{"id":10173,"date":"2014-10-30T07:56:43","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T11:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10173"},"modified":"2014-10-30T07:56:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T11:56:43","slug":"nice-buys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/nice-buys\/","title":{"rendered":"Nice Buys"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 2014 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s not just about where your holiday gift purchases are going\u2013it’s about where they come from.<\/h3>\n

By Cody E. Marcroft<\/p>\n

\"Gift-Guide-Nov14\"<\/a>Ever think about how giant chain retailers and some smaller shops can offer huge quantities of steeply discounted Far Eastern, African, and Latin American tchotchkes<\/em>\u2013dishware, gifts, homewares, clothing, handbags, wallets, and other colorful trinkets? Or do you try not to think about what wages and working conditions are like for what may be children who make them?<\/p>\n

Here are some retailers in Portland who make it their business to think about it.<\/p>\n

Consumer karma<\/h3>\n

\u201cProducers get Fair Trade certification, shops don\u2019t,\u201d says Karen Burnell, whose two-year-old shop, Karma Fair Trade, is on Brighton Avenue in Portland next to Rosemont Market. \u201cI work with the U.S.-based Fair Trade Federation. Their mission is to bring producers and retailers together. That way, I can select merchandise from their list of Fair Trade producers.\u201d Among the wares in her shop are baskets from Bangladesh, pottery from Nicaragua, and paper products from Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother organization monitors just food, and there\u2019s also a European coalition, Fair Trade International\u2026I use the Federation where I need them\u2026making sure people I\u2019m working with are on the up-and-up.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Burnell, it\u2019s a mission against global human trafficking and slave trade. \u201cThree quarters of [the abuse] is in labor, and one-quarter is in the sex trade. It\u2019s not legal anywhere, but it exists everywhere. If we can battle poverty, we can take away one of the major vulnerabilities to being trafficked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walk into high-volume retailers featuring international goods in the Portland area and you have no assurance they have Fair Trade merchandise, Burnell says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then there\u2019s a litmus test I use called \u201cFree 2 work\u201d (free2work.org), a database that grades products A through F based on whether slavery was used\u201d in the production of that item. You can have lovely made-in-the-USA t-shirts, but what if the cotton is slave-produced? Uzbekistan is a huge cotton exporter using slave labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything in Karma Fair Trade is \u201ceither Fair Trade or it has a cause,\u201d says Burnell. There are leather-handled baskets from Ghana, scarves from Nepal, and other baskets from Uganda in the $20 to $42 range. A soft, elegant woven cotton scarf from Guatemala is $27. There are carved Kenyan animals starting at $4. The shop refutes the misperception that retailing ethically has to be expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese Cambodian mermaid bags are $18; they\u2019re made by women rescued from the sex trade.\u201d She sells a lot of natural lavender lip balms and body creams ($5 to $17) made in Nashville at a residential program for women who have been incarcerated, which provides them counseling, training, and employment. \u201cNot Fair Trade, but because I know where it came from and the cause attached to it, I\u2019m good with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

570 Brighton Ave. 831-4531 karmafairtrade.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Personal belief<\/h3>\n

\u201cI heard an interview on NPR<\/em> back in 2000 about Fair Trade,\u201d says Renee Garland, owner of Waterlily, a handcraft store on Milk Street in the Old Port. \u201cWhen somebody said \u2018conscious trade\u2019 in the interview, I thought, \u2018that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing,\u201d trading with a conscience.<\/p>\n

Garland\u2019s shop, which opened in 2005, evolves from such thinking. She spends nearly half of each year in Asia gathering an array of handmade goods from local artisans.<\/p>\n

Garland grew up in Maine, moving to Alaska after college to provide care for sled dogs. Living in a cabin without running water or electricity and depressed by the cold and shortage of sunlight, she took the suggestion of a friend to visit Thailand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I arrived in Bangkok, my life completely changed,\u201d says Garland. \u201cI felt like I belonged. I relate to the gentleness of Thai culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of her second trip to Thailand, she found herself with just $200 left to spend. \u201cSo I bought handmade chopsticks because I could buy a lot for $200!\u201d This peculiar, spontaneous decision was deliberate. Back in Maine, she hit the crafts-fair circuit to sell her chopsticks, paying the small fee for a table. \u201cThat\u2019s how I got started. It was more of a project to see if I liked the buying- and-selling aspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the first, Waterlily has offered Asian handicrafts and creations from artisans Garland befriended in Maine. \u201cI always wanted it to be a combination of handmade things here, there, everywhere. If it\u2019s handmade with love, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s made in Maine, or Thailand, or Timbuktu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lately, she\u2019s been integrating her own designs. Once she\u2019s finished collecting materials\u00a0 and fabrics from various parts of Asia, Garland meets with her tailor\u2013a woman in India who works out of her home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have this hotel room full of fabrics from floor to ceiling, and I sit down and sketch out jackets, pillows, handbags, scarves.\u201d Then the tailor goes to work.<\/p>\n

