October is a t shirt printing, screen printing, garment sourcing and embroidery supplier established in 1990. We source a wide range of clothing and accessories to fit the most demanding of specifications. Although we print and embroider for a variety of sectors, our speciality is fashion.
With this in mind we offer a full service including garment sourcing, graphic design input, range development, technical screen print and embroidery advice, label supply, re-labelling, bagging, swing ticketing and bulk distribution.
This isn't everything. That would just be too massive, but it is a cross section of all our favourite T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoods, polos, hats etc. It's what a pretentious bell end might call a curated edit. Feel free to call us with any questions, and let us know if we left anything out.
It all started 25 years ago. Paul finished a degree in obscure eastern religions, and was surprised to find he couldn't get a job. Not a problem, a friend had a sewing machine,
The UK Bungee Club (UKBC) was established in 1992 and is the market leader for Bungee Jumping in the UK. As the pioneer of commercial Bungee Jumping in Britain, the UKBC now facilitates all jumps sold by Britain’s leading retailers and gift experience companies such as Boots, WHSmith, Buy a Gift, ExElement and Red Letter Days.
With permanent venues nationwide the UKBC operates bungee jumps from both fixed structures and cranes. With the UK’s only bridge bungee jump, the UK’s only indoor venue and regular jump heights from 160ft to 400ft, the UK Bungee Club has unparalleled experience in bungee jumping activities.
The professionalism and excellent safety record of the company has led to the UKBC being first choice for television production companies and channels worldwide including Endemol, Tiger Aspect and Outline Productions to name a few, producing shows for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky, NBC and ESPN. Working with over 200 charities both large and small the UKBC has facilitated and organised charity events raising in excess of £3 million for good causes.
During its existence and due to the nature of the work the UKBC has become involved with other activities acting as advisors as well as organising and running events such as abseils, zip wires, drop slides and adventure trips around the world.
In the 1990’s The UK Bungee Club was responsible for running one of the most famous permanent jump facilities in the world, Adrenalin Village, located at Chelsea Bridge in Battersea, London. A permanent feature on the London skyline UKBC’s 300ft tower crane dispatched 11,000 bungee jumpers every year over the Thames. Alongside this a floating hostel housed thrill seekers from all over the globe with a total of 100,000 people visiting the site in its final year of operation. This was also the venue for the qualifying rounds of The World Extreme Games in association with the television company ESPN, which the UKBC facilitated in 1995.
In October 2006 The UK Bungee Club secured the rights to jump from the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge. A milestone for Bungee Jumping in the UK – it was the first time that members of the public had been allowed to jump from a UK Bridge since members of Oxford University performed the first ever bungee jump in its modern form from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol in 1979. On December 17, 2007, the UK Bungee Club bungee jumped American news anchor Anne Curry off the world famous Transporter Bridge to raise money for charity. Her jump was shown on the NBC news Today show at about 8:13 am Eastern time and went out live to 8 million people.
The UK Bungee Club also runs The Abyss @ Magna, the world’s only indoor bungee jump. Located and housed in the 150ft Face of Steel Building at the award winning Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham, a £46million Millennium project which opened in 2001. An extensive build project, The Abyss @ Magna opened in 2005 and has received national and international press coverage as well as being a venue for numerous TV and film projects. As a result The Abyss @ Magna was awarded the Best Tourism Experience 2006 by the Yorkshire Tourist board. Working with the board and management of Magna, The Abyss has continued to progress with the installation of a new 250ft zip wire and a 150ft PowerFan descender, these activities were built alongside a new £2.7 million corporate development project at the centre.
As London Fashion Week approaches, the hype behind ethical fashion is going through the roof. But how many of our favourite high street shops offer fairly traded clothes? Amita Mistry investigates.
“Young girl working fairtrade Young girl working on a loom in Aé¯t Benhaddou, Morocco in May 2008” – image is courtesy of NationMaster.com
Are you wearing or do you own anything from the high street giant Primark? If so, find the label and read where it was made.
Done? If you’re still looking, it’s because Primark’s labels don’t reveal the location of the garment’s origin. The company argues that there is no law requiring retailers to state where the clothing is made.
Primark is every bargain hunter’s candy shop, full of cheap clothes that can be thrown away when the latest trend is phased out. Last June, it was investigated by undercover reporters from the BBC who revealed that the retailer used child labour (allegedly without their knowledge) to make their products. It was claimed that clothes were created by underpaid factory workers, many of whom took their work outside the factory to family members and children.
