I generally only part with money for beer. But when forced to buy clothes I make damn sure they’re decent quality. Welcome to my review of ethical menswear available online. The good, the dishonest, and…

Organic cotton socks from PACT

No this is not a secret blood pact where you pledge your immortal soul to the gods of eco fashion…

Okay maybe it is, but hey what’s a little idol worship for the good cause of ethical fashion? Be fabulous like me and click here to get these beautiful ethical socks wooo. Specializing in underwear and socks, PACT produces using eco (and all the other good hashtags) cotton, putting ethical practice at the forefront of their business.You can check out their home page here, and read more about their philosophy here.

Okay, focus back on me ;) I recently blew some R700 to get my hungry hands on these three pairs of EXTREMELY ethical socks, and am so happy that cropped trousers are a trend right now! Otherwise I’d have made them a bloody trend to ensure I got my mileage out of these beauties ;)

Super Soft Organic Cotton

If you believe the hype PACT puts out, their cotton is entirely GMO free (not including pre-historic domestication, obviously) and produced on family run (so long as it’s not the Guptas) farms.

The cotton is coloured using non-toxic dyes in factories that employ fair labour practices and use renewable energy.

As we all know, these claims can be pretty broad and misleading. Barring a personal visit to the farms and factories these statements are notoriously difficult to verify or quantify. Like with Donald Trump’s penis, the internet will tell you anything you want to know, and a good deal of what you don’t.

Personally I haven’t (yet) found any fashion shade on this brand, so I’ll take their claims at face value for now. And not just because it makes me feel better about spending R700 on three pairs of socks. Though to be fair a good deal of that was import tax. Sigh, the third world is hard.

On the Minus: 3 things

1. This is not the best knit I’ve ever seen in my life…though certainly not the worst! Given that they are socks (and not jerseys or something) the loose colour strands arn’t a problem even for frequent washing.

2. The price…crazy yes, but to support ecofashion I think it’s worth the cost. Plus I’ll certainly be taking a bit more care of these socks than ones I bought for R50. If you’re getting these off amazon make sure you go to the end of checkout (where they add the import tax) so you know what you’re spending.

3. The box is a waste of my time. I know I never stop bitching about this, but really once you’ve noticed the great branding and gotten that warm inner glow that comes from premium purchases…the packaging becomes just one more item of trash clogging the oceans.

Or a new jewelry organizer like in this image…who can know?!? It’s more than a little ironic that with PACT’s FIVE in-house ecofashion logos they neglected a rather important icon:

On the Plus: 4 things, we have a winner!

1. The patterns are really cool! I like that they’re keeping up with the ankle flasher trend, while sticking to their own unique style. I’d wager these patterns are a good investment in art.

2. socks are really warm and comfy. Not sure if it’s placebo, but my feet don’t sweat or itch and I have this irresistible urge to lean back with my feet on the desk…or is that a bad thing?!?

3. The colours haven’t washed out still, so it’s safe to assume they’re solid.

4. Being all eco friendly, renewable energy what-what is fabulous, and I’m happy to pay a premium for it. Though I would have liked a little more information on the packaging about PACT’s specific programmes.

4.5. people stop me in the street to complement these, I’m not parting with them for ANY amount of money!!

If you’re in the USA you can get your pair directly from PACTs website, and for the rest of us most of their products are available on amazon. All in all I’ll be enjoying these socks for as long as I can keep them from wandering off into that dark abyss of single socks.

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