FAQ
Some frequently asked questions:
We ship world-wide.
We aim to process your order as promptly as possible, you should receive your order within:
• 1-5 business days – UK
• 3-7 business days – Europe
• 7-14 business days – USA and rest of the world
Shipping costs depend on location and the size of your order. All orders over £20 are delivered for free within the UK. For Europe we offer free shipping for orders over £70.00 and for the rest of the world we offer free delivery for orders over £80.00.
For most of our orders we use Royal Mail Postal Service. Please note within the UK we ship using either 1st or 2nd class standard royal mail service always obtaining proof or postage. For the rest of the World we use the International Standard shipping provided by the Royal Mail.
The Royal Mail also offers a number of tracked and signed options which are available at checkout or on request if for any reason we have missed your country out when setting up our website.
We have over 500 products and items and thus final parcel sizes and weights vary considerably. Postal rates vary from order to order as the final cost is entirely based on the size and weight of the parcel.
Below is a guide to some of our most frequent orders postage:
If you have any specific requirements or any direct queries on cost relating to postage please either email us or chat to us via a direct chat bot.
Please refer to our returns policy.
Sure, any item that is out of stock will provide the opportunity to subscribe to a waiting list and once back in stock we will notify you. Who know we are sometimes guilty for letting our stock run low and may offer some discounts.
Shopping on our website is secure and our checkout uses Stripe Payments and PayPal. Stripe automatically encrypts your confidential information in transit from your computer using the Secure Sockets Layer protocol (SSL) with an encryption key length of 128-bits (the highest level commercially available) for 100% safe and secure online payments.
PayPal is already well known and trusted. When you purchase something from us using PayPal, we don’t receive any sensitive financial information like your credit card or bank account number. In addition using PayPal provides you automatically with PayPal Purchase Protection.
Fair fashion over fast fashion,
For us a garments social justice impact is as important as its environmental impact, we choose to use garments (Excluding our reworked collection) that are made as part of the Fairwear foundation, unfortunately apparel workers are among the lowest paid people in the world. The Fairwear Foundation are making practical steps to show that it’s possible to make clothes in a fairer way , educating and supporting industry manufactures that realise their workers’ rights to “safe, dignified, properly paid employment”.
“At the heart of the Fair Wear Foundation is a code for labour practices and workers’ rights, titled the Code of Labour Practices and based on international standards”. The code covers 8 points
- limited working hours
- free choice of employment
- no exploitative child labour may take place
- no discrimination in employment
- a legally binding employment agreement must be concluded
- safe and healthy working conditions must be in place
- freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining may not be restricted
- a living wage must be paid.
“A PARTNERSHIP FOR A MORE ETHICAL GARMENT INDUSTRY.”
Fairwear Foundation and the likes are bringing much needed change within the industry, but there is still a long way to go, currently there is no such thing as a commercial 100% fair garment supply chain but by supporting those that encourage honesty and transparency change is happening.
The textile industry is a dirty business, in fact it’s the 2nd biggest global polluter after oil.
But by using recycled and organic fabrics, water based inks , obviously only vegan fibres and choosing only suppliers that are bringing positive change to the industry we are doing our best , it’s a journey and the fashion industry still has a long way to go but we are there championing change. Our garments are Climate Neutral. With CO2 emissions being up to 90% less than traditional clothing.
Our garments are made in Istanbul, Sothern India & Dhaka. Factories go through rigorous audits following standards of code of conduct (e.g. Fair wear Foundation audits)
While our apparel is made of premium quality fabrics, sadly nothing lasts forever not even a great t-shirt.
Around 336,000 tonnes of unwanted clothing gets thrown away annually in the UK alone (WRAP)
Clothes that are in good condition can be sold or donated for re-use minimising their overall environmental impact, most of our garments are 100% organic cotton making them biodegradable and those that are not mixed fibres can be widely recycled.
- You can drop off unwanted items to your local recycling points and textile banks (often found in supermarket car parks) check https://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/clothing-textiles-0 to find one local to you.
- Check with your council to see where their textile recycling facilities are.
- Or use our ‘Bring Back Scheme’ and we’ll recycle them for you.
