The chore coat is ideal for autumn and spring. It’s just warm enough to keep the chill out and cool enough that it doesn’t get taken off and left behind! Great, big side pockets for collecting conkers and other autumnal delights. Superb tailoring makes this jacket look smart. It’s durable and versatile and great on both girls and boys.
There are only a handful of chore coats left! We have a few in each size in both blue and taupe. Grab one here before they’re all gone.
The Fableists’ ‘The Epic Thread’ takes us on a journey. Our young heroine finds a thread on her t-shirt. Curious to discover where, how and by whom her t-shirt was made, she sets off – with her trusty best friend – on a quest to find out the whole story of the garment. Like the protagonist in our film, we were curious about the provenance of the clothes that we were buying for our children. Our research into the fashion and garment industry turned us off buying from big, fast fashion brands and we decided to launch our own collection of sustainably made children’s clothes – The Fableists.
We make sure that there is no child or slave labour used to make The Fableists clothes. Our factories have attained ethical and eco accreditation and we have visited and inspected them ourselves. The cotton we use is certified organic and grown by a collective of marginal farmers. We use natural dyes and take steps to reduce our carbon footprint. If you buy clothes from The Fableists, you can know that they do not contain any harmful chemicals and that you are helping to break the cycle of kids making clothes for other kids.
Follow the story at www.TheFableists.com.
Credits:
Creative Agency: Brothers and Sisters
Creatives: Jack Kerruish & Josh Pearce, Brothers and Sisters
Production Company: The Mill
Animation/Director: Kwok Fung Lam & Ivo Sousa, The Mill
Sound: Smith & Elms, Eclectic
Voice Over: Jennifer Saunders
The official press release is below:
Sustainable kids clothing company, The Fableists, unveil the 2nd film in their series, which is to be seeded and distributed online. ‘The Epic Thread’ is a collaboration between creative agency Brothers and Sisters, The Mill and Eclectic with a voiceover from highly acclaimed comedian Jennifer Saunders.
The thought provoking animation features a fearless young girl and her pet pug Tony, who follow a piece of thread on the girl’s t-shirt. The thread takes them on an adventure through the life of the clothing, starting from her bedroom and ending up at the very farm where the cotton was grown.
Created by Brothers and Sisters, the animation was directed by Kwok Fung Lam and Ivo Sousa from The Mill. The film is accompanied by a unique music track composed by Smith & Elms at Eclectic.
Eclectic’s Simon Elms says “I think that the challenge here was to create something that whilst retaining some sort of child like innocence, also had bags of attitude – a sonic reflection of the visuals.”
The Fableists is one of the only sustainable clothing companies for kids in the UK and was born out of a genuine passion to change the way in which kids clothes are produced. With so many clothes being made under illegal conditions in factories, the film is a call to arms to make us think about where clothes come from.
The brand has a simple mission – to break the cycle of kids making clothes for kids. Their range is fully sustainable, ethical and built to last and their designs are both cool and timeless.
‘’This animated spot is created by a melting pot of the UK’s foremost talent. It’s a great fantasy piece that takes us back to those fantastic books we read as kids and now read to our kids. Brothers and Sisters working with The Mill and Eclectic have delivered something totally original, that tells the story of the clothes, whilst creating a great young heroine” Matt Cooper, founder of The Fableists.
Andy Fowler, Founder and ECD of Brothers and Sisters adds “A director whose opinion I respect watched this film lately and said he thought it was the best combination of music and picture he’d seen for ages. I’ll take that. It’s not often you get to make something this pure and uncompromised. It’s been a privilege working with artists as talented as Ivo and Kwok and Simon and Colin at Eclectic.”
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Kwok Fung Lam and Ivo Sousa, Mill+ Animation Directors add that “This was a one of a kind project, which we all really enjoyed being a part of, and we are incredibly proud of the final result. This project offered a fantastic level of creative freedom, and it was a pleasure to work with The Fableists founders and Brothers and Sisters to create such a fun and memorable film. We gathered as much inspirational material as possible, from character look and graphical compositions, to colour and texture. This was followed by a real hands on approach creating character designs, mood boards, style frames, storyboards and animatics, all contributing to the final look and feel, which perfectly accompanies the narrative.”
