1. Notes: 1 / 1 year ago 

   Competitor or Collaborator?

   People tend to run from competition, often to the extent of attempting to squelch the success of their peers. They fear their methods or designs will be copied or vanquished. This contributes to a lot of undue stress and counter productivity.
   
   Fashion is a $298 Billion per year industry in the US. Consumerism is already turning towards more ethical and earth friendly production methods, as well as hand crafted goods. There’s plenty of pie out there for all of us.
   
   Ethical Fashion is in its infancy, at best.  Even those producing similar products are far from saturating the market. There is much to be done to prove ethical production methods can yield equal or greater results than that of more predominant exploitative business practices. The public will need more than a few successful examples before becoming believers. We need our peers to succeed as well.
   
   Furthermore, competition breeds quality. If I design a necklace and my competitor designs a better one, what do you think I will do next? The absence of competition fosters mediocrity.
   
   I can choose to view competitors as a threat, or a vital collaborator; my choice. We welcome the opportunity to work together to educate the public, build a more robust market and challenge each other to create better goods.
   
   Imagine how much less creative Apple would be in the absence of Dell. There’d probably be a lot less of you reading this on an iPad. Iron sharpens iron, if you choose to engage in the process.
   
   Besides, we don’t have the budget for the amount of publicity we need to impact the image of Africa. Knowing there are hundreds of other organizations out there proving the viability of our business model and contributing to the growth of our market brings me a lot of comfort.
   
   *As a testament to our practice of collaboration, we will partner with 5-10 of our biggest competitors to produce an ethical fashion show and pop-up shop in February. Details coming soon at keza.com.

2. Notes

   1. kidogokidogo liked this
   2. jaredmiller posted this
Comments
blog comments powered by Disqus

These are my thoughts, and more likely my agendas. Let’s call a spade a spade. I want to inspire people to treat each other with love and respect, and to live each second as if it were our last.

At the end of the day, I appreciate the journey, good and bad. I believe there is purpose in everything; literally everything. And the more I embrace that, the more I truly live; the more peace I have.

I believe in the social entrepreneur model, as opposed to the traditional forms of aid that have crippled developing nations for decades. And on top of that, I believe the fashion industry is one of the best industries to leverage as a tool to combat poverty and help restore dignity to developing nations. So that's my thing. If that's not appealing, you might want to read a different blog.

I believe in the power and importance of ubuntu. I aspire to do more…more than I have to. I won’t "change the whole world", but I intend to make some significant improvements along the way as I try. And I’ll fight for all sorts of justice, up to the day they throw dirt on me.

I thank God that I get to live this life. Carpe diem.

+ Comments are welcome. I'd love for this to be a two way conversation. +

Jared's Biography

Following

Tumblr