Miranda Green Millinery | Integrity in the Workplace - Boutique Millinery in Western Australia

At Miranda Green Millinery, we apply the following ethical principles to everything we do. We:

foster harmonious relationships and non-exploitive transactions in all our dealings.
refer clients to our peers, assisting the public to find what they require amongst the entire group of fellow hat-makers and fashionistas. It's a spirit of co-operation, not competition.
raise funds and awareness for community groups as part of our promotion.
refuse to exploit or to be exploited in our collaborative projects with fellow designers. Mutual satisfaction and prosperity must ensue.

Our philosophy creates integrity of product by guiding our service-led sales, design and production processes.

Make it personal. Each production unit involves a member of our extended "family".
Respect each person's contribution to the final product. Involve everyone in processes if we can.
Use local community labour and skills where possible. Avoid exploiting people, especially in offshore production.
Make something of beauty and quality. Our rule is to take care of processes first; sales will take care of themselves.
Discourage copying. We strive for original design and construction because poaching ideas erodes integrity.
Involve our contractors in the bigger picture and provide them with meaningful work.

Keep it real. Build our marketing on substance. Don't make false claims or lure and seduce the public with messages that are not true.
Aim to inform, not to mislead. Avoid market speak.
Use the "sexiness" and newsworthiness of fashion as a tool to gain publicity for community concerns and organisations.
Create a photographic process that is harmonious, collaborative and non-exploitive. Give models a human face in our advertising. Celebrate the fact that they are everyday people with diverse sizing, facial features and complexion.
Combine beauty with integrity. Strive to create beautiful products and images with relevance for real women. Refuse to subscribe to the fashion world's one-dimensional decree of what is beautiful and, by omission, what is not.
Refuse to manipulate images unethically to airbrush or alter a person's complexion or characteristics to conform to an artificial ideal of beauty or to change a person's apparent age.
Channel most of our products budget into raw materials and construction, rather than advertising and marketing. Add value to the product itself.
No longer market to department stores. Maintain the integrity of our products and MGM. No more faceless transactions, products languishing on shelves, or store-issued directives that are not in keeping with our philosophy.

Treat our retailers and customers as part of our "family". Provide service-led sales. Assist you, the client, first - sales may or may not follow.
Act as a referral agent to other hat-makers and hat sellers when required. Each of us offers something unique and there is room for everyone.
Be honest, first and foremost.
Tell the public about the processes, time and expertise that go into making the product. Try to prevent the lower prices of offshore production from devaluing the creation of clothing.
Encourage people to buy as an investment not just a seasonal purchase.
Give retailers the opportunity to exchange products if they don't sell.
Consider direct selling or vertical sales. Question retailer margins of more than 100%.

Produce durable items and discourage throwaway fashion.
Emphasise quality, not quantity.
Consider hat hire for haute couture items. Encourage hat pooling amongst friends. This is less wasteful than each buying a hat for infrequent special occasions.
Use natural light where possible.
Use energy-efficient machines.
Use natural fibres where possible. In the long term, aim to use natural fibres exclusively and investigate natural dyes.
Invest in carbon labelling of all our products and work to reduce the greenhouse footprint on every item.