Hello everyone! Thank you for stopping by in our ETHICAL STEPS project by The Andes Fashion® My name is Mirta Evi, I‘m a sustainable fashion designer from Ecuador specialize in natural materials resources, creating new and unique designs, all handmade by our very skilled artisans from Amazon Rainforest communities and panama hats weavers communities from Ecuador. One of our goals at moment of creating a product, is to preserve the identity of Ecuador, but at same time create a fashionable product, so easy to carry and wear in any place of the world, creating new eco trends! Beside these activities, I have a full time job as mom, very proud of my 2 lovely boys, also a singer, artist, illustrator and I give consultancy for sustainable material projects & handcrafts apply into the fashion business. We have been working for international organizations as the UNDP (United National Development Programme) for Tokyo, Japan and Quito, Ecuador offices.

The ETHICAL STEPS idea began when I had one of the best experiences in my life, working with the WAORANI COMMUNITY. They live far away from the cities in Ecuador, deep in the Amazon Rainforest, more exact at the YASUNI NATIONAL PARK. Simply the idea to work with these fantastic group of women (there are more than 1000 weavers in Azuay province and 450 families of Waorani community) made me think of how can we develop a new product never done before, preserving their ancestral technics, but in the application of something different from a hat or jewellery?.

We all in the communities (near to Cuenca and Puyo) and at the brand started to give ideas, back and forward… and then… Bingo! the answer was at our own feet! and then the ETHICAL STEPS born. Being a shoes lover, but above all, an eco-fashion and fair trade defender, made me decide to start this iniciative with all these amazing women in their amazon and high mountain communities .These are enough reasons to help us to change our women‘s lives and empowering their communities! With ETHICAL STEPS we empowering women to have a stronger position in our society, to generate better opportunities to their communities, to be a better support of their families and make them feel proud about their skills and cultural heritage identity! These women associations are gonna be the direct beneficiaries from the project.

Thank you for reaching this far! Is at this point, where we really need your support to make our project come true. How can you do it? Well, there are some options with which you can help us, but we also want to reward you becoming our PARTNER RESELLER! ALL THESE PRICES ARE INCLUDING WORLDWIDE SHIPPING ORIGIN COUNTRY: ECUADOR, SOUTH AMERICA. Found amazing packages with promotions as free gifts in every pledges package. If you support us with our $27300 DIAMOND EMINENCE PARTNER RESELLER PACK we bring you to Ecuador in a round trip full paid for 5 days!!! we will take you to our communities, you could have the chance to live with them, talk to them, know more about materials and how to run the eco fashion business in a big scale with us!!

With every pre-order you are helping us to create more opportunities for their lives, also, we are getting better chances to create new and unique models, colors, combinations, and launch the product into the global markets! Pre-order, contribute, help the ETHICAL STEPS project come true! You can choose between the 2 models we present at following: in 3 available color combinations: in 6 available colors: SIZES DEVELOPMENT TIME We want you to have our product for the next SS2015 collection! (SPRING/SUMMER). We recept orders during the campaigne and for all the people, boutiques, retailers, wholesalers and importers that send us the orders during this period, we will offer same price for a whole calendar year since December t 2014, to December 2015!

To make ETHICAL STEPS come true we need to count with a massive production. Only in this way, we can start helping all women associations at same time and give them a real positive change into their lives! We want to work with enough time in advance to avoid loosing a good weather season, that can make possible to harvest the fibers in the different parts of the country and let us have a reliable production. The time here is very important. Since these are natural materials and are not harvest from a plantation, but direct from the Amazon Rainforest of small organic fields, the climate plays an important role.

The weather in Ecuador is divide it into the 3 natural regions at same time.

-Coast: Pacific coast. Very hot, part of the toquilla straw is coming from this side of the country. From november to april the weather become moist and floods can destroy part of the toquilla straw fields. How can we avoid this? Of course, this is not happened in all the places where toquilla is harvest, but to have a minimun impact is better for our artisans to harvest between october and january. Also we need lot of sun to get the toquilla softer, whiter with better conditions to

-Mountain: In the middle of the country. Cold and dry, the toquilla straw is coming also from this part of the country. From november to may, weather become cold and we can have many rains around this geographical area, but this is not an impediment to stop a toquilla production, however, our goal would be to recept all the orders from november to december 2014.

-Jungle (Amazon Rainforest): At the east side of Ecuador, the primary and secondary rainforest is all year long warm, moist and rainy. Is in here were our Waorani partners harvest the chambira fiber direct from the heart of the palm, they don‘t felled the palms. Everything is very sustainable as the toquilla harvest. To get chambira, we need to let the palms to recover, the chambira trees get recover very quick. To get a faster production we need a lot of sunlight. Chambira as toquilla, must get dry under the sun before becoming a weave product.

With your pre-orders until december 2014 we can start working and giving the chance to our women to show to the world their skills, in an innovating and eco-chic product.We love to see more and more people around the world helping to create a new green global awareness. Some celebs are our favorites and great inspiration for us. We would love to recruit some of them to become our AMBASSADORS! Like them you can help becoming our AMBASSADOR, give a voice to our women and help us to spread the word! OUR WOMEN NEED YOUR VOICE!

You carry the stories of the people that make your shoes. Everyday is becoming more and more easy to have access to green, organic and natural products of any kind. Therefore, support our project, become part of the world‘s solution, avoid contamination and above all, help people who really need it.

Thank you! We would like to thank every PARTNER for any contribution and any assistance in the realization of our project. Please share our project through Facebook,Linkedin, E-mail, Blog, Exposure, Pinterest,Instagram and Twitter, our communities and us are gonna be very happy for your support! If you have any question, need more information, want an extra order or just want to say HELLO!! please send a message at: sales@theandesfashion.com | mirta@theandesfashion.com FOR PRESS: press@theandesfashion.com

Share this Story