Ethical and sustainable consumption through Aarong

This past January, I was fortunate to attend the celebration of Aarong's 30 years of operation in Bangladesh. The celebration concluded with a Jamdani exhibit attended by various politicians, socialites and rural artisans, last month in Dhaka.

Jamdani textiles are beautiful nets and laces, woven on a hand-loom, by Bengali artisans whose families have been practicing the craft for hundreds of years. Each Jamdani sharee can take several months or even a year to complete.

Aarong has provided a platform for hundreds of rural artisans to showcase their talents and earn a fair living wage while doing so. Aarong is a social enterprise of BRAC that currently supports 6,5000 rural Bangladeshi artisans. Some of the artisans are directly employed by Aarong's production centers, some work at sub-centers located in remote parts of rural Bangladesh; others interact with Aarong as micro-entrepreneurs whose goods are sold at Aarong's retail stores in Bangladesh.

Aarong currently owns nine lifestyle stores in Bangladesh which sell textiles, apparel, accessories, herbal skincare, housewares and fine jewelery. Every single product in the store is hand-crafted by rural artisans.

I have worked in the New York fashion industry for over ten years for some of the most prominent American fashion labels, and I can tell you that these products can rival some of the best brands sold in New York. The selection array is wide, encompassing beautifully crafted leather briefcases to finely embroidered scarves, and strands of exquisite pink pearls, to choose from. What's best is the guilt free shopping, knowing that every single dollar you spend at Aarong is going towards supporting the artisan who crafted the products.

During my visit to Bangladesh, I was conducting a design and production process evaluation for some of Aarong's departments. I had the chance to interact with the dedicated people who make Aarong work, the design staff that support the artisans, and the rural artisans themselves.

I visited some of the remote sub-centers that employ artisans who are mostly women. It was heartwarming to see the confident faces of women who run these production centers. I stayed a while because it was wonderful to interact with them. The BRAC solidarity that binds them together was plain as day on their faces. They seemed happy, talking and laughing as they worked together. It was noteworthy that some of the have worked at these sub-centers for the past fifteen years. The small-framed rural woman who ran one of the sub-center's has worked with BRAC for 30 years!

I spent six weeks in Bangladesh working at Aarong's headquarters and production centers. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the experience has been the highlight of my fashion career. In this consumption driven society and culture, where we have all heard plenty of stories of worker exploitation, Aarong provides me with a beacon of hope, an example of the consumer goods industry can be restructured to be ethical, and promote sustainable consumption.

- Richa Agarwal