It’s easy to forget in this industrial age, that clothes are actually made by hand. Machines can’t do it all. There’s a lot of bullshit going on in the fashion world, cheap labour, bad working conditions, poisonous chemicals, unsustainable processes and tons of waste. It’s all glamorous on one hand and a bit too shady on the other for our liking.
We could have got the clothing cheaper, but we care about the people who make it.
We work with certified suppliers, who share our values of striving for eco friendly production, and fair trade. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but we believe it is worth the effort.
When we can, we like to use organic cotton. Conventional cotton growing requires the use of enormous amounts of insecticides and pesticides, which have both a huge environmental impact as well as presenting health risks for those working around it. It is estimated that cotton farming uses up to 25% of the world’s insecticides! As with most unhealthy and harmful things in the world, the reason for it’s popularity is that it costs less to manufacture in this way. But it’s better for the land, the farm workers and your well-being to go organic.
Organic cotton is grown and processed without the use of toxic insecticides, pesticides or fertilizers. The idea is to grow, harvest and process cotton crops without damaging the ecosystem, resulting in toxic free clothes, at least as far as the cotton is concerned.
Two other problems with the clothing industry is the amount of water that is needed in the dyeing process of the fabric, and fabric waste, both from production, and discarded clothing. We discovered a Finnish company, Pure Waste, who produce our hoodies. They save water, and fabric waste, by recycling fabric, it is an amazing process that is described in the video below.
We wanted our clothes to be of high quality, and to last a long time. We want you to be able to wear our clothing for years, not only a few weeks or months. We want the clothing to still look and feel new after extensive use, so we invested in quality materials and production techniques. We use durable, yet comfortable ribbing for the neckband, and large and strong coverstitching throughout. When you buy JQThreads, you know that you are buying premium, quality items intended to last you for many years.
Some other details of the shirts we make, are the fact that they are slightly longer than your typical t-shirt. We feel that most t-shirt designers must be short, because as tall people, we can definitely appreciate the added length. We also have the signature double sleeve look with an extra, contrasting piece of fabric sewn onto the sleeves. And finally, we have our special sleeve tag, our stylised “Q” with a cutout. It took some work to get right, but now it looks great!
