Meet the Members: Birdsong

What do you do?

I'm the Co-founder of Birdsong, we're an award winning social enterprise manufacturing with women facing barriers to employment, mostly migrant and refugee women and survivors of domestic abuse and pay them London living wages to make our products.

Since 2014 we've been operating as a fashion brand, selling direct to consumer, however have recently pivoted to making ethically made and sustainable products for other brands/ businesses. We've taken a 'pause' for a few months publically to work on our new model but are ready to take orders now (with an official relaunch in April).

We specialise in digitally printing on Organic Cotton bases (tees/ sweatshirts etc), but can also manufacture from scratch with our network of charity partners. We only use OEKO- TEX certified eco-inks, there's absolutely no waste and we can make them conveniently all under one roof meaning less shipping costs for materials and less cost to the customer- you!

We are B Corp Certified and also won the Queen's Award for Sustainable Development in 2022 for our ethical supply chain.

Is there any project you would like to collaborate on with any possible partners? (/ are you looking for clients and conversations about any particular topics?)

Yes! We are not only making for other brands and businesses, but we are developing a new offering under the Birdsong brand.

When Birdsong was founded in 2014, our first products were hand painted t-shirts with cheeky fruit prints, made by migrant and refugee mums in Tower Hamlets.

When we first started we were trailblazers, known as the ‘feminist fashion brand changing the game’, hiring activists, creative and inspirational local figures and to model in our shoots and we collaborated with designers such as Clio Peppiatt, activists like Charlie Craggs, artists like Amy Isles Freeman and even had our own makers design our tees.

We’re returning to this mission of harnessing community by amplifying the voices and stories of women and nonbinary creatives of colour through our wearable artworks.

We’ll be highlighting one trailblazing woman or non-binary creative a month.
Each artist will create 3 designs to sell and there will only be 100 units per design, available for that month only.

Designed by the community. Made by the community. For the community.

Power, fair pay & printing!

Let us know if you are or know of any artist who might want to collaborate with us on some limited edition tees! All artists get a commission on each sale.

Do you offer any discounts that you would like to offer the community and that we would showcase in the perks section?

For tees, as an example, we can make an adult Unisex organic cotton white tee with one colour print for £12.50 (Excl Vat).

Each sample is double the bulk price and there are no minimums for bulk orders!

Prices do change for printing on colour/ more than one print on tees. Let me know if you have any more details and I can give you more exact quotes for that.

I can offer 10% off printing to any Poplar Works tenants. Do contact me on susanna@birdsong.london and I'm in Makery Unit 9, come by and say hi!

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear

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Konstantinos Malliaris

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