! These are the benefits of ethical fashion!
Fund a bigger project 📚
Finally, another objective that we had with Perus was to ensure that fashion could be the starting point for more global projects and that we could, on our own scale, improve the world in which we live. To implement what ethical fashion means to us, we have therefore decided to look into a subject that touched us during our trip to Peru: access to education for children in this country. There, half of the women and a quarter of the men are illiterate because the school fees are too high. It is for this reason that each time we sell a Perus product, we finance a school day for a child in Peru thanks to our partnership with the association Los Chicos de Cusco. With this project, we hope to create a virtuous circle that will help improve the destiny of hundreds of children in this country.
All these initiatives translate into fair prices far from the ridiculous prices displayed by Shein on its website. Because such low prices hide the fact that someone else pays at the end of the chain. At Perus, we seek to be transparent and to ensure that the social and environmental cost of our products is as low as possible. We have made a small diagram for you to understand the price of a flagship item from Perus, the Nieve. We can observe that with an ethical fashion brand, the profits are low because what is important is to contribute to an aya project
