Fashion

Meaning good and doing good are often not the same. Sander van Dissel, co-founder of Barceloneta restaurant and cocktail bar FOC knows this all too well, and has seen firsthand the impact of misplaced philanthropy.

Sander travelled to Tanzania a year ago to visit a friend who persuaded him to get involved in a school building project on the island of Pemba, just off the Tanzanian coast. “There’s a Norwegian NGO who built a school near to where we’re building ours. Man, they just threw money at it and ‘boom’, one day it appeared. The money they’d spent could’ve built 10, maybe even 20 schools if they’d used it properly. That’s why small projects can actually produce a lot of long term good, if managed correctly”.

Preceded six months earlier by the launch of the ‘FOC YOU’ line of provocative T-shirts, (sold in the FOC restaurant), as sales climbed Sander looked to relate the emerging brand with some charitable good. “Running a restaurant makes your mind move one way, whilst being involved in a project like this makes it move in others. I always try to do business and if it goes well, do something good on the other side”.

Contacting organisations already on the ground in Africa, FOC looked to use the provocative ‘FOC YOU’ image to help raise awareness of the sexual health catastrophe currently blighting the continent. miniguide* covered the story earlier this year.

In Catalan, ‘Foc’ means ‘Fire’, and in English, well, use your imagination. But the brand name and image are of secondary importance.

“A slogan is just a slogan, we want this to be more. The philosophy behind this is what we want people to relate to, not the restaurant or the FOC brand. Sexual education, which means life or death for millions, is what’s at stake here”.

Each T-shirt is sold with a condom, reminding western buyers of the luxury that is shopping for consumer trends whilst at the same time drawing their attention to the severe shortage of contraceptives and the prevalence of STDs on the African continent. FOC’s ‘Give a Foc Foundation’ sends packages of condoms in return, for distribution along with sex education and health information in schools.

Quickly the two projects began to merge together. The completion of the school will provide a place for FOC to sustain its commitment, continuing the work of health foundations in supplying doctors and sexual health experts to educate generations of African children. “The kids all absorb information like sponges, but often it’s the teachers who don’t understand. That’s why it’s so important to have a third party who knows what they’re talking about”.

The T-shirt is only the beginning for FOC who are looking to eventually source all of their materials and production processes in factories in Africa. Fair Trade is difficult to ensure, but Sander hasn’t given up hope of one day reversing the part of the selling price back to those who have made their contribution. This is where the plot thickens. FOC contacted the Istituto Europeo di Design in Barcelona to help them with both the designs for their clothing and the development of the brand itself, with an eye on eventually selling FOC products alongside some of the trendiest names on the Passeig de Gràcia.

“The brand must communicate awareness, that’s the whole point. That’s the brief the students are working to. The school will decide which areas of its expertise can help”.

Sander is an eternal optimist, and with good reason. His success in business translates to charity work, and a desire to do something else with his skills is palpable. “Travelling to a Third World country makes you look at the world differently and it’s difficult to maintain this when you return to the West. It’s important to be consistent. Whether the brand can be successful depends on many factors; if it takes a year, five years or even if it never takes off, we’re convinced we can continue in our own small way”.

FOC’s double sided T-shirts reveal more than value for money, they highlight the good and the bad side of everything in life, whether it be sex and sexual health, access to help and assistance, or the fickle nature of a multi-million Euro fashion industry. The success of a fashion brand often relies on exposure in the right places, and through involvement with Bread & Butter Barcelona FOC hope they have the support they need. FOC T-shirts will be featuring in the summer edition of BBB, adorning the catwalks with their serious yet stylish message along side some of the world’s top designers. “We hope people are as interested in the awareness side of the campaign as they are in the fashion”.

Given Bread and Butter’s involvement in local charity initiatives both in Barcelona and in its other host city Berlin, FOC should be in safe hands. Here, B&B support the ‘Casal dels Infants del Raval’ project. Head-honcho Karl-Heinz Müller explains that the charities that receive B&B support are carefully chosen. “From the very beginning Bread and Butter put a special focus on its social commitment. The initiative works on a local level for children and youngsters in difficult circumstances. With the B&B contributions, the daily lives of children in the underprivileged Raval district has been improved”.

‘B&B-Fetish’ directly funds the work, an initiative encouraging selected top brands to provide samples from their current collections for the B&B hostesses. Stylish outfits designed to fit with the B&B campaign are on constant show, setting not only the tone for each event but providing huge brand awareness. “The crew outfits were received very well. We recognised enormous potential to exploit this interest, and so increased production of the ‘staff collection’ and sold them for charity. A stand alone, permanent initiative was born”.

Like Sander van Dissel and the ‘Give a Foc Foundation’, Karl- Heinz Müller refutes the idea that charity and profit seeking are contradictory. “Only if a company is successful can it get involved in charity work. Through our influence and success we manage to use the public curiosity and B&B contacts for charity purposes, contributing a little to making our world that bit more humane!”.

With the collaboration of like minded individuals at the helm of their respective organisations, the future for conscientious consumerism could well be bright. “More and more ‘Fashion for Charity’ initiatives keep appearing, as does the interest in Fair Trade Fashion, which ultimately means more help to areas that urgently need it”, says Karl-Heinz Müller.

”Social commitment, acting instead of just watching, has never been a trend for B&B but instead an essential need - a matter of the heart”.

However, if the ‘Fashion for Charity’ concept does become a real trendsetter, fusing the desire for high quality, high fashion products with the high ideals of social responsibility, the job of persuading people to part with their cash and do some good in the world will no longer be necessary. Looking and feeling good are often not the same, but knowing that our choices as consumers can make a real difference should go a long way to restoring a sense of personal karma.