Shop Good Blog

Winter is… not my favourite.  But every year, I try to have a better attitude, vowing to “make the best of it”, “embrace the winter”, etc.  Usually, I end up doing some skating, some tobogganing, some winter walks, and a lot of drinking coffee inside & under a blanket. This year, I am just thankful that I have central heating, while typically-tropical Bangladesh is experiencing life-threatening low temps.

You can win a kantha throw by showing me how you dignify the winter! With skiing? Polar bear swims? Hot chocolate?

Here’s what you do:

I recently received a very direct and honest question: A friend had popped into a well-known fair trade shop and noticed that they were selling the same type of kantha-stitched throws as she had just purchased from dignify…for $24 less. “Of course I support you,” she affirmed, “but it might make someone ask… why are yours $98?”

Indeed.

Of course, I had heard vaguely about this before, and I knew from the start of the project that the cost-to-sale price of our blankets were considered “less than ideal” for importers/sellers like me. But I didn’t know the details, and I didn’t have an answer. Now I was asking, too! Not because I thought $98 was high, but because knowing that it takes at least 4 days of labour to make one throw, how could they sell them for so little?

Well, as Robin, the managing director of BASHA – who make our blankets – said: “There seems to be a wide range of what people in Bangladesh call ‘fair trade’.”

She offered many insights into the industry and how others, including that specific producer, compare to her operation. Read on for a more detailed look (in her own words) at the operation behind our own “fair trade” kantha blankets.