Greetings from our own sewing company Black Moda Portugal, and our knitwear manufacturer Armaco! In the video, check the completion of the knitwear products of our Saguaro town collection, from the production of the knitwear to the planning of the clothes, the cutting of the knitwear, sewing, finishing and all the way to packaging!
What is a clothing revolution?
This week is the Clothing Revolution Week, which is an international campaign for a more responsible clothing industry. The campaign week is organized every year in April to commemorate the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013, in which 1138 people died. The Fashion Revolution is ongoing all year round, but during the Fashion Revolution week, people are especially encouraged to ask the clothing brands they consume who made their clothes - who made my clothes?
Responsible production in Portugal
All Aarrelabel tricot products are made at our own sewing mill in Northern Portugal, Black Moda Portugal. Our other clothes are made by long-term partners located nearby, and our socks are made in Italy. In 2020, our factory employed 64 different employees, which include different textile professionals from seamstresses to cutters, model makers and planners, quality supervisors, warehouse workers and production coordinators. Riikka Oliveira, part owner of Aarrelabel, is the CEO of the factory. Black Moda Portugal pays its employees a salary according to the collective agreement. In addition to the basic salary, the personnel accrues a meal allowance, overtime allowances, summer and Christmas vacation money and other production allowances. Portugal has a working time law and in industry the working time is 40 hours/week and overtime is done if necessary for 1 hour/day. Possible overtime is agreed upon together with the employee and overtime compensation is paid for overtime.
The main fabricator of Aarrelabel's knitted products and yarns is Armaco, Lda, whose facilities are also flashed at the beginning of the video. Armaco and Black Moda Portugal share a staff member familiar with responsibility to ensure that our corporate values are also realized in our subcontracting chain. In this way, we develop our responsibility in knitting production by, among other things, promoting the selection and development of more ecological materials, and we ensure that supplier contracts and our values are implemented in our knitting production. We are constantly looking for and developing quality and more responsible materials, the latest of which has been our Supreme Basics series made of Greek cotton. Supreme Basics products are made entirely in Europe from the field to the garment, and they come with a hangtag, by scanning the QR code you can see the garment's entire production chain and production locations. You can find clothes made from Supreme Basics and the Refibra cotton blend using recycled fiber here.
Read more about our responsibility in the Responsibility section.
Read more about Black Moda Portugal's responsibility and production on Black Moda's website.
