Introduction (and job no. 6)

GreenKnickers began life as a final major project whilst studying Eco Design at Goldsmiths Art College. She was born out of a combination of influences including a passion for underwear, a strong desire to bring more of my own personality to my work and a determination to combine all the things I love. She was exhibited in 2005 at the truman brewery in Brick Lane London and has had a life of her own ever since.

Brilliant press coverage and an ever increasing fanbase turned GreenKnickers from a dream into a reality. A frustrating, expensive, heartbreaking yet wonderful reality. I teamed up with my best friend Rose who was then working in fashion merchandising and started the ball slowly moving.

The basic premise of GreenKnickers is the combining of fun, sexy design with social and ecological ethics. The knickers are designed to engender sex, humour, enchantment and education. They are made using ethically sourced and produced textiles including organic cotton, hemp, recycled fabrics and manmade ecological fibres. The knickers are then manufactured by various fair trade businesses and less formal groups who work to improve the lives of textile workers.

As a team Rose and I are able to pull together enough skill and experience to cover design, accounting, PR, web developement, stock management, merchandising (whatever that means) and finally job number 6 (see last entry if confused) - sewing the darned knickers when necessary! When your manufacturer lets you down and your customers have waited far too long already, the only thing to do is to take out the sweing machine and the fiskars and just start making. We probably should have done this months ago.

So why didn't we? Well running an ethical business is in many way the same as running a normal company. Infact the only difference is a single consideration of ethics amongst the normal list of thousands of considerations. However, this consideration underpins not only the ethos of the business but more often than not ties the undulations and goals of the business firmly to the heart strings of the founders and employees. Decisions that would normally be easy such as make it cheaper, or drop the lousy supplier are fraught with agonising questions. Lesson 1 and the reason for Job no.6 explains this quandry in more detail.

Six jobs no brain...

I have decided to start a blog about the up's and downs of starting an ethical business.

My business GreenKnickers is my life, it is also likely to be the death of me. When I say it is my life I do not mean to imply that I am able to spend my time doing greenknickers work. Infact at the last count I had six jobs. These include two paid jobs - Part time receptionist for an Architect's firm in Soho(where I am also involved in some graphic design work on the side) and freelance graphic designer/illustrator. This is my source of income at present which covers the rent of a little flat in West Norwwod London and food - nothing else. Being a greeny and being utterly broke I cycle to and from Soho each day to earn my bread and butter.

So those are the two paid jobs, other jobs/projects include illustrating a childrens book written by my talented other half as well as and assiting him in the making of short films and videos. Number four - designing bags and mens ties for a fair trade coop in India.

My fifth and main job is both the sunshine and darkness in my life, designer/director/ad hocker for GreenKnickers Limited. She captures everything that I want from a business and from a career. Designing exciting products that capture my two most treasured passions - Ethics and undies. I love underwear and I love designing underwear. I love the relationship that women have with their underwear - secretive and expressive. My other passion is the planet and it's people, something that I do not see as two seperate entities. I am naively optimistic about the possibility for change and the consequesnces of sustainable, ecological and ethical developement.

What is the sixth job? Well job number six comes hand in hand with the first lession I have learned that is specific to ethical business. Many other lessons have been learned so far which are key to the running of any business. What is this lesson? Well that will have to wait until I have had time to digest the lesson fully.

Over time I will attempt to caprture the experience and challenges of creating an ethical enterprise (job number 7? - we'll see). In my next entry I will introduce you to GreenKnickers and to my business Partner Rose - she is the difference between GreenKnickers the business and GreenKnickers the project.

Time is the most difficult thing to find, if there was more time then everything would be possible. But there isn't.