- Get creative repurpose you old clothes into something new- graphic t-shirts can be made into great patches.
When I started as designer for the high-street almost 20 years ago we had two seasons, Spring/ Summer & Autumn/Winter collections, things have changed and many fast fashion brands now produce around 52 ‘micro seasons’ a year that’s a whopping 1 a week – constantly urging us to buy more to get the latest must-have look, these garments are often designed to be disposable, worn only a handful of times before being discarded in favour of the next trend.
We stay away from trends instead aiming to design garments with messages that you’ll want to wear for years. Choosing styles and colours that are timeless and fabrics that are premium quality.
We recommend extending the life of your garments with good care.
Where possible, wash less, wash inside out, wash cooler at 30 degrees centigrade and line dry.
For added protection store with a sachet of lavender – it’s a natural moth ball deterrent.
We love to hear your thoughts, good reviews always make me do a little happy dance. For product feedback, please leave a review on the item’s product page on our website or on our Facebook page. Thank you! x
You know about the benefits of eating organic food & using organic cleaning products but what about organic clothing?
What makes organic materials, like cotton, so much better than the conventional ones? Organic cotton is produced and certified to organic agricultural standards, using methods and materials that reduce its impact on the environment by sustaining the health of the soil and eco-systems it’s grown in.
In a nutshell, no toxic chemicals are used to grow organic cotton. It doesn’t damage the soil, has less impact on air quality, and uses 88% less water and 62% less energy.
It takes 3 years for conventional farmers to convert their land to be suitable to be certified organic, that’s how long it takes to clear the soil of all the nasty chemicals used in regular cotton growth.
Regular cotton is one of the oldest known and the most popular fibre in the world, accounting for more than half of the worlds production of textiles, to meet high demands its most often grown often with GMO’s that are modified to build resistance to bugs, but when the bugs become stronger, more pesticides are required. These heavy chemicals kill the bugs but they also have devastating effects for the cotton farmers, (many of whom die premature deaths) garment workers and the environment. In contrast, organic cotton crops use natural seed that are not treated with pesticides, herbicides, insecticides or GMOs, instead the bugs are controlled with insects that kill the pests. Conventionally grown cotton uses more insecticides than any other crop in the world. It is estimated that each year cotton producers use a whopping 25% percent of the world’s insecticides and more than 10% of the world’s pesticides. Instead of herbicides, organic cotton uses natural cultivation processes, weeding and hoeing done by hand. As a result, organic cotton products are safer for all, planet and people.
The below is a good guide to size conversions across different countries. Please refer to the individual product pages for style measurements.
Organic cotton is super soft, this is largely down to its picking. Cotton can be handpicked or machine picked. Organic cotton is handpicked, protecting the fibre while regular cotton is usually machine-picked to meet the high demand, these machines can damage the fibres leading to loss and wastage. Hand picking preserves the longer fibres of organic cotton which make it softer and more durable than regular cotton.
For the conscientious consumer organic cotton is a more sustainable and eco-friendlier option to regular cotton, hypoallergenic , softer, and durable, and as no toxins were used in the manufacturing process the end garments are residue free.
Try it yourself to feel the difference.
Trees are amazing and vital for both people and the planet, providing food, habitat, biodiversity, oxygen and more, yet shockingly “We lose trees at a rate of 50 soccer fields per minute as our food systems destroy our ecosystems.” .
Because of this we have partnered with trees.org and their Forest Garden programs to change lives of impoverished farmers by revitalizing degraded lands across five countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania, to plant a tree for every garment we sell, We are proud to say since we started doing this in 2017 we’ve paid for thousands of trees to be planted. Since they began they have planted over 187,000,000 trees.
Currently Covid-19 has unfortunately scuppered many of our plans and most of the festivals have been cancelled.
That said we will be at:
- Bath Vegan Outdoor Market – Aug 1st 2020
To keep more upto date please keep an eye on our Facebook events page: https://www.facebook.com/vivalavegans/events/
If you are attending any of these events and want to volunteer to help out then please drop us a message.
Drop us a message us at support@Viva-la-vegan.com
