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Tags: bamboo, brand, China, designers, eco-friendly, ethical standards, granola, Holt Renfrew, Jing Liu, JUZD, labour laws, pride, textile, tree huggar, Unknown Canadian Designer, urban fashion

Dualité – Montreal Fashion Blog

Posted on 02 August 2008 by admin

Toronto-based JUZD Bamboo Answers Some Questions
Posted in Designers by Dahlia on July 31st, 2008

Every so often at my blog, I get requests in writing about a new designer for sake of promotions. But as I’m still in the course of developing a certain point of view, I decided to put one of them to the test by asking some more serious questions. I get tired of run of the mill “So what’s the name of your brand? How did you become a designer?” yadda yadda, they can sum that up in a nice little biography for all I care.
After being happy to find out about my Ecco sandals’ provenance, I wanted to know if clothing brands would do the same in revealing where their clothes were made and what were their ethical standards.

judz Dualité Montreal Fashion Blog

Well, Toronto-based JUZD (pronounced “joost”) Bamboo is a particular case – it’s an unknown urban street wear designer that has been recently picked up by Holt Renfrew. I asked them a couple of serious questions and I was surprised by the thorough responses and learned a thing or two, it gave me some hope that there are brands out there who aren’t afraid of answering questions that are really relevant to the fashion industry. Jing Liu, Chief Designer of JUZD, happily answered my questions. Read on:

Q: Where are the clothes made (in Canada? China? India?)? And if you’re outsourcing overseas, is JUZD upkeeping labor law standards and why not keep jobs (and quality control) here in Canada?

It is made in China. China has the most advance textile technology and spends a lot on research and development. In addition the supply and qualityof bamboo is plentiful in China. It is made in a city that is rated as one of the ten best cities in China. However a lot of the assembly is here in Canada and all the staff and contractors (excluding some designers) are here in Canada.
I have visited the factories and the technology required for creating these clothing is very advance. The facilities are clean and staff are treated well. My mom used to work in a clothing factory here in Toronto and honestly the facility in China is much cleaner and I would say safer.
From a personal standpoint I was born and spent most of my early childhood in China. This is one way for me to give back to my people.

(Dahlia’s note: As an Asian person, I’ve heard of “giving back” to our mother country very often from other asians in different businesses. There’s much sense of pride in giving back to your home country, and to hear that from a designer is pretty interesting to note.)

Juzd2 Dualité Montreal Fashion Blog
Q: How is bamboo fabric “eco-conscious” (i.e.: Aren’t bamboo trees part of the environment? How does it compare in being eco-friendly from the likes of cotton or wool?), and with so many brands pulling the eco-friendly card on consumers, what makes this brand stand out?

Bamboo is the most sustainable plant. It is consider a grass and grows up to one metre within 24 hours (Dahlia’s note: this is actually confirmed on Wiki if you were skeptical). It reaches maturity in just six months. Bamboo is antibacterial so it does not require pesticide. In fact the antibacterial characteristic is transferred when it is made into a fabric so it kills body odour and bacteria. It can grow in almost any environmental and soil condition. When cut it regenerates itself, this is seen when you cut a bamboo stick, it will grow on both ends. Growing bamboo actually enriches the soil unlike cotton which takes nutrients from the soil. Lastly bamboo consume four times more carbon dioxide than trees which creates a cleaner environment.
You can find our research article on bamboo here: http://www.juzdbamboo.com/benefitsofbamboo.php

JUZD is different in that we are not about jumping on the eco-friendly bandwagon. The use of bamboo is secondary to the design philosophy of respecting nature and the power of the human. Another big difference compare to other “eco” brands is that JUZD designs are edgy, aggressive, and fashionable. This targets a segment of consumers that have been traditionally ignore by eco-conscious brands. Lastly a great amount of attention is paid to the quality and standard of the clothing pieces hence creating pieces that are luxurious and comfortable instead low cost and low quality.

Now I know you’d have to be hardcore granola and a major treehugger if you really want the nitty gritty about the provenance of bamboo fabric. So I found a site that pretty much will answer most of your questions about it.
To sum it up, bamboo itself is way more environmentally friendly than growing cotton or any other textile plant, and it has loads of benefits. The only reservation one might have is how it is actually produced (not labor wise, but how it’s made in the factories) that may be criticized. Now this goes well into the textile industry and I certainly don’t have much say on ethics in creating fabric (that’s a whole other realm altogether). Just know that the fashion industry is whole lot deeper than people are led to believe

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Tags: Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle, China, Chinese population, Chinese society, clothing, clothing producer, Ed Hardy, Guangzhou, Guangzhou clothing market, knockoffs, Nike, textile

Guangzhou’s Clothing Market – wow!

Posted on 18 April 2008 by admin

The population of Guangzhou metropolitan is estimated to be 8.5 million people. That’s 8.5 MILLION! That’s New York City’s 5 boroughs combined. Guangzhou city is known for it’s clothing and fabric market and it draws a lot of the Chinese from near by cities. In addition clothing is a major part of the Chinese society as China is the highest producer of clothing and textile.

…things are done quite different from any other country.

With this type of market demand the culture and the way things are done are quite different from any other country. In Guangzhou city I was staying with my friend Jacky. His aunt owns a factory and has a friend that produces smaller production runs which is perfect for JUZD. We headed over to the clothing market to see him.

We were dropped off right in the eye of the busy market. It was early in the morning midweek, some shops weren’t even open yet and there were already customers and foreigners lining up for a deal. Each shop is clean and well organized. Most shops are the size of a small 100 square feet tradeshow booth. Yet there were many shops and much were squeezed into each.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Quickly I noticed a consistent theme. Everything they sold were knockoffs. There were many vendors and each vendor had many items but they were the same. Knockoffs, knockoffs, and knockoffs. I felt sick to my stomach. Not only am I strongly against knock offs, I even hate it when one brand produces a similar design as another. The choice of knock offs for the day are American Eagle, Ed Hardy, Abercrombie and Fitch, and good old Nike. They don’t like it when you take pictures in the mall. I guess they are scare that you will knock off their knock offs.

…doesn’t make sense doing an original brand.

Right on top of these knock off shops were their sales office. Each of these shops had a factory. Where? Were they sweatshops? I don’t know. I did not enjoy the vibe from this area and did not want to venture to the appointment but to save face I went. Overall everything was professional and clean. From the stores to the office. And the knockoff designs were pretty good. Creative. But did not even want to go near the product to see the quality and construction. I would have given them a little respect if it was their own brand. But the market demand knockoffs. Base on the economics, for a small Chinese shop it doesn’t make sense doing an original brand.

I’ll pay the higher price and maintain my principle, thank you!

I got a quote for the production of some of the designs and the cost of shocking. Some of the cost were 1/5 of what I was paying. They wanted me to ship my custom made bamboo fabric to them for producing the shirts. As attractive as the offer was I won’t switch my factory even just for the simple fact that I can’t see JUZD line made by a knock off specialists. I’ll pay the higher price and maintain my principle, thank you!

Apartment buildings are right across the street from the clothing market. In China there is less restriction on zoning so you’ll see mesh of commercial and residential buildings side by side.