Three Ways to Give Back While You Shop this Holiday Season
No matter how hard you work to be sustainable or anti-consumerist this holiday season, all the giving and getting can get to you. The good news is that three brands have built environmentalist and activist elements right into their Black Friday deals from recycling unwanted garments to donating to charities, meaning you can shop guilt free. As you cobble together your wish list and plan gifts for your family and friends, consider making a mindful purchase from one of the designers here.
Gabriela Hearst
As her Uruguayan-made knitwear and other artisanal projects prove, Gabriela Hearst is a caring citizen of the world. For the holidays this year, Hearst has teamed with Save the Children to support the organization’s humanitarian work in Yemen. “I've been following the Yemen conflict for a while and I sit in the board of Save the Children, so we get a lot of quite direct information. It was this late summer that I read and article that it just really frustrated me,” Hearst says. “The Yemen conflict has gone out of the news cycle. Save the Children, it's one of the few NGOs that, at high risk, can get into Yemen. That's why it's important to do this because there's not that many NGOs that can get into Yemen and the attention to the Yemen war has fallen out of the media discourse right now. It's still a catastrophe for so many children.” From December 2 to December 9, 100 percent of net proceeds of Gabriela Hearst sales in her stores and online will go to the charity, helping to provide primary care, safe spaces, food, and more to children in Yemen. “We are going this both to raise awareness and to raise funds and that's the main way to do it. People can also just go directly to Save the Children and help directly.”
Officine Générale
From Black Friday through to December 1, French label Officine Générale is partnering with Fonds de Dotation Merci to donate a portion of its profits to three charities: ABC Domino, which builds schools in Madagascar; Horizon, which helps refugees assimilate in rural areas; and ONG Future Farms, an agro-ecolocy farm outside Paris. “In a holiday season driven by sales and consumerism, my team and I decided that we would only participate in a way in which we could stay true to our core values,” writes founder Pierre Mahéo. “Buying in a better way, with consciousness and consideration, is possible, this is what we are proposing with this charity weekend and will continue to propose going forward.”
Paskho
“No, we’re not offering a massive holiday discount to encourage you to buy a whole bunch of stuff you don’t really need,” writes Paskho founder Patrick Robinson of his seasonal give back program. Instead, the designer is offering anyone who makes a purchase on Black Friday a paid return label. The purpose? To send any unwanted garments back to Paskho to be recycled. The brand has partnered with Wearable Collections, an organization that recycles unwanted clothing. Think of it as a way to get a pair of the world’s best travel pants for women—yes, really—and get rid of some of the old tees clogging the back of your closet.
Originally Appeared on Vogue
