Throughout our company we are considerate and thoughtful about how we are going to make something happen.

To us, 'ethical' means choosing the morally correct way of doing something and we apply this to everything we do. This includes the fair treatment of our team who are paid above living wages and work in a safe, inspiring environment.

It also applies to our choices in being more responsible to the planet - through reducing waste, counteracting any negative impact we may have on the planet and ensuring we are being kind to the ecosystems and the animals that live here.

Our London based production takes place in ethical facilities, that we’ve worked with for many years, to build strong and meaningful relationships.

Our production partners are compliant with British Health and Safety and work regulations, ensuring the highest level of safety for the teams that work in the design studios.

We also work with a freelancer called Lulu who operates from her own at-home studio.

No clothing can be made without passing through a pair of hands somewhere. As fabric is flexible and every piece of clothing moves, stretches and reacts in different ways – there is always a human element within the production process. It is vital that the people in the supply chain are treated ethically.

Frankly, when fashion is designed to make you feel good – surely those who make it for you should feel good too.

At AYM we have teamed up with Living Wage Brighton, to ensure that we are always paying above the Living Wage to our team. All of our clothing is produced in the UK, so this is the UK Living Wage.

Slow fashion to us means making garments that are thoughtfully designed and produced in a considered way.

We are not rushing to get the products made in mass to get the lowest prices. We are not pushing for lower prices and higher quantities to quickly sell the garments and move onto the next thing.

Every product we sell has been considered to ensure we are making something of benefit. We then test those garments through pre-order formats to confirm that supply of the product is worthwhile producing and then we make it only to meet actual demand.

Due to high minimum order quantities existing in fashion production brands are often stuck with having to order large volumes of clothing in order to get a price they can make work for their customers. Doesn't it seem crazy to produce hundreds or thousands of pieces of clothing without knowing if they are going to be wanted by the customer? Then to have to discount those same clothes to try and push them onto customers who are looking for a 'bargain'. What happens with garments that can't be sold at discount?

This is one of the many reasons why we take things more slowly and test the garments on a small initial batch or pre-order basis first. If you don't want a style, we don't make it. If you do want a style, we make it.

We also limit the overall quantity of production that we make as a company. You may have noticed that we had to shut our website down and not take any new orders on for a few days in May. This is part of our commitment to keeping our production practices as slow as possible. When demand is getting higher, we limit the demand so that we can keep supply at a level that our makers can handle.

Each year we design 100s of styles. However we only release a maximum of 8 new designs each month. Some months we might only release 1 new style and some months we don't release any newness at all.

We want to get our designs to the point that we are really happy with them before we release them. This means we take our time in development and aren't rushing to create more and more newness. Even though we know that is what drives a lot of our sales and growth, we know that making something worth releasing, that will provide you with value, is the better way of doing things.

We use cardboard boxes and gift boxes to send out full price orders. These can be reused as they are lovely boxes, or can be recycled.

• We avoid additional packaging inserts wherever possible.
• If using flyers (we avoid using these wherever possible - the less packaging the better in our opinion), these are printed on recycled FSC paper.
• Garment bags make sure clothing is protected in storage and transit. When we use these we select garment bags that are either made from Recycled Plastic or Glassline material. We choose materials that have the option of breaking down after use, or being recycled.
• Swing tags are made from FSC materials.
• Woven and internal garment labels are made from Organic Cotton fibres.
• The print used on our packaging is tested to ensure it is compliant with chemical regulations.

FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council. When materials are certified by the FSC they are the highest standard materials that have been made with sustainable sourcing that puts forests and people first.

We are a member of the Ecologi programme, which off-sets the carbon of each of our team members. This helps us work towards being clime positive through growing trees through us contributing a monetary value each month to cover the cost of the trees being planted. All working towards helping the planet to reduce it's carbon emissions.

Pre-Order

This is mainly used on new garments as a way for us to monitor the demand on these styles before offering them for general sale. Pre-order gives us the ability to collect orders for a garment and then produce to meet that demand accurately.

Pre-order takes longer – the styles aren’t instantly available – but we are able to reduce waste by producing only what is actually ordered.

Readily Available

When a garment is more popular, we will produce stock based on careful planning.

We have carefully selected garments that are selling well so that we are producing only to meet near future demand (only ever holding 1-2 months worth of stock). This allows us to ship these garments more quickly to customers who are pushed for time, whilst simultaneously reducing waste by having limited quantities produced.

Creating garments that are made to last means two things; quality and timeless aesthetic.

We are passionate about finding better fabrics, production processes and finishes to keep garments lasting as long as possible.

Once the garments are in your hands, you can follow our Care Guide for tips on how to take good care of them so that they last as long as possible. 

We keep our designs in line with the desires of our consumers, because we believe access to ethical options without having to sacrifice your sense of personal style and self expression is fundamental.

Creativity makes this world a more enjoyable place to live and we are working to ensure that our creative approach to designs allows you to feel excited about our product offering, whilst being able to enjoy shopping with confidence that your choices are ethical too.

We select fabrics that are certified by independent regulators including:

• GRS = Global Recycled Standard. GRS includes a higher (50%) minimum recycled content percentage and additional social and environmental requirements related to processing and chemical use.
• OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 = one of the world's best-known labels for textiles tested for harmful substances.
• OCS = Organic Content Standard. Only material from certified organic farms (under one of IFOAM’s Family of Standards) is accepted to the OCS.

Responsible fabric choices to us, are fabrics that have visible supply chains, allowing us to understand the process of its creation.

Fabrics are typically created by taking a raw material and spinning or weaving that material into a yarn (like a thread) and then weaving or knitting those yarns together to create a length of fabric.

We have to be selective about the fabrics that we choose.

Our requirements for fabric sourcing:

• Responsible in their production [certified by third parties such as the Textile Exchange]
• Ethical process used to create the fabric
• Natural materials must be sourced ethically
• They are soft and comfortable on the skin
• They are durable and long lasting in quality
• They can be used in our designs which mainly involve stretch
• That they will biodegrade or be able to be recycled
• Have the ability to be ordered in small batches (some fabric mills have minimum order volumes of 1000 metres or more and when we are making to order we simply don't need this much fabric)
• Are within our price requirements

As you can see, there are lots of things to consider and these choices make fabric selection tricky. The biggest challenge we currently face is finding fabrics that are more sustainable throughout their entire supply chain.

One of our big challenges is finding a replacement for the recycled Polyester/Elastane fabric that we use on lots of our garments. This fabric is made using post-consumer waste polyester which is a durable, long lasting fabric created from plastic fibres. We recognise the need to invest in more environmentally friendly fabrics that are sourced from natural fibres. While we have stock of our existing raw materials, we are producing only what is ordered and we are creating timeless pieces that will be versatile so that the impact of the fabric is reduced through the garment being worn often and for a long time.

All new fabrics that we purchase must tick off the bullet point list of responsible requirements above.

We want you to get as much use out of your garments as possible. We recommend that you take special care of your garments. We will do everything we can to create clothing that lasts and we hope you'll find ways to take good care of the clothing to ensure it lasts even longer. Learn how to care for your clothes here: Care Guide.

We've partnered with UK based repairs and tailoring service, SOJO, to offer you easy repairs and alterations on your AYM products, so that you can love them for longer. Learn more about SOJO.