After BBC1’s Panorama made the issue public, the head of Primark spoke to a journalist about the allegations. Primark director Breege O’Donoghue said: “We detest that children have been used; we do not support that children should be used in our supply chain. These children are not in our factories. These three factories had stringent audit and inspection in the last 18 months these children were in unauthorised production.”
She added: “It’s against our terms of trade to employ children. Our code of conduct was breached, our standards were breached – this is why these factories will no longer be doing business with Primark.”
Developing countries reportedly rely on the forced labour of thousands of 10-to15-year-old children, who pick cotton to create clothes for western countries like ours. Each September, school children are forced to miss classes for up to two and a half months for cotton-picking. The children spend up to 11 hours a day working in the fields and earn less than two US dollars.
I decided to visit Primark in Nottingham to find out what the paying public thought about this. Hordes of shoppers wondered around with trademark blue baskets full to the brim with clothes. The long queue for the tills made it feel like it was Christmas Eve, while the staff stood at their folding stations as customers sifted through the piles of jeans desperate to find their size.
Asked about Primark’s reputation on garment production, one student shopper from Nottingham said: “I do wonder how they can charge so little, but I’m well into my overdraft and can’t afford expensive clothes. Primark has high fashion at affordable prices, which is what draws me in.”
Another customer remarked: “I guess ‘throw-away fashion’ is a bit of a waste, but in the current economic climate people are hunting for bargains more than ever before. It’s a shame, but I suppose we are keeping the people who make the garments in employment.”
Although Primark has made changes to stop child labour by shutting down the factories in India, this now leaves thousands of people unemployed. It seems as though they are more concerned with the reputation of the business rather than the need to help and support these underprivileged workers.
Fortunately, some people are doing their best to change the situation. At this season’s forthcoming fashion events, movers and shakers from the high fashion world are creating, promoting and showcasing ethical clothes.
Along with London Fashion Week’s estethica, which exhibits fashion by eco-loving designers (February 21-24), Pure London has also introduced Ethical Pure as part of its campaign to promote the designers who produce clothing that follows eco-friendly guidelines (February 8-10).
Meanwhile, February 23 to March 8 sees the annual fortnight dedicated to highlighting the work of the Fairtrade Foundation, a charity that seeks to ensure everyone can maintain a decent and dignified livelihood. Since its launch, the Fairtrade mark has not only changed the way in which corporations deal with their suppliers and how consumers shop on the high street, but it is also transforming the lives of millions of farmers, workers and their communities.
The desire to make even a small contribution towards helping the environment and the social welfare of others is a trend that has been embraced by many companies, from small specialist stores to big high-street chains. Debenhams, Monsoon and Marks & Spencer, for instance, all stock a Fairtrade cotton range.
Another outspoken campaigner is Jane Shepherdson, the retail guru who catapulted Topshop to star status. Now chief executive of the Whistles chain, she is also the non-executive director of People Tree (www.peopletree.co.uk), one of country’s first eco-chic brands. In addition, Shepherdson is transforming Oxfam’s charity shops into must-have destinations for eco-fashionistas.
These are just a few of the examples of people making waves in the ethical clothing movement. Yet, while much progress has already been made, there is still a significant way to go. Does the future of fashion lie in fairly traded clothes? Only time, and our shopping habits, will tell.
For more information on Fairtrade Fortnight, visit: www.fairtrade.org.uk or http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/blood-sweat-tshirts.
The government has launched a campaign to tackle the environmental impact of a “fast fashion” culture.
About two million tonnes of clothing end up in landfill every year.More than 300 retailers, producers and designers are part of the “sustainable clothing action plan”, launched at the start of London Fashion Week.Ministers say customers should be sure clothing is made, sold and disposable “without damaging the environment or using poor labour practices”.The initiative outlines commitments to make fashion more sustainable throughout its lifecycle: from design and manufacture to retail and disposal.It hopes to draw attention to the environmental impact of cheap, throwaway clothes, which have become hugely popular on the High Street but are adding to the UK’s landfill.
Taking action
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the clothing and textiles sector in the UK produces around 3.1m tonnes of carbon dioxide, 2m tonnes of waste and 70m tonnes of waste water per year.Gases such as CO2, emitted by fossil fuel burning, and methane, released from landfill sites, are widely believed to be contributing to global warming.As part of the action plan:
Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury’s have pledged to increase their ranges of Fairtrade and organic clothing, and support fabrics which can be recycled more easily
Tesco is banning cotton from countries known to use child labour
Charities such as Oxfam and the Salvation Army will open more sustainable clothing boutiques featuring high quality second-hand clothing and new designs made from recycled garments
The Centre for Sustainable Fashion at the London College of Fashion will be resourced to provide practical support to the clothing sector
The Fairtrade Foundation will aim for at least 10% of cotton clothing in the UK to be Fairtrade material by 2012.
