“There is a lot of wool being pulled over people’s eyes - especially in fashion. In fact, the fancier the wool, the more pulling tends to be involved. And we really don’t like where this is heading.”

Sound, ethical, transparent, sustainable entrepreneurship is about putting creativity slap bang in the middle of your entire venture and keeping it there at all cost, whilst maintaining a promise to both the environment and the people who keep your brand afloat.

This requires checking in with them as much as possible, just to make sure no-one is speaking in tongues.

Keeping it real is a pretty full-on occupation that involves upholding the highest level of dedication towards the things you really believe in.

Because, just for the record, we didn’t get up one morning thinking to ourselves: ‘Hey, let’s turn an apple into a shoe.’ There’s was slightly more involved to it.

The truth of the matter is that being transparent really starts with how we relate to ourselves.

  Honesty is not about dishing out statements, it’s about being so convinced about your own product or service that regardless of the amount of public scrutiny you get for it would make you steer away from your values and beliefs.

An honest brand should therefore be dynamic in how it relates and adapts to an ever changing world and be truthful about how its commitment towards a safer, healthier and better environment is playing out at that specific moment in time. That is what we believe in and we will not settle for anything less.

So, this is what we at Komrads are doing right now, but by all means keep on checking in on us because we might need to do things differently in the not so faraway future.

We don’t want to be the brand that flat out lies to you, and we certainly don’t want to make promises we can’t keep. Neither do we want to sling expensive marketing lingo at you, or be holier-than-thou with regards to our commitment to the environment. We promise that what we stand for goes beyond whatever flavour of the month happens to look good on social media.

Sometimes it’s about starting from scratch and rethinking the whole idea(l)

There’s a lot of things we don’t want to stand for, which probably makes you want to know what does make us tick. Fair enough. But, in all honesty, answering that question is actually a tricky one. Because being ‘ethical’ – or whatever you want to call it (for us it’s matter of common sense) – is not a one-fit-for-all kind of thing. It’s about questioning processes that used to result in efficiency or productivity, holding them up against the light and being brave enough to throw them out the window if they no longer work.

Sometimes it’s about starting from scratch and rethinking the whole idea(l), even if it means getting over the sheer madness that comes from sending yourself back to the drawing board – over and fucking over again.

But then there’s that little voice in the back of your mind that threatens to call you a complete imbecile if you give up on the dream, so you pick yourself up and give it another shot.