It’s Australia Day and we thought we would celebrate, but not in typical fashion because what’s typical about a fashion brand that wants to positively transform the world.

This is a celebration of the long and honoured ethos of Australian culture: that of giving to people a “fair go.” We think this appropriate because it aligns so closely with Thread Harvest’s vision, which is to release individual and shared capabilities to value and protect people and our planet.
We realise that this vision doesn’t contain the words “fair”, or “go”, but when referring to valuing and protecting the most significant and precious objects there are people and planet, the intent is nothing short of providing every opportunity to create conditions that make a “fair go” possible.

Being ethical is no small undertaking because to value and protect people and planet means creating environments and systems in which both people and planet can develop and flourish. And the only way to accomplish all this is through our individual and shared capabilities – the first part of the vision.
This stuff is vital because, in our travels around the world, we have found environments and systems that have actively prevented the development and flourishing of people and planet.

All around us we see unsafe working conditions that threaten the health or lives of employees, forced or compulsory labour that amounts to slavery, payment which is less than minimum wages, admission into employment of children, discrimination on the basis of race, gender, colour, religion, sexual orientation, or political opinion and extreme environmental degradation.
We hear endless justifications for these environments like “even though people aren’t paid anything at least they are employed,” or “businesses simply couldn’t survive without bending the rules,” or that “women are irrational and emotional and therefore less employable.”

There are also political leaders that see things through a different lens, like Australia’s Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who suggested that the colonisation of Australia was “on balance, for everyone, Aboriginal people included, a good thing because it brought Western civilisation to this country.”
Of course, this perspective doesn’t recognise that the environment and structures that advanced Western civilisation benefited the victors and those that conformed to the new culture and not the original owners of this land. Aboriginal people and their suffering are practically invisible in this view.
There are invisible people across the world that don’t benefit from current social, political and economic structures. Political spin doesn’t change the situation, but action can and already has!

The good news is that Thread Harvest partners with likeminded people like you and businesses that choose to see the invisible people. We choose to support artisans, manufacturers and businesses that genuinely care about value and protect people and planet.

Brands like Ruby Silver employs and empower women to become everything they can be; Threads for Thought manufactures organic materials that help to protect our environment; Elle Evans provides a living wage to their employees to ensure they have enough to cover basic necessities and have some savings.

Our individual and shared capabilities are currently making this possible.
So today we celebrate, but as suggested, in unconventional fashion. We celebrate with those businesses, governments and individuals who seek to create the environment and structures that provide all people with a genuine fair dinkum go!

Given the significance of this particular day to indigenous people’s we want to recognise all the Indigenous artisans of whom there are too many to name. Your “fair go” is hard won and incredibly significant to our society.