Indigenous Designs

“We literally walked the pavement in a lot of these mountain towns, trying to figure out where and how we could help. We actually found three NGOs, small knitting cooperatives, in the lower midsection of Ecuador, in a town called Cuenca.”

“I made numerous trips back and forth to Ecuador. At this point we were operating on the fumes of our credit cards. My wife Avery was pregnant, and she was beginning to ask when I was going to get a real job.”

“We compete with design, we compete with quality. We’ve proven you can do the right thing and still be successful.”

Indigenous Designs

Apparel with a Purpose

even if you’re not an Indigenous Designs customer, you probably know Scott Leonard. As you enter the Salt Palace from the south, Indigenous Designs has had that first booth on the left—the one made from recycled barn wood—for years. You know, it’s the booth with the onsite masseuse and the unlimited supply of Yerba Matte. Leonard is the face of the company, and that face is rarely without a smile. He is truly one of the good guys in the industry.

From the beginning, back in 1994, the thing that distinguished Indigenous Designs was that the company’s primary purpose for being was to lift a particular group of women out of poverty.

“My partner Joe Flood and I had a vision to make a difference in the world,” Leonard explains. “Specifically, we wanted to have a positive influence on the indigenous women of the Andes. Joe is a native of Ecuador, and had seen how the artisan women were being exploited and not paid a living wage. We literally walked the pavement in a lot of these mountain towns, trying to figure out where and how we could help. We actually found three NGOs, small knitting cooperatives, in the lower midsection of Ecuador, in a town called Cuenca.

“They were beginning to try to coalesce, but they just weren’t well organized.

They had no idea about how to market themselves. They also had no quality control mechanism. We decided if we could develop viable designs, control the colors, control the sizing, and put some quality controls in place, we could market to the outdoor industry and in turn pay these women a sustainable wage.

“So we started making sweaters with all three organizations. I made numerous trips back and forth to Ecuador. At this point we were operating on the fumes of our credit cards. My wife Avery was pregnant, and she was beginning to ask when I was going to get a real job. So against Joe’s recommendation, I scrounged the last money I could to pay for a ten by ten booth at Magic.”

The show was not going particularly well when Leonard happened to see the Nature Company crew walking by.

“I almost yanked them out of the aisle!” he says. “I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. We set up an appointment for me to go visit them, and they ended up writing purchase orders for over $450,000. They actually gave us letters of credit to back up the order, and we went to the bank and borrowed to produce that initial order.”

Getting the order was the first step. Now Indigenous Designs had to prove this modular cottage industry infrastructure was viable.

“We could not afford to screw up this order!” Leonard recalled. “These three NGOs had offices in the same town, but they had never bothered to work together. I went to the director of each and said, ‘We’re going to give you two thousand sweaters to knit.’ We wrote into the agreement that if one of the three failed to produce all two thousand units, one of the others had to cover the shortfall. They pulled it off! We shipped on time, and we actually had a zero percent defective rate for six thousand units shipped to the Nature Company. Two years later, the three NGOs formed one NGO. They still represent about sixty-five percent of our business.”

The relationship was not without challenges.

“Initially it was difficult to get the raw materials in and have the right training programs in place, but it seems the very nature of the co-ops—people with a common interest working towards something that, in the end, would benefit everyone—helps a community get over hurdles. It’s empowering to see co-ops dividing the work between themselves and each other with quality control and communication.”

Leonard says the women are being paid two-and-a-half to three times what they were making before the arrival of Indigenous Designs. “But of course they’re being asked to pay more attention to detail.”

For Indigenous Designs, the social side of the equation is only the half of it. The fiber story is almost as impressive.

“We specialize in specialty natural fibers—organic cotton blended with silk, alpaca blended with organic cotton, angora blended with organic cotton, wool and alpaca blends. We’re launching a micro merino performance program this year. We focus on yarns as opposed to fabrics.” All Indigenous Designs cotton has been organic since 1995.

Indigenous Designs prides itself on using the wool from alpacas, a South American llama. (Ninety percent of all alpacas are in Peru.) Alpaca possesses one great advantage over other natural fibers—it comes in a variety of natural colors, from the whitest white to the most intense black, including around twenty brown and gray tones. Color combinations are therefore practically unlimited, eliminating the need for dyes. (ID also uses “color grown” cotton in a portion of its line, which likewise eliminates the need for dyes.)

Most alpacas in Peru are now white; the browns, grays, and blacks are disappearing because factories are buying only white alpaca. They mix it with synthetic materials and dye it to get assorted colors. The result is that the growers cannot get their needed income by selling the colored fiber. So they have to sell the meat or fur in their local markets. By boosting the market for the colored wool, ID not only helps provide the grower a better income, but protects a threatened species.

Perhaps that’s the lesson of Indigenous Designs. Every aspect of their business has been specifically designed to proactively address both social and environmental issues by thinking imaginatively, working cooperatively, and putting their buying power to good use. It’s no wonder they were awarded the Socially Responsible Business Award in 2003, presented by Co-op America at the Natural Products Expo in Washington D.C.

“We compete with design, we compete with quality,” says Leonard. “We’re proving you can do the right thing and still be successful.”

Last fall, Leonard turned his attention to the outdoor industry, proposing the Green Steps program to the folks at VNU. His objective was to raise the level of awareness concerning issues of sustainability confronting the industry.

“If any one industry should be synonymous with environmental responsibility, it’s the outdoor industry. The Green Steps program gives us a platform for promoting change within the industry, and for highlighting some of the companies that are doing progressive things. Hopefully it will encourage others in the industry to take a step in this direction. As a group, we have the opportunity to take the sustainability issue and raise the bar to a level that has large-scale national impact. It’s exciting.”

(For more information on Indigenous Designs, go to www.indigenousdesigns.com. Scott Leonard can be reached at 707/571-7811, ext. 225, or by e-mail at scott@indigenousdesigns.com.)

World 2 Market (now called VIATRU) Outside Third Party Report on Indigenous Designs by Dennis Macray

In conducting our research of product origins in Peru, we discovered an intact and beneficial model of community trade in sourcing of Indigenous Designs (ID) products. Specifically, we visited with several impoverished communities in remote and desolate areas of the Andes, who depend upon the income derived from the production of ID garments. In these communities, small-scale farming and handicraft production are the only sources of income. We were able to visit three community centers where men and women who are members of the knitting cooperative gather in clean spacious rooms during the week to learn design, sort organic alpaca and organic cotton fiber and raw material, and knit finished products. We were pleased to see many positive aspects of sustainable trade. For example, use of natural dyes, no dyes, and organic fibers, equal distribution of responsibilities among men and women, training opportunities for artisans to improve their skills and understanding of quality control measures, and support from local non-profit organizations that enhance the community development activities of the cooperatives. The sourcing of ID products in Peru demonstrates a true commitment to sustainable trade, environmental conservation, and respect for human dignity and economic opportunity for all.