We’ve been meaning to catch up with the guys from Rapanui for ages now and managed to grab some time with them last week.
With our trusty audio recorder in hand, we popped over to Rapanui HQ in Lake to find out just what’s so special about this Isle of Wight clothing company that’s been running for the last two years.
We have to say that we were mightily impressed with Rob and Mart Drake-Knight, not only with their can do attitude, but they seem to have thoroughly researched their chosen subject.
Background
The aim in creating Rapanui, was to build a brand that is honest in delivering a sustainable alternative to clothing at no human or environmental cost.
That’s a pretty tall order in today’s society when you have competition from High Street chains who churn out seemingly-increasingly cheaper goods to meet the demands of the never-satisfied consumer.
Many of these major brands are now jumping on the eco-friendly bandwagon, so we asked Rapanui how they intend to differentiate themselves, in what is fast becoming, a saturated market.
Transparency
The answer for Rapanui is simply ‘Transparency’ – being completely open and candid about the way they go about their business, they believe is key to their survival.
With the eco-friendly corporate band-wagon comes a flood of green wash, so what Rapanui hope to do is, through educating consumers with the facts and figures of where their products come from and what effect that production has on the environment, they’ll be able to provide consumers with enough information to be able to make informed choices on the type of clothing they wear.
Traffic Light System
Step forward the traffic light system – this new process exposes the entire product lifecycle of a Rapanui garment. Every detail you can think of can be answered, from the way labels are sewn on; what fabrics are made from; where it is grown; who picks the cotton; what’s the packaging, etc. If the answer isn’t already available through their Web site, they’ll make sure they find out and add it.
For Rob and Mart, this is not an answer to the problem but a way of offering freedom of information, opening a dialogue between the business and the consumers.
As Simon points out in our podcast, transparency leads to trust — there’s nothing stronger — and we were really pleased to hear that this is something that is equally important to Rapanui. As they say “to build relationships with their customers – the key to that is honesty.”
Rob has a Business degree and Mart is a renewable energy engineer, so clearly they’re not natural born fashion designers, but there’s still plenty of style in their clothing and they do have an active hand in designing the styles and cuts of the garments. These aren’t just items bought off the shelf with a logo sewn on.
Sourcing Products
So where does their clothing come from? It sounds to us that Rapanui have worked extremely hard to source the right products, whilst maintaining their green credentials.
The factory they use in India has a 32 strong wind farm (sporting Vestas blades), there are solar photo voltaic panels on the roof and the outfit is fully FairWear audited.
For those of you who haven’t heard the phrase ‘FairWear’ before, don’t be embarrassed, neither had we. Mart tells us that this system, similar to Fair Trade, is virtually unheard of in the UK. Under Fairwear, instead of just paying farmers the premium, everyone who is involved throughout the product lifecycle is well paid, ensuring fair wages with clean and safe working conditions for all.
Organic rules!
It was surprising to hear that some high street shops stock t-shirts where formaldehyde has been used to keep the creases out of the material. Rapanui have responded to this kind of information by going organic. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, they then found that organic cotton production has major water issues, so to answer that problem, they choose a factory in a monsoon valley, and now 95% of their water comes from the rains.
Human exploitation is another key focus for them, which is covered by the Fair Wear audits described above and finally, as expected from a business waving the green flag, Climate Change is clearly a driving factor for Rapanui. This is addressed by the renewal energy systems that they have in place.
There’s more to learn about Rapanui, so do sit back and listen. You might even learn a thing or two – we did!
In the next instalment …
In part two of the podcast, – Rob and Mart go into more detail about the traffic light system, their super duper new Web site (laden with lots of love Julian Winslow photography) and cover further information about who is involved in the life-cycle of the products, including the stitching circle from Brading!
Discounts!
Finally, because the guys from Rapanui love VentnorBlog and you dear reader so much (ah schucks), they’re also offering special discounts to those who listen to the podcasts. You’ll have to listen to both to find the special passwords to get your discount code to purchase their products online.
