We always aim to be proud of what we produce: we source our fabrics from the best mills; we use factories, which treat their workers well, and we use some of our profits to support causes, which we believe in. Building a brand is a responsibility as much to ourselves as it is to the needs and wants of our customers, but at the end of the day there’s one thing, which we have to come clean about: our cotton.

We want pesticide free cotton. We’ve searched high and low, but unfortunately use is so rampant in the industry that it’s impossible to find a truly pesticide-free producer. So we have to be honest, this Tee is probably, for all we know, cut from cotton that was treated with pesticides. It’s the sad truth of the world. The nature of large-scale farming and its margins means producers are constantly worrying about their bottom line, and how much they’ll harvest each season. Their aim is always to maximize output at any cost. The rampant use of pesticides might protect their yield, but even the most conservative use cannot guard against pesticides seeping into groundwater, or worse, running off into local water sources. From there, the end is inevitably the ocean, and each year, literal tons of pesticides make their way into the sea. The harm to wildlife is incalculable.

This shirt marks the beginning of a shift: we want to educate our supporters and better ourselves. We want to lead by example, and we are working to find ways of sourcing cotton that is truly pesticide free. We’ll be happy, when we can look back and say this shirt was a limited edition.