Despite strides to track the origins of the\u00a0 merchandise she purchases, Garland recognizes her limitations. In Waterlily\u2019s formative years she considered, but ultimately opted out of, carrying strictly Fair Trade products in her line of goods.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with hundreds of people, and they\u2019re not producing every aspect of what they\u2019re making by themselves,\u201d she explains. \u201cEven hill tribes may go to a store and buy buttons for a jacket. [To label them Fair Trade], all the aspects of every item would have to be approved, and how much [money] that person made [would have to be traced].\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, she follows her own moral compass about \u2018conscious trade. \u201cIt just means being aware of where things come from, who makes it, and sharing that information with the buyer. I\u2019d rather give the money to a person directly making it.\u201d<\/p>\n

26 Milk St. 775-5459 waterlilyimports.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Fairly Large-Scale<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe first challenge is confusion between free trade and Fair Trade,\u201d says Kevin Hudson, manager of Ten Thousand Villages on Exchange Street. \u201cFree trade is the antithesis of Fair Trade, and it\u2019s very misleading. Fair Trade is people getting paid fairly for work done.\u201d Hudson\u2019s shop is filled with jewelry, clothing, gifts, and accessories from around the world. \u201cIt\u2019s buying their items at a fair price\u2013not gouging at their end so we can get a better profit margin on our end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sterling necklaces from Nepal, capiz shell wind chimes from the Philippines, and colorful woven baskets from Uganda are among the items that decorate the store. These imports, and all others, are 100-percent Fair Trade approved.<\/p>\n

Hudson\u2019s is one of 80 Ten Thousand Villages shops. The umbrella organization also wholesales products to another 120 like-minded retailers. He mentions Fair Trade Winds in Bar Harbor as an example.<\/p>\n

The organization, founded in 1946 by Edna Ruth Byler, is one of the longest tenured fair traders. Byler was inspired by impoverished craftswomen whom she encountered in her travels to Puerto Rico. She carried items back to the States where she\u2019d sell them and then return the money to the women. This idea has turned into a global effort over the past 70 years, with Ten Thousand Villages leading the charge; the company is a founding member of the World Fair Trade Organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Fair Trade products tend to be more\u00a0 expensive, and that\u2019s a market problem,\u201d Hudson says. \u201cWe\u2019re working to be more dynamic instead of making it one price where you can either afford it or you can\u2019t. The more expensive item might be made out of silk, whereas another is made out of cotton or rayon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten Thousand Villages is nonprofit, with surpluses in revenue returned to artisans across the globe. The organization doesn\u2019t wave that flag, though. Hudson describes it as a, \u201chappy accident\u201d people learn about when\u00a0 browsing in the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the best part of what we do, and we don\u2019t talk about it enough, in my opinion,\u201d Hudson says. \u201cOur stores are very basic as far as retail goes\u2013no ostentation.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot everybody can commit to 100-percent-Fair-Trade lifestyle. I don\u2019t ever expect anybody to,\u201d Hudson says. \u201cWhether or not they\u2019re committed to our cause is not the biggest draw for us. If you\u2019re just buying [a Fair Trade item] because you like it, that\u2019s still all right. That\u2019s still a success for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

33 Exchange St. 772-9306 tenthousandvillages.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Or keep it close to home<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s an obvious way to avoid perpetuating the exploitation of foreign labor: Invest your shopping dollars in Maine-made goods. Lisa-Marie\u2019s Made in Maine is next door to Ten Thousand Villages on Exchange Street, and she can help with that.<\/p>\n

Lisa-Marie Stewart\u2019s first store opened in Bath in 2003; the shop on Exchange Street followed in 2010. The shops are full of jewelry, pottery, glassware, home wares, accessories, edibles like Maine sea salt and maple syrup, and quirky things like birdhouses made from old license plates and wind chimes made from old silverware.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have artisans and craftsmen from Fort Kent to Kittery\u201d says Stewart. \u201cBeing an artist and having done shows for over 20 years, I found it very important to promote what our state has\u2026and support small, family-owned businesses.\u201d She likes knowing her suppliers and being able to tell their stories to her customers. \u201cPrices range from $2 to $600.\u201d<\/p>\n

35 Exchange St. 828-1515 lisamariesmadeinmaine.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s global or local, the gift you buy doesn\u2019t come from nowhere. If it really is the thought that counts, these stores encourage us to, well, think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 2014
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