Silver lining for refugees at Sydney's Social Outfit

Posted

Silver lining for refugees at Sydney's Social Outfit

An unassuming clothing shop in Sydney's inner-west employs refugees with sewing skills to make beautiful, ethical clothing.

The Social Outfit is like any other clothing shop on King Street, Newtown. It's filled with bright and bold clothing, there's a friendly shop assistant ready to help you with your size and hipster dance music plays in the background.

Out the back, the workroom is abuzz with sewing machines, irons, people cutting out patterns and multiple languages being spoken. The Social Outfit is a social enterprise and a registered charity which exists for a social purpose — to employ and train refugees with a background in sewing, rather than to make a profit.

"Many of us have had the experience that migrants come to Australia, wanting to put their best foot forward," explains Jackie Ruddock, the CEO of the Social Outfit.

"I think it's such a delight that with this program, you take people's existing skills, you share people's talents and as a part of that model we all get to come together and gain skills over time."

The Social Outfit is modelled on a similar Melbourne business and in its two-year lifetime has trained and employed staff from over 21 countries — mainly from areas where there is conflict or a history of conflict.

Bleh Wah, originally from Burma, lived in a refugee camp for years before arriving in Australia eight years ago.

"When I was in the refugee camp I was sewing a little bit for my family, neighbours, friends and other people at my home."

She studied at the Social Outfit's sewing school and is now employed as one of its main sewing technicians.

The Social Outfit's focus isn't just on sewing skills; the organisation also aims to increase their staff's understanding of their rights in an Australian workplace.

"We spend a lot of time with our students and staff talking about basic things like working conditions, what Australian contracts look like, what superannuation is," says Ms Ruddock.

"Sewing or selling is a big part of what we do but we're also talking about just how it is to be in Australia, what it's like to be in this community."

One of the shop assistants is Ruck Sar, who at 22 has recently arrived in Australia with her family from South East Asia.

"Working here is like working in a family shop, it's like my boss treats me like a little sister, all the members are really patient and really comfortable to talk," she says.

Eloise Rapp, the organisation's creative director, points out that The Social Outfit is also environmentally sustainable; 50 per cent of the fabric used to make the clothing is industry donated.

"There are quite a few issues surrounding wastage in the fashion industry and one of them is just excess fabric," she says.

"With fashion labels there's an issue with limited storage space and with the speed of commercial fashion seasons, the turnover of fabrics often means a lot of labels are left with excess fabric that they don't know what to do with and it just goes into landfill."

So rather than high-quality fabric going straight to landfill, The Social Outfit gives it a second life.

While The Social Outfit relies on independent grants and philanthropic donations, roughly a quarter of the organisations revenue comes from product sales.

"You can never underestimate what it's like for all of us and for our staff when you sell a piece of clothing because it's very literal — the money goes from the sale of that piece of clothing straight back into the business."

Topics: refugees, fashion, community-and-society, environmentally-sustainable-business, newtown-2042