Natural Fiber Clothes
We like 100% cotton clothes. Cotton is comfortable, it breathes and keeps you warm or cool, depending on the weather, and it's affordable too. Cotton is a soft fibre that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant, a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India, and Africa. The fibre makes a soft, breathable textile, and is the most widely used natural-fibre cloth in clothing. Cotton production is very efficient, with only a ten percent loss of weight in converting the raw cotton bolls into pure fibre. While cotton has a reputation for needing some ironing, our cotton clothes do not! Ours are a wonderful cotton knit that is wash and wear, literally. It's pre-shrunk too. All our clothes have been washed after dyeing so most of the excess dye should be rinsed out, but to be on the safe side, we recommend the first washing to be separate from any clothes that might absorb dye, such as whites. We also recommend that dark colors be washed with other dark colors at all times.

Fair Trade
What is fair trade? It is the responsible production of goods without sweatshop or child labor. Do you realize that there is sweatshop clothing manufacturing going on in America today? Next time you see that "bargain," think about the person who made it. Were they one of the many thousands working in deplorable conditions with no means of escape?

We don't hear about this very often but sweatshop labor is still a problem in our country. Most of the workers are women and children from 3rd world countries who are lured here with promises of work permits and good paying jobs only to find themselves working 18 hours days at sewing machines and with no escape. Promises of visas and green cards are never kept. They speak no English, have nowhere to turn, and no way to find help. What would you do if you found yourself locked up 24 hours a day working long hours in a foreign country? You can learn more about fair trade at www.fairtradefederation.org. To learn more about sweatshop labor visit www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/

We at Wild Child strive to buy from fair trade companies. It is very difficult to know who those are since most companies do not reveal any information about the production of their clothes. Retailers also deal indirectly through sales reps who know little about the manufacturing of the clothes. While we research and ask questions, we can only learn so much about the production of the clothes we buy. We will continue to search for products that meet fair trade standards and hope that we do so fairly often. Sometimes we know we have not met this standard, but we will continue to our search for fair trade companies. Our research has turned up some interesting facts, however: that there is an organization that certifies factories called WRAP - Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production - found at www.wrapapparel.org; that not all factories in Asia are bad, many are good; that sweatshop labor is alive and profitable in the United States.