Trying it on

Do you try on every stitch of clothing you own before heading out for the evening… and then end up wearing the very first thing you tried on?

I’ve done this more times than I care to remember. And worst of all, I tend to scatter the discarded items all over the floor to be dealt with when I get home. (Don’t tell my mum!)

But interviewing a very special designer for Liberti changed the way I think about clothes altogether. This designer, Lavinia Brennan, recently co-founded Beulah London with her friend (Lady) Natasha Rufus Isaac.

So why did this news have such an impact on me?

Well, firstly, the company designs the prettiest dresses imaginable using the most exquisite materials available. It made me realise that, rather than nipping to Primark and picking up 30 items I don’t need, it might be worth investing in a few really special pieces that stand out from the crowd.

Now the dresses don’t come cheap – prices range from £150 to £600 – but if I owned one of them I don’t think I’d need to try anything else on. And I certainly wouldn’t be throwing one on the floor.

I’ve always prided myself on buying clothes at rock bottom prices, and making sure I tell people how cheap I got them. But I’ve started to understand the toll the ‘fast fashion’ industry is taking on the environment and workers in the developing world.

And that brings me to the most important contribution Beulah London is making. The young designers have found a way of turning fashion—an industry in which sex clearly sells—on its head by helping victims of the sex trafficking industry. Their Christian faith has inspired them to create a business that isn’t just about profit and prestige.

You may be wondering how making a few pretty frocks will enable the girls to do this. Lavinia explains: “Natasha and myself spent two months working in the slums of Delhi in an aftercare home for women who had come out of the sex trade.

“Most afternoons we spent in a very small production unit teaching the girls sewing skills. This is what first inspired us. We saw that there was a need to provide the women with an alternative, sustainable income that would utilise these skills that so many of the women were being taught.”

In 2008, the UN estimated that nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries were being trafficked into 137 countries across the world. Many of these women are starved, confined, beaten, raped, forced to use drugs and threatened with violence towards their loved ones.

The London-based designers already employ women from human trafficking backgrounds in India to make the canvas bags the dresses are sold in. Ultimately, they hope they will be able to fund training schemes for the girls and one day open their own factory where the women can make the dresses themselves.

After talking to Lavinia I realised that cheaper isn’t always better. If I bag myself a bargain, who is really paying the price for it? Can I justify posing in front of the mirror in a £4 dress when I know that it was most likely made in some sweat shop that is probably mistreating its workers?

I’ve also realised that the choices we make can have a much greater influence than we think. If we knew that buying a Beulah dress would help rescue one trafficked woman, wouldn’t we all get one? (I know this is an oversimplification, but you get my point.) I guess what I’m asking is, are we more concerned about the way we look, or the way women across the globe are being treated?

Okay, so I can’t promise I’ll never buy cheap and cheerful again, or that my wardrobe will be exclusively populated by Beulah’s gorgeous gowns. But I can say that I will think much more carefully about what I buy (fashion and otherwise) in the future.

Find out more about Beulah and read the full story in the upcoming edition of Liberti magazine.