Last fall, J. Branson Skinner arrived in Ghana with plans to just take classes. Two months later Skinner had a fully functioning, fair-trade-driven fashion business up and running.
Topics
"I really didn't know what to expect," the Gallatin junior said.
He had met RAAM, a Ghanaian artist based in Accra, in August. The two then started talking and quickly saw that they shared many of the same interests — fair trade, sustainability, and a belief in fashion's ability to empower disenfranchised communities.
Skinner and RAAM, who hand-paints all of the products, collaborate on the designs of the clothes and employ Ghanians to make the garments. Forty percent of all of proceeds fund the Buduburam Liberian Refugee Camp — founded in 1990 to accommodate the influx of Liberian refugees who fled to Ghana.
"Everything you see in our collection is the fruit of a collaboration," said Skinner, who is concentrating in the globalization of public health and societies.
When Skinner left Ghana, he thought Of Rags would sell about 20 shirts.
"Now we're selling easily 100 shirts a month," he said.
Part of that success is due to the way the company markets itself: It's a company for college students, by college students. Their products combine distinctly Ghanaian designs with popular New York trends.
"We don't want to be labeled as that ethical company where people say 'That's great what they're doing, but I wouldn't really wear that,' " he said. "We're trying to be as fashion forward as possible."
The company just completed its first tour across 13 college campuses along the East Coast. At each campus, Skinner organized a concert featuring fellow NYU student (and fellow Reynolds Scholar) Genesis Briggs. Turnout was much higher than expected — 50 to 100 people showed up to each concert, and around 30 would buy Of Rags clothing. Skinner has also organized several concerts at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe here in New York.
But for Skinner, Of Rags is about much more than making, marketing and selling interesting designs. It's about using fashion, a global language, to promote sustainability and give aid to communities that need it.
"I think what I'm most interested in is the power fashion has to set trends, and the money in the industry," he said.
"The money can be directed to really empowering disenfranchised communities, as opposed to just making wealthy people more wealthy."
What's next for Of Rags? Within the next two years, the company will open a storefront in New York.
"Ultimately our goal is to become like the H&M of fair trade," Skinner said.
More broadly, though, he wants to start an entirely new sustainability movement. He wants to do everything he can to connect organizations such as Amnesty International, OxFam and Children Not Soldiers with the resources of the mass market.
"I think everybody inherently is good," Skinner said. "It's just that sometimes our individual goodness is hindered by a lot of systemic issues that make it difficult to carry out our individual good will."
