Conservation Tees

In 2007, fashion designer Beth Doane and graphic designer Bethany Armstrong merged their interests in human rights, biodiversity, and sustainable economic development to create the Rain Tee Collection for Andira, Doane’s fashion-import company. Andira donates art supplies to schools in Central and South America and invites children to create works reflecting their own experiences with deforestation and individual perceptions of the environment. The signed illustrations become the basis for tee shirts, dresses, and tops, with profits funding the outreach program to schools as well as other local nonprofit groups and providing support for a project in which children in Costa Rica plant a tree for each item sold. The clothing itself is made from a blend of bamboo and organic cotton.

The Rain Tee Collection stands on the more collaborative end of the recent cohort of socially-conscious tees. While groups like Project M and Social Atelier have done tremendous good using shirts to raise money and awareness for the lack of access to utilities in poor America and the plight of Darfurian refugees respectively, Andira approaches the idea in a way that directly incorporates and reflects the experiences of the areas affected by deforestation. This creative structure includes local inhabitants as both the initial designers and ultimate beneficiaries of product development. The model offers a new way of viewing fair trade, one in which perception and design rather than crops or other goods are exchanged.