Our ethical supply chain: your questions answered.

“IS IT MADE IN AUSTRALIA?”

When people ask if our stuff is made in Australia, the answer is… not “yes” or “no”. We’re a sixth generation wool family, our garment are all designed in Australia, we use exclusively Australian wool, and most of our fabrics are knitted in Australia. So most of the process, and the value of the process, happens in Australia. For a few different reasons, the ‘cut and sew’ part of the process usually happens overseas.

MOST OF OUR STUFF IS 'CUT AND SEWN' IN FIJI USING OUR AUSSIE FABRIC.

The vast majority of our products are currently made in Fiji. They have a great little manufacturing industry with a unionised workforce working in good working environments and fair conditions, and are close to Australia, which helps us reduce our footprint with fabric and garments going back and forth.

WE’D LIKE TO MAKE MORE THINGS IN AUSTRALIA.

In an ideal world, we’d manufacture here in Australia, but it’s simply not viable for us to do for all sorts of reasons right now. We could debate this, and you’d probably win, because manufacturing here would be excellent, but it would make our garments so much more expensive and our current feedback is that’d be a problem, so for now, not a lot of ‘cut and sew’ happens here.

WE DO USE AUSTRALIAN MERINO WOOL. AND MAKE MOST OF OUR FABRICS HERE.

The good news is, we almost exclusively use Australian Merino wool. And the vast majority of our fabrics have been made right here in Australia. From time to time we look at alternatives, based on capacity and specific logistical requirements. Sometimes we simply can’t get what we need done in Australia. Which is disappointing, but just how it goes sometimes.

WE’VE STARTED DOING A BIT OF STUFF IN SRI LANKA AS WELL.

Our production manager Leroy is from Sir Lanka, so in recent times we’ve also done a bit of manufacturing with some of his contacts. And they’ve been pretty great to work with and we’ve been really happy with the products they’ve made for us so far.

WE DON’T REALLY MAKE STUFF IN CHINA ANYMORE.

HOW IS ‘MADE IN AUSTRALIA’ JUDGED?

In 1986 the Australian government came up with an official ‘Australian Made’ logo and program. Basically, companies who pay a fee can display this logo if they meet certain criteria. Like life, it’s not entirely straight forward and there’s ‘Australian Made, ’Made in Australia' and ‘Manufactured in Australia’, and to be perfectly honest, the rules can be a bit… funny. For example, one of the criteria is a thing called ‘substantial transformation’ where someone can take ingredients or raw materials from overseas, but transform them here in Australia, and if that happens, they might get to say they’re made or manufactured here. Even though all the bits come from somewhere else. One of the other criteria is the cost of production/manufacture where at least 50% of the cost of producing those goods must be incurred here. For us, that’s very much true, as the most expensive part of our garments is the merino wool and knitting it into fabrics. So if that makes sense, we could certainly say we’re ‘Australian Made’, but that feels a bit misleading when we do parts of the process offshore. But that’s how it works and now you know.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?