The Minister for Sustainability, Lord Hunt, said the plan represented a “concerted effort to change the face of fashion”.”Retailers have a big role to play in ensuring fashion is sustainable,” he said.”We should all be able to walk into a shop and feel the clothes we buy have been produced without damaging the environment or using poor labour practices, and that we will be able to re-use and recycle them when we no longer want them.
“Complex challenges
Jane Milne, business environment director of the British Retail Consortium, said retailers should be “applauded, not criticised, for providing customers with affordable clothing, particularly during these tough economic times”.”They’re raising standards for overseas workers, offering clothes made from organic and Fairtrade cotton and encouraging the re-use and recycling of unwanted clothes,” she added.
The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised, sustainable model of consumption is created
Malcolm Ball, ASBCI chairmanThe ASBCI, the forum for clothing and textiles, said the industry was “very cognisant” of the environmental issues it faced and “highly motivated” to find solutions.Chairman Malcolm Ball said the challenges facing the industry and the consumer were “complex”.
Taking cotton as an example, he said organic cotton was highly desirable but represented only a fraction of world production, adding that growing it “requires vast amounts of the most precious resource on earth – water”.”There are many voices who argue the current Western model of fast and cheap fashion is totally unsustainable in the medium to long term,” he said.”The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised, sustainable model of consumption is created.”
Allana McAspurn, of ethical fashion campaign body Made-By, said change would be gradual: “It’s about continuous improvement – a step-by-step approach.”We’ve created a situation where we’ve got really cheap clothes and that’s not going to re-addressed overnight.”London Fashion Week runs from Friday until Wednesday.Lord Hunt is due to announce the sustainable clothing action plan at Friday’s launch of the sixth season of estethica, the world’s leading showcase of ethical designer fashion.
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others”
Vince Fraser is a freelance digital illustrator / designer based in London who has worked for various clients including British Airways, PC World, BBC and T-mobile.
With ten years experience in the field of digital arts he is one of the most sought after image-makers working today. Having originally come from an interior design background, the progression to digital arts was a natural one.
Specializing in digital illustration ranging from 2d vector work, photo-montage, image-manipulation and 3d modelling, Vince’s work has continued to develop and inspire creating vibrant, innovative and evocative artwork. Imprementing a variety of elements from photographs to typography and vector illustration his compositions conceal a broad palette. Having a great eye for detail he is always pushing the boundaries and describes his style as contemporary but with a twist of retro.
Vince’s highly versatile work can be found anywhere internationally from mobile phone screensavers, VIP lounges through to luxury apartments and is starting to get the recognition it highly deserves.
His work is regularly featured in design and industry publications such as Advanced Photoshop, IDN, Computer Arts Projects and Digital Arts.
Thread is the online fashion magazine dedicated to bringing you the latest in eco-fabulous style.
Ethical fashion is fashion that has been made, worn and passed on in a way that looks after people, animals and the environment. The clothes we feature in thread support this approach, making us essential viewing for fashion-conscious people who care about where their clothes come from. All clothes tick off at least one of these principles:
Made and traded sustainably — clothes and accessories where suppliers of raw materials receive a fair price and workers get a fair wage, with guaranteed rights. Ideally the trade brings new benefits to communities.
Made of sustainable materials — minimising the impact of fashion on the environment. Look out for clothes made from cool, organic cotton that are safer for farmers, garment workers and the environment, as they’re free from chemical pesticides and fertilisers. And clothes made from funky alternatives such as hemp and bamboo.
Recycled or vintage — keeping clothes out of landfill and cutting fabric waste in factories. Many of our clothes are classic vintage items and stylish one-off pieces made from recycled garments, factory off-cuts and remnants.
Ethical fashion is becoming cool in its own right, making the move from catwalk to high street, with a list of celebrity fans such as Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Brad Pitt, Leona Lewis and Leonardo di Caprio.
Thread shows you how to get the look you want in an eco-glam way through our unique mix of affordable fashion, exclusive videos, photo galleries and thought-provoking features.
There are so many ways you can get involved from shopping ethically on the high street and buying vintage or second hand to swapping clothes with friends and customising the clothes you already have. There are options to suit your style, your budget and your views.
The challenge is to reduce the amount of damage we are doing now, while a revised, sustainable model of consumption is created 
