Written by: Barney Jeffries

From fashion studies to the Clothes Show, via the mountains of Morocco, Amana have come a long way in a short time. Barney Jeffries traces the journey with managing partner Erin Tabrar.

Helen Wood and Erin Tabrar launched ethical fashion company Amana in March, less than two years after graduating from university.

Creative partner Helen had become interested in sustainable textiles and natural dyes while studying fashion design at Central St Martins, while managing partner Erin, who studied fashion management at the London College of Fashion, had written her dissertation on fair-trade fashion.

"We wanted to do our own thing, and knew that if we did it would have to be ethical," says Erin. "There seemed to be a gap in the market for ethical clothes that were also beautiful and fashionable."

Despite having no experience in the industry, Helen and Erin wrote a business plan and approached a bank.

"They said they loved it," recalls Erin. "Then they phoned back to say they couldn't give us any money because we had nothing to borrow against and no trading history."

Undaunted, Helen and Erin wrote a new business plan, and this time approached family and friends to buy shares. People readily bought into the idea, agreeing to leave their money untouched for five years before any dividends would be paid out.

Helen and Erin also turned to friends to contribute their skills: "We'd graduated about a year before, so we got other final year students to help with graphics, photography and so on," says Erin. "We'd been quoted up to £10k for an e-commerce website, but we got someone to do a brilliant one for £1500."

Sourcing ethically and environmentally sound fabrics was a major challenge. "There are some great fabrics and companies, but the quantities were unfeasible for a company as small as us - minimum orders of 100m per colour," Erin explains. "We started with just one UK supplier, then another, then we found a silk supplier in India, then a company in America, another in Romania… It was really a case of trawling the internet and talking to friends in the business."

The clothes themselves are handmade by craftswomen in Morocco. Their discovery was something of a happy accident: "We"d gone to Morocco partly as a holiday and partly to look for suppliers," recalls Erin. "We bumped into an American Peace Corps volunteer on the train, who told us about these women artisans in the Atlas Mountains he"d been working with."

Amana - "delivered in trust" in Moroccan Arabic - work with these women according to stringent IFTA (International Fair Trade Association) guidelines. They hope to gain official certification once they have been trading for two years.

Erin is yet to be convinced by the mainstream fashion industry's recent flirtations with fair-trade and organic lines: "A lot of companies are launching fair-trade labels, but it's not very sincere unless it goes all the way through their supply lines and production methods. Till then it's really just a marketing thing."

Smaller ethical labels are, however, infiltrating the mainstream. Amana clothes will be among those modelled on the catwalks next month at the Clothes Show Live, which for the first time features a "Fashion Conscience Zone".

"We started at the perfect time," Erin believes. "There's so much interest at the moment, and the standard of ethical companies is getting better and better all the time."

Never mind principles or family loyalty: it looks like Amana's shareholders have made a shrewd business decision.

See Amana's latest collection at www.amana-collection.com

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