Hasta La Ideas

A more transparent brand of social entrepreneurship showing you exactly how shoes change the world

Jojo, an altruistic Belgian shoe brand, picks up where philanthropic companies like Toms leave off. Designed to look like a bandaged foot, for every pair of Jojo shoes purchased, they plant one tree or provide one person with a year of clean drinking water. But you don’t have to just take the company’s word for it; the enterprising young pair behind Jojo allow customers to track the progress of their contribution well after the point of purchase.

With a “choose, act, check” tagline, Jojo co-founder Matthieu Vaxelaire explains that the last step—following the progress of your contribution—is the most important part. In the future they envision shoes labeled with unique code that buyers can use to locate via GPS the well or tree they helped fund, “to really see their personal impact.”

The passion that Vaxelaire, along with his friend and business partner Christoph Nagel, share for bettering the world shows in every aspect of the brand. The Jojo blog is filled with Instagram photos of current inventory and brainstorm sessions, outtakes from video campaigns (such as their inventive pigeon delivery video), business information and more.

While they set out to produce the shoes in Brazil (where they first conceived the idea), after four months of working with manufacturers, the twosome realized this was nearly impossible and almost gave up. Their tenacity led them to finding a producer in China, who now makes the shoes in a clean facility using fair work ethics.

They put that same undaunted enthusiasm into finding Tree Nation and The Water Project, the charitable organizations with which they partner. Vaxelaire explained the need for “reliable NGOs, because it takes months and months to find the right place to build a well and we needed to be with them on every step.”

To help with the replanting of trees in Niger or the building of water pumps in Sierra Leone, purchase one of seven styles of Jojo shoes (€80 per pair). Simply choose the color, decide which project to support and then check in online to follow its development.

A photographer’s eye-opening look at U.S. energy production and consumption

In 2003 renowned photographer Mitch Epstein unintentionally began a documentary series on the production and consumption of energy in America. Now called “What is American Power?,” the Prix Pictet-winning project started while on assignment when Epstein learned that American Electric Power Company bought out the citizens of Cheshire, OH to avoid future lawsuits over constant environmental containment. Deeply moved by the willingness of the industry to systematically erase an entire town, Epstein set out to further document the full impact the utility companies have on people and places, seeking to “heighten our awareness of the toll that energy production and consumption take on our economy, security, health and natural resources”.

Epstein describes what he found during the six-year endeavor as playing with a Russian nesting doll, “when I opened electrical power, I discovered political power; when I opened political power, I discovered corporate power; within corporate was consumer; within consumer was civic; within civic was religious, and so on, one type of power enabling the next.”

The upshot, an amazing book and interactive website, feature Epstein’s stunning photographs from “the land of the free.” Adding emotional effect, the project also includes enlightening answers to the imposing question by everyone from school kids to artists, in both the U.S. and abroad.

The selected quotes lend extra insight into the connection between humans and consumption. Chicago-based photographer and writer Dawoud Bey claims, “American power is a paradoxical thing that has the potential for so much good but that is too often misused and indeed abused.” He feels if the country used its collective knowledge to benefit the global public, the world would be a much better place.

Sixth grader Lucia Bell-Epstein astutely says, “American power is a disgusting use of fossil fuels that is destroying the environment and our health. Sooner or later American power will destroy itself; unless we all come together to save what’s left of America.”

The second edition of the book “American Power” is also available for pre-order from
Amazon.

Inside an Oregon clothing plant that’s reinventing “Made in the U.S.A.”

Just because a designer is local—whether in Austin, TX or Florence, Italy—doesn’t necessarily mean the garments were made there—or even in the same country. Thanks to fast fashion, there’s now a better-than-likely chance that even such smaller-batch production was outsourced to Asia. “Of course it’s deceptive, to say that clothes were made in the United States when they were really made in China,” said Britt Howard, founder and co-owner of the Portland Garment Factory. “Like clothes that say they’re made in Italy, when they’re only hand-finished there. Or they’ll sew the buttons on.”

