Here at Fantom Wear, we thought long and hard before staring up our label. We really wanted our work to reflect our values as much as possible, and so we’ve placed a heavy focus on not just making awesome designs but on ensuring ethical of bring those designs to life.

We’ve been reading a lot about the slow fashion movement and about ethics in clothing manufacturing and we’ve decided the best thing for us is to try to lead by example.

Here are a few articles that might interest you on these topics:

• Buy less, choose well, make it last : stop hoarding, and start shopping!“Quality, not quantity. Everybody’s buying far too many clothes.”
• Sustainability: What slow fashion means to me and why I choose to wear my valuesSlow fashion is the antidote to the juggernaut of cheap, disposable, unsustainable fast fashion. Christina Robert describes why she has embraced it and what it means to her.
• We Are Fashion Revolution AustraliaFashion Revolution Australia, celebrating those who are tackling the challenge of fairer supply chains.

All Fantom Wear products are designed and made in Australia, according to ethical standards of practice and with a strong focus on quality control. While it’s true that we do a lot of the work ourselves at this stage because we’re quite small and just starting out, we have gone some lengths to ensure that all outsourcing goes to worthy accomplices. For instance, our manufacturing is currently all done in Melbourne, and by groups with certified approval from Ethical Clothing Australia.

Here are some photos from the design phase of the process, where we were sketching out some of our ideas for the very first range in early 2015.

One of the most rewarding things about starting your own label is seeing your ideas transform into a tangible, real product. It still blows our minds a little bit that we’ve gone from daydreams and drawings to a full range of high-quality and ethically produced clothing.