We’re celebrating ten years standing with ethical brands, ethical producers and you.
Through your orders, Brothers We Stand has supported a family of ethical brands to grow and make men's style more human and conscious. And very few ethical clothing marketplaces have made it to their tenth birthday, so it’s good to celebrate this milestone with you!
A cotton farmer in the Adilabad district in India. Your orders have helped Knowledge Cotton Apparel to support 397 cotton farming families in the villages of the Adilabad district in India to start farming regeneratively. Regenerative organic farming uses cover crops, composting, crop rotation, and diverse planting to improve soil, biodiversity, and yields.
It all started when I noticed a growing number of menswear brands making high quality clothes ethically. I had the idea to bring them together under one roof, to make shopping them easier. With a £3,100 loan from the Princes Trust, Brothers We Stand was launched.
What followed has been a fascinating and hard journey.
At the start we had two options. Raise major capital to buy stock and then deliver the logistics, marketing, and user experience to sell and replenish it. But as an online retailer competing for custom with some very big online businesses, this was not going to be easy.
I took the second option, to build a platform where people could buy directly from pioneering ethical brands.
Idioma was one of the first brands to believe in Brothers We Stand. Designer Seth Banks and linguist Halle Banks champion World culture with unique prints on organic fabrics. Julian wears Idioma's Baltapa t-shirt, fairly made in Portugal with organic cotton.
Here, marketplaces typically face a ‘chicken and egg’ problem. Brands want to see customers before they list. Customers want to see brands before they shop. But we were early, we had good support and we persevered. Enough pioneering ethical brands caught the vision to allow Brothers We Stand to grow.
Small pebbles make outsized ripples. It’s often the small businesses that take the risks and develop the ideas that change culture.
Today I’m proud that every item we sell has a footprint, sharing its unique supply chain story in more detail than any other multi-brand retailer that I know of.
Brothers 'I made your clothes' installation displayed at Amnesty International HQ in 2018. The installation was created for us by Sparks Studio who have helped us from day one.
I’m also proud of how Brothers We Stand champions the spirit of small pioneering brands and amplifies it as a community of Brothers, who over the last decade have helped to grow the ethical fashion movement.
Thank you for your support that has made this journey possible, and please continue to support ethical fashion - many small decisions can help our planet, and together we’ll do it in style!
Jonathan
Brothers We Stand Founder
