WITH EDUN, BONO AND WIFE ALI HEWSON BRING COTTON INDUSTRY BACK TO AFRICA

EDUN is a socially conscious fashion company launched in 2005 by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson and Rogan Gregory and their mission is to create beautiful clothing while fostering sustainable employment in developing areas of the world by being at the forefront of ethical fashion and organic clothing. The label is proud to promote fair trade, sustainable development, social activism, and organic agriculture. Bono, who has been raising awareness of the need for aid in Africa as the continent continues to require help from the world, also came to the reality that Africa not only needs aid, but they also need trade and commerce as well.

We caught up with Ali Hewson to get her thoughts on why it’s so important to give back to the cotton industry in Africa.

“The experiences that Bono had in Africa and coming back from Africa with stories that they were so thankful for the aid but what they really wanted to do was trade. So we talked about how we could do something on the ground and the cotton industry seemed like the right one to move into since it was already there. And there were factories there that lost a lot of business.”

We also talked with Hewson about EDUN being a small company that has a really big name.

“You know we’re a small company with a big name. We’re really trying to raise awareness of what needs to be done. It takes the bigger companies to come in and really put the weight behind it to see real change. But we just want to produce beautiful clothes that had a great story behind them instead of the granola hair shirts that were happening. The whole point of the line is that the clothes have to be desireable themselves or we don’t do the business. So, if the clothes aren’t desireable we’re doing something wrong. So we put a lot of effort into the design, prints and production and that’s really where we focus. If it’s not working it’s our fault.”

EDUN recently received news that 20 babies have been born HIV-free because their mothers had received drugs from ALAFA, which EDUN directly gave $600,000 to through sales of their ‘ONE’ Tee. EDUN is inspired by clothing designs which take elements from the Art Nouveau style, characterized by highly-stylized, flowing, curvilinear designs often incorporating floral and other plant-inspired motifs and many of EDUN’s designs are inspired by nature.