BACKGROUND:
The Fableists: utilitarian-cool sustainable clothing for kids aged 4 to 10 years. Last year celebrated the launch of a visionary new label born from British talent, including leading artists, designers, production companies, an ad agency and an entrepreneur’s dream. Creative agency Brothers and Sisters, the multiple award winning global production company Great Guns, Oscar winning The Mill, D&AD nominated director Olivier Venturini and international gallery favourite photographer Sam Robinson have collaborated on creative projects for The Fableists. Plus respected artists and designers including Michael Arnold, Steve Scott, Crispin Finn and Greg Abbott were invited to design t-shirts for the collection. The new children’s brand is a mix of timeless, unisex and ultra-stylish clothes, built to last with solid ethical roots all made for a new generation of clued up consumers who want to buy differently. The label represents a move away from mass-produced fashion manufactured under sinister conditions and laden with chemicals.
Andy Fowler, Founder and ECD of Brothers and Sisters: “Making a change in the way consumers shop and perceive clothes in terms of buying, using and disposing of them, will make a huge difference to family health, the lives of others, the planet and will help to create a positive movement. But we are also adamant that our clothes look the business. The creative potential is huge.”
“Like so many people, we were concerned with the growing throw-away fashion trend that led to such tragedies as the Rana Plaza collapse last spring,” says The Fableists founder and entrepreneur Matt Cooper. “When we searched for great looking clothes whose provenance we could trace for our own kids, we couldn’t find what we were after. We created The Fableists to meet our own needs and those of our friends and colleagues in the creative industries.”
Dafydd Upsdell, One of The Fableists
My name is Daf and it’s my turn to say hello and tell you a little bit about myself.
I began my career in the media industry way back in 2000 when I started working as a runner at The Mill post production house in London. Since then, I’ve worked for numerous companies and, over time, have made amazing contacts and lifelong friendships and to this day still can’t believe some of the things I have been lucky enough to be a part of and somehow still call work.
My involvement with The Fableists began down the pub whilst enjoying a pint – on this occasion with the one and only Matt Cooper. I can honestly say the job I had at the time was not very fulfilling and I was just going through the motions of getting up and going to work and not really thinking about what I really wanted to to do with my life going forward. I had always dived in and out of setting up small companies in an effort to make some money on the side but nothing really had ever taken off and (once again) I found myself sitting in the sunshine with Matt introducing him to yet another one of my “Derrick Trotter” business-type ideas. When I had finished (and after the signature Matt Cooper laugh), he took a deep breath, bought me another pint and said he wanted to tell me about something he had been putting together with Sarah, his wife – something they both thought was really going to make a difference.
Over the course of the next 30 minutes, Matt explained to me his ideas, the concept of The Fableists, the clothes they had designed and, more importantly, what he wanted the company to represent. As I listened to Matt (and got two more pints) I was blown away by how much work and time he had put into the idea and I couldn’t help but get caught up in his excitement and it was there and then I pretty much said that I wanted to be a part of The Fableists and get involved in the story.
So, as the months passed and as the Fableists grew, the more I personally got to understand the importance of what it meant to be an ethical and sustainable business and how important it was for us to position ourselves in this way. On a personal leveI I learnt about what it was to try and live within the sustainable boundaries of buying items such as clothes and food and as time has gone on I’ve realised it’s a very simple and fulfilling process to go through. Yes, I was fortunate to have Matt and Sarah point me in the right direction of where to buy clothes, for example, and why some companies were better than others but now I feel that if someone were to ask me how they would go about being sustainable, I think I am in a pretty good position to help them out through what I have learnt.
You see, that’s why I became a Fableist! If I can help someone understand and embrace sustainability in their life and they, in turn, pass this information onto others, then think of the potential as the story grows from person to person.
The simple truth of the matter is that we, The Fableists, are a company who strive to make amazing kids clothes that are bought because people think our clothes are cool, look amazing and built to last. The fact that we are embracing sustainability at the same time is our way of showing that all of this can be done whilst maintaing the highest possible environmental, social and ethical standards.
I love being a Fableist and I think you will too.
Daf
Chore coat in blue – only a couple left in each size!
It’s been fun, hasn’t it? We don’t want the fun to end and, frankly, half term is looking like a bit of a wash out! So we’re going to let our sale run through the week.
Enjoy our 50% off sale a little longer – until next Monday . Enter code fableistsfifty in the space provided in your shopping cart and your total will be halved before shipping.
The Fableists clothes are currently shipping from Australia to California and everywhere in between. We can’t wait to see all the photos of your Fableists in our clothes! Please share with your friends and family so they can all take advantage of the sale and buy ethically produced, organic cotton, toxin free and sweatshop free clothes for the little punks in their lives too!
