No Sweat Apparel

Clothing Company Definitions — United States clothing company definitions from Apparel Search

No Sweat Apparel (NSA) is an American clothing brand, manufactured by Bienestar International, which retails union-made, sweatshop-free clothing, shoes and accessories, and is primarily focused on human rights issues. The company was formed in 2000. All NSA products are created by independent union members in the United States, Canada and the developing world, including Indonesia and Nicaragua, and company officials describe it as the first open-source clothing manufacturer, showing consumers where products come from and the working conditions under which they were created.

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No Sweat Apparel
(NSA) is an American clothing brand, manufactured by Bienestar International, which retails union-made, sweatshop-free clothing, shoes, and accessories. NSA is primarily focused on human rights issues. The company was formed in 2000.

All NSA products are created by independent union members in the United States, Canada, and the developing world, including Indonesia and Nicaragua. The company officials describe their company as the first "open-source"  clothing manufacturer, meaning that they attempt to show consumers where their products come from, as well as the working conditions under which their products were created. The NSA website contains information on the companies from whom they buy, as well as factsheets detailing the wages and rights that they claim are afforded to the factory workers who created the products.

No Sweat Apparel uses minimal advertisement, relying mainly on word-of-mouth and free product placement. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, there are several public transit benches with No Sweat advertisements, featuring the white hemp sneaker. NSA claimed a 750-percent increase in sales in 2005.

NSA counts Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams, Oscar-winning screenwriter J. Larner (The Candidate), and musician Billy Bragg among its customers.

External links

The above definition about the clothing company No Sweat Apparel is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. The information source is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and was originally obtained from the following page address https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Sweat_Apparel.  The definition has been modified by the Apparel Search Company in June 2009.  The rest of this page and other pages on Apparel Search are NOT under the free document license.

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Union-Made, Sweatshop-Free Clothing

No Sweat Apparel was formed in 2000 on a single stated principle: the clothing, shoes and accessories it retails are union-made and sweatshop-free. The brand, manufactured by Bienestar International, is primarily focused on human rights issues, so the labour conditions behind the products are not a side policy but the reason the brand exists and the main fact a customer is asked to consider when buying. In a clothing market where most garments carry no information at all about who made them, a brand organised around production conditions occupies a distinct position, selling to customers who weigh how a garment was made alongside its price and appearance.

All NSA products are created by independent union members, and production is deliberately spread across the United States, Canada and the developing world, including Indonesia and Nicaragua. That geography is part of the argument: rather than claiming that ethical production is only possible in wealthy countries, the brand sources from union shops in developing countries as well, presenting union representation, rather than location alone, as the safeguard for the people making the clothes. For the model to work, the union status of each supplying workshop has to be verifiable, which leads directly to the company's transparency practice.

Open-Source Manufacturing and Word-of-Mouth Growth

Company officials describe NSA as the first open-source clothing manufacturer. Borrowed from software, the term here means showing consumers where their products come from and the working conditions under which their products were created. The NSA website contains information on the companies from whom it buys, as well as factsheets detailing the wages and rights that the company states are afforded to the factory workers who created the products. Publishing supplier names, wages and rights turns a general ethical claim into checkable detail, and lets customers, journalists and campaigners test the claim against named workplaces.

The company uses minimal advertising, relying mainly on word-of-mouth and free product placement, an approach consistent with a brand whose customers arrive through human rights networks and recommendation rather than through media campaigns. In Winnipeg, Manitoba, several public transit benches carry No Sweat advertisements featuring the white hemp sneaker, one of the brand's recognisable products. NSA claimed a 750 percent increase in sales in 2005, growth achieved largely without conventional advertising. Its customers include Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams, Oscar-winning screenwriter J. Larner, who wrote The Candidate, and musician Billy Bragg, supporters whose own public profiles are associated with labour and human rights causes, and whose custom reinforces the word-of-mouth channel the company depends on.

Common Questions

What does No Sweat Apparel sell?

No Sweat Apparel retails union-made, sweatshop-free clothing, shoes and accessories. The brand is manufactured by Bienestar International and is primarily focused on human rights issues.

Where are No Sweat Apparel products made?

All NSA products are created by independent union members in the United States, Canada and the developing world, including Indonesia and Nicaragua. The company was formed in 2000.

What does open-source clothing manufacturer mean for NSA?

Company officials describe NSA as the first open-source clothing manufacturer, meaning it attempts to show consumers where their products come from and the working conditions under which they were created. Its website carries information on the companies it buys from and factsheets detailing the wages and rights it states are afforded to the factory workers who made the products.

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