Purepod are one of the Australian stars of sustainability in fashion design. For co-creator Kelli Donnovan it was a dream 10 years in the making. “I started sewing and creating clothes on my Holly Hobbie sewing machine when I was about 6 years old.” Kelli says, “Watching fashion parades and making clothes for my dolls and toys. “

Kelli reflects on the journey she took towards the creation of Purepod:

“I worked as a designer in Melbourne for the clothing industry for about 18 years. I worked mostly in mass production areas for kids wear for the large department stores. They originally manufactured in Australia then it was taken off shore. In this time I found it sad for the local Melbourne families who lost their businesses as off shore took hold. They were button and trim makers, printers, fabric manufacturers, makers, embroiders etc. Some of them had these businesses in their families for generations and had to close them down.

I designed mostly for kids wear licensed ( Barbie, Mickey Mouse, Disney. Warner Bros etc) and general kids clothing. It was the job I got when I moved to Melbourne after my training so I was kind of stuck designing kids wear. It was good though as it gave me my training for my business now.

I was concerned about the amount of chemicals in kids clothing that came from off shore, not that all of it is bad. I felt like I was the only person back then who was concerned about this

situation. I felt like a fish out of water.

My passion has always been design and the environment. I always struggled with combining the two in my career in Melbourne. We made so much STUFF for the stores I just saw it as land fill.”

Garments designed in: Australia

Raw materials and their origins: “Our merino wool is from New Zealand. They produce their fabrics under the Zque certification, which means the sheep are not mulsed and they are looked after. The whole process has a lower impact than other fabrics I could find in Australia unfortunately. They have a web site – www.zque.co.nz

- Our organic cotton jersey is currently made in Australia by an Australian company. This company did have an organic farmer growing the cotton without irrigation, pesticides an chemicals in Australia but due to the drought he was not able to produce any cotton. This company bought in cotton fiber from Turkey.

- All the other fabrics are grown in Turkey and China and made in China under the American company who watches it from ground up. They are an ethical company who states they are an ethical company”

Fabrics manufactured in: “Currently our fabric manufacturers are in China, New Zealand and Australia. Soon maybe India which will be totally Fair Trade Certified. “

Dye toxicity and waste management: “Our fabrics are dyed with various techniques – I don’t believe all the processes are perfect yet but the technology to make completely pure fabrics for a commercial manufacture and that can be bought off the rack at anytime. There is some fabrics available but we have not liked the quality or textures yet, but this will change as more demand is put on the manufacturers.

- most are low impact non heavy metal dyes

- Our printing is water based inks. We are looking into soy inks for our next production but this also has it’s problems.”

Garments manufactured in: Byron Bay and Brisbane, Australia

Pay and working conditions: “We pay Australian wages. The only sweat shop in our business would be Sean and I “

Summary of miles travelled: “As a small eco designer this process can be a bit out of our hands currently. We would love it to be better but we are limited to who we can purchase good quality fabrics from and get them on a regular basis with the same quality colour, weight etc. The only way we could shorten our carbon foot print is to make over seas where the fabrics are grown and produced. This does concern me about carbon miles but it takes many small steps to change the big ones. There is some parts of the process that is not fantastic and this is one of them. There are hardly any manufacturers left in Australia so every designer would be in a similar situation as us. The public need to understand this is not an easy process to make eco garments and not everything will be perfect but if we get supported by the public and our business grows we will then have the money to change things even more. We can only do things which are in our hands to change but as we push the boundaries things will change and they are now “

Other Ethical Practices: “We recycle almost everything that has come from manufacturing. Our manufacturer in Brisbane sends our fabric scraps to a mattress maker. Our studio scraps all get recycled too from plastic, paper,fabrics, ink cartridges etc. We do as much as we can.

We use green power in our studio to produce our original designs and then it goes to factories for production.

We only work with ethical companies, we use green power, … we only use minimal trims and mostly natural, We walk as much as possible to work, we recycle old cartons in packaging to use for deliveries( this may have to change as our business grows as it won’t work ) we only use recycled paper and card or part of, we mentor many young people with work experience and help.

We live a minimal life ourselves with low power usage, grow a lot of our own food, buy local produce, use limited amount of packaging and plastics, We turn off as much power as possible, we live close to our work, we buy limited STUFF , we have chickens and recycle loads of food to them, plus our doggie ”

Future plans for ethical scope of brand: “Our dream is to have a complete solar powered or green energy system attached to our studio but this could be a while off due the costs of installing plus we rent our space. One day Dream big!”