Have fun and bag a massive bargain. Shop now at TheFableists.com.
Western Shirt, Denim Skirt and Smock Dress
Sonny is wearing the ‘Make Art Not War’ Tee by Anthony Peters. Almost sold out in some sizes!
Matt Cooper, Founder of The Fableists
I’m Matt Cooper, and I guess you could say I’m the guy who started this thing and I thought I’d tell you why.
I have been lucky enough to spend 25 years working in the advertising and production industries. Starting in an agency dispatch department, I have worked in a number of companies in various fields within the advertising world. I have been able (along wife my wife, Sarah Cooper, who runs this blog) to create a few things within the advertising world that have become interesting global businesses. Along this journey, we have worked with and met some of the world’s most celebrated advertising people, from top creatives to world class directors and been inspired by their creativity but also how they so often put their ideas and talent towards good causes.
It was while I was in India on business that the journey towards launching The Fableists began. I fell head over heels in love with India and started to read about it. For several years, the only books I would read were based in India, about the history, the culture, the people. You could say I got a little obsessed! As part of my personal study of India, I read about child labour and grim factory settings. This made me start to look more deeply in to the garment industry in general. I became interested in the whole process of making clothes and was shocked to discover what heavy chemicals are used to grow the raw materials we make clothes from and in the dyes we use. I was horrified to learn that farmers in India were exposed to these chemicals and that it was making them and their families ill, that Indian farmers in their thousands were committing suicide in order to escape the cycle of debt in which they were finding themselves because they weren’t getting a fair price for their crops. On top of that, as a lifelong asthmatic and father of one eczema sufferer, I couldn’t believe that this could be partially caused by the presence of chemicals in the clothes that I was wearing; that I was clothing my children in. I wasn’t entirely naïve to the slightly dodgy by-products of the fashion industry but this was a wake-up call.
So, I made some changes to the way I buy clothes, and my family buys them. I started talking to people about sustainable clothing. I spoke to some clothing designers about ideas, I spoke to people in the ethical and sustainable fashion world, I spoke to the contacts I had in the advertising industry… I was probably kind of annoying! I was like a dog with a new bone and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I believed we could do something to make some changes and that we could do them now, rather than waiting for some deadline a decade (or more) away. In trying to make changes to how my family consumed, I found that there weren’t any sustainable clothes for kids that suited us. I thought: ‘We could make them. Why not? We’ve started businesses before!’ Between my passion for buying sustainably, my desire to create some cool kids’ clothes, and my connection to the creative world – I had a bit of a light bulb moment. We could do two things: create a lovely but edgy kids fashion brand that would appeal to this trendy crowd (and others) and work with those brilliant creatives to help us create the brand and get it out to the rest of the world and help spread a very real, positive story – minus any b*llshit. And bang! We were off.
What we wanted to do was simple. First of all, build beautiful, design-led clothes that would be affordable and sustainable. And secondly, allow you – the buyer – to find out everything about who produced them, designed them, packed them, shipped them and helped us along the way. Really we were creating our own mini movement to push out to the world. We know you want to make good choices and we’re offering you an easy, stylish way of doing just that.
We built the brand and started to put a team of people together, all of whom we met through business one way or another, to build on our mission to change the world, one design at a time. That beautiful line and simple mission statement was dreamt up our agency partners Brother & Sisters. You can read more about them and why they have gotten behind this project in the Our Story section of this blog. We are also working with director Olivier Venturini of global production company Great Guns to create documentary style films about amazing kids who are true Fableists. We are in the process of creating a beautiful brand film, written by the team at Brother and Sisters and animated by Oscar-winning visual effects company The Mill. The Fableists are many!
What started with a small idea has now launched as a brand and we are both excited and extremely proud of what we have achieved. This business is and always will be a collaboration of creative folk doing what we think is right and giving our customers what we believe they want – amazing clothes that will stand out from the crowd (and last) and for the business to be totally sustainable. We want you to hear our whole story as it unfolds and you can always find out more about The Fableists on this blog.
This is a passion for us. It’s become a lifestyle and it’s certainly helped me make more positive choices in the way I buy. We hope it will do the same for you.
We hope you like where we are going so far and hope you’ll pick up some of our clobber for your own lovely little punks.
We are always eager to hear from you, so please be in touch.
Viva La Fableists!
Matt Cooper
From the Oxford English Dictionary
The Fableists is first and foremost about designing cool, vintage-inspired clobber for kids. Our clothes are imbued with a rebellious ‘dare to think different’ attitude and we want our tribe of little punks to challenge some of the ills in the fashion world.
