Rapanui interview
HUCK speaks with the two young eco-friendly entrepreneurs behind ethical clothing brand Rapanui to find out more about their sustainability agenda.
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Rob and Martin Drake-Knight are on a mission to save the world, one ethical clothing item at a time. The surf obsessed brothers started Rapanui in 2008 with a strong set of beliefs and a mere £200. In less than two years the company has not only managed to stay afloat, it's flourishing with an extensive customer base, a number of award nominations and an extensive new clothing line about to drop.
HUCK sat down with the duo ahead of their new website launch to find out more about the ethical clothing brand’s humble beginnings and why the company is only going from strength to strength.
HUCK: You started Rapanui in 2008. Why ethical clothing?
Rob: Martin and I had done a little work for another label and we saw that were a lot of things that could be done different and better in the clothing industry. Martin had just started his engineering degree and he was filling me with doom and gloom facts about the environment and the climate. We had some experience in the industry and knew it could be improved, so we decided to do something about it.
I understand that you started the brand with just £200. How was that possible?
Rob: It was very difficult! When we started out we bought a box of t-shirts, sold them to friends and reinvested the profits. It just grew from there. We put in the hard work and run the business really efficiently.
How do you make sure that all the clothing is made from organic fabrics in a Fair Wear Foundation factory?
Martin: It’s actually quite easy when you know what you’re doing. For a lot of clothing companies, it's very difficult to find out. We started the business with a very high sustainability agenda. In the textile industry, it’s not that people don’t care, they just don’t know. We started by getting internal traceability. We rang up suppliers and asked. Once you explain what you are trying to achieve a lot of our suppliers have been really enthusiastic. It was as simple as being bothered to ask questions about our own supply chain. The supplier of our organic cotton is an internationally recognised eco factory. It’s just a matter of doing your research.
Rapanui was recently nominated for a couple of awards. Can you tell us more about those?
Rob: We are in the finals of the Sustainable Business Awards 2010 this May and we were runners up in the Enterprising Young Brits award. We have also just been nominated for the ispo BrandNew Award, which is the biggest new brand award in the world. We are also in the Top 100 Start-ups of 2008 and Future 100 List of Young Entrepreneurs.
So things are going well then?
Rob: Yeah! We are just two guys from the Isle of Wight who wanted to start a clothing company. We have not had any grants or any funding. We have grown slowly but we want to do business in the right way. We want to make people think about where clothing comes from and how it is made. Eighty percent of the environmental impact of a t-shirt comes from washing and drying after it has been bought. We are trying to inform and inspire people to make changes to their lifestyle to tackle that 80%.
Have you encountered any problems while trying to establish the brand?
Rob: All good brands start as a t-shirt brand. We are on the next stage, which you will see when the new site launches. We are moving on to making jumpers, jackets and other stuff. The problem is always cash flow. Banks won’t lend young people money. There is very little support for eco-businesses. It has been a blessing in a way because the lack of cash flow has enabled us to run our business super efficiently. We have kept our prices low and refused to compromise our sustainability agenda. The textile industry is shark-infested water though. It’s a very competitive business!
As brothers working together, do you ever revert to childhood tactics and solve your problems with a good old-fashioned fight?
Rob: We wind each other up all the time but that is one of the fun parts of working together. There is definitely banter flying around all the time. We haven’t fought yet but we might after this interview!
So, what’s next for Rapanui?
Rob: Our business is at the end of the beginning. We survived the first couple of years and now we have a strong customer base. Our new website has an eco-labelling initiative that shows how environmentally-friendly each product is. We want to continue to make cool new clothes and grow the brand. We hope to demonstrate that young people can do things that are groundbreaking and make a change towards going green.
Lastly, what other brands do you like at the moment?
Rob: There is only really one brand that we like and that’s Finisterre. That is the only other brand in the UK that has sustainable design for fashion.
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