Howard, a mother of two and sometime model, discovered this gap in the American indie production process in 2008 after trying and failing to find a local manufacturer for her line of baby clothing. She opened a tiny storefront to sew for Portland’s growing legion of independent designers (that includes three competitors and two winners of the reality show Project Runway) and two years, more than a few eighty-hour work weeks, and a business partner (Rosemary Robinson) later, PGF is now a booming enterprise. Today, the upstart completes orders for clients as far-flung as New York and Los Angeles in an airy new warehouse space in Portland’s bustling Montavilla neighborhood.

“It’s been like, zero to sixty for us,” Robinson described. “We’re thinking about opening another location, maybe in San Francisco or Austin. But we’d want to keep it personal, to be able to keep that close relationship with the people we work with.”

And being a local manufacturer does enable PGF to have a more involved relationship with their clients. As their motto says, “We got your back.” Unlike overseas manufacturers, they’ll produce lots of as small as twenty units as well as in the thousands. Along with an army of eager interns, the plant also provides design consulting services, and Howard often finds herself serving as a de facto business counselor. “Sometimes I feel like I’m giving a seminar everyday,” Howard said with a laugh. “This is your retail price, and this is your wholesale price.”

For small designers, PGF’s prices are comparable to—and the timeframe infinitely friendlier than—sending garments halfway around the world. That’s in addition to higher-quality craftsmanship, as well as the assurance that it’s sewn with pride by workers who are treated well. Leanne Marshall’s graceful, ballet-inspired collections and Paloma Soledad’s sultry gowns are only two of the many lines that are turning to the Factory—proof that just maybe that “Made in the U.S.A.” label will stand for something once again.

CMYK Cocktail, presented by Tasteologie and Droog design, interprets color into alcohol and other goodies with an experimental mixology presentation this coming 28 March 2010.

Five mixologists and five designers will use the CMYK colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white) to create singular cocktails and accompanying treats at Droog’s Soho store, with proceeds from the event benefiting the Food Bank of New York.

Orson Salicetti of Apothéke, Mayur Subbarao of Dram Bar, Tomas Delos Reyes, Brian Sullivan of Method Lab Design and Mihir Desai will create the drinks. Designers Tobias Wong and curator Josee Lepage, Joshua Walton and James Tichenor, Renda Morton and Seymour Chwast will each present one of the drinks and how their representative color effects “how and what we consume.”

Guests will receive a limited edition, hand-screened CMYK gift bag. And no cocktail party is complete without an open bar. Visit Tasteologie to purchase tickets, which start at $60 each.

Nestled in a small display cube within the Cape Craft and Design Institute’s exhibition at the recent Design Indaba expo, Heartworks Stitching Club‘s hand-embroidered teddy bears immediately caught our attention with their bold colors and one-of-a-kind appliqué.

Founded by Margaret Woermann, owner of the Cape Town crafts boutique Heartworks, the Club began over five years ago in an effort to empower local craftswomen while contributing to the city’s creative pulse. With early assistance from Durban needlecraft artist and women’s self-help teacher Leonie Malherbe, the stitching club started as a core group of local Cape Town women. Several years later, it’s evolved to include over 30 members, from Xhosa speaking participants to men and women from Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Central to the process of creating the bears (comprised of over 20 pieces), is a celebration of the individual. Woermann, who mainly assists with orders and material procurement, leaves the creative process entirely to the embroiderers, who develop their own particular design language.

The resulting collection, beautifully patterned with animals, people, houses, flowers and other whimsical imagery, has already been quite successful—recent examples include substantial orders for the Gap and a children’s project in Afghanistan—but the stitching club produces a multitude of other products, including pillows, tablecloths and hearts. The thread connecting all the efforts is the conviction that a skilled community can produce desirable products of enduring value. Woermann writes: “I believe that the time for subsidized projects—’buy me because you feel sorry for me’—in this country is over, and that a project that is self-sustaining and produces beautiful work—’buy me because I am beautiful’—is the way forward.”

We think the Heartworks Stitching Club is ripe for some forward-thinking design collaborations. If you’re interested in working with them, or if you’d like to order a bear (pricing ranges from R295 to R695 depending on the size) contact Margaret at woermann [at] iafrica [dot] com. Check out more images after the jump.