Living as sustainably as possible just makes good sense. But can fashion be sustainable? The Fableists believe that it can be and it certainly can be better than it is currently. The Fableists is a business but we want our company to have a positive impact and combine social responsibility and care for the environment. At the same time, we don’t want you to give up personal style in order to buy well, so we offer you great clothes that don’t cost the Earth and her inhabitants.
Today, there are countless certifying bodies who evaluate all aspects of your business in order to award you certain accreditation. These vary by region and a number of them evaluate to a global standard. These are all a huge, positive step towards a more sustainable world. The fact that so many people now recognise what a Fair Trade label (for instance) means on their clothes or food is a massive change from how consumers shopped a decade ago.
Many clothing companies describe their clothes as ‘fairly traded’, ‘ethical’, or ‘eco’ and have the certification to back it up. We have chosen to use ‘sustainable’ to describe The Fableists because we feel it covers all of these areas. Therefore, the certification that is the most important to us, is the Global Organic Textile Standard, or GOTS. GOTS is the “world’s leading textile processing standard for organic fibres, including ecological and social criteria, backed by independent certification of the entire textile supply chain.” So, they evaluate the entire process from fibre production to processing and manufacturing to ensure that textiles remain ‘organic’ throughout. At the same time, they have a minimum of environmental and social criteria that must be met. This covers everything from chemicals and their toxicity and biodegradability through the entire supply chain, to maintaining the implementation of key criteria on labour set out by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This certifies that the factories we are using do not use child or forced labour, that employees have safe and hygienic work environment, freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, living wages are paid and more.
We hope this information is helpful. Please do contact us with comments or feedback.
Unisex Western Shirt from The Fableists
This unisex western shirt looks sharp on boys and girls. Made in 100% organic denim chambray, it plays hard and washes up well. It is inspired by traditional western shirts, which feature a front and back yoke, mother of pearl fasteners and two breast pockets. This style originated in the 19th century American west and was popularised by the singing cowboys of the 1940’s and movie and television legends of the 50’s. It is great for riding bucking broncos, cutting a fine figure in Central Park, or splashing about at the British seaside.
(in the background you can sneak a peek at one of our limited edition, artist-designed t-shirts!)
The Fableists’ Swing Tags
You might be wondering about our name…
‘The Fableists’ is a word of our making. We want to tell modern stories that have morals but at the same time we want to be seen as a brand that is a lot of fun, with a rebellious spirit. So, we slammed two words together:
A ‘fable’ is a short story with a moral & an ‘activist’ is a person who is passionate about what they believe in and helps to educate others and convince them to embrace their beliefs.
So,
the Fableists is a group of people creating cool, sustainable clothes for little punks. We aim to tell you everything about the clothes we make. We want you to know where the cotton we use is grown, who picks it, where it is woven into cloth and dyed, by whom and how. We want you to know – first-hand – that people and the planet are not being harmed to produce the garment you buy from us.
Mud Flap on Bike Outside the Factory
Last week, Matt Cooper, founder of the Fableists, went to India to visit one of the factories that we are using to make our clothes. He will be telling you a bit more about his visit and introducing some of the people that we met over the coming days.
He visited The Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills, Kolkata, a family-run business with long serving employees, and Fair Trade accreditation. We have chosen to work with them because they are passionate about their commitment to working sustainably to produce high quality, 100% organic cotton clothing. We have also chosen Rajlakshmi because of their involvement with Chetna Organic, who are committed to ethical and environmental practice. Chetna works with small and marginal farmers (over 15,000 of them) in the rain-fed regions of Maharashtra, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, India. With strength in numbers, they are able to keep the quality of output high, while also ensuring that cotton farming remains a viable livelihood by getting fair prices for the farmers. They are also 100% Fair Trade and organically certified.
Rajlakshmi buy their organic cotton through Chetna and, in exchange, the collective own a stake in the factory. This is a great example of two groups supporting one another in order to improve the output, and also maintain cotton growing and manufacture in their region. They are both committed to working sustainably from soil to garment.
Here are a couple of our first items of clothes. They are made in 100% organic cotton chambray. The Smock Dress is based on a vintage Parisian dress and the unisex Smock Top is based on vintage work wear. The Smock Top looks just as good on boys, we just didn’t have any on hand!
Both will be available soon through our web site in sizes 4-10.
TheFableists 