Our new logo is here

Ok, I know this I have already posted once today, but since our logo is released today here is another post.

I just wanted to share the new logo with all of you to get some feedback.

This is the full logo with our company name and our company motto

This is just The Fair Tailor button, a symbol you will find on all our shirts

Please give us feedback on the new logo? It's nice, right?

Also, some luckey Swedish fans of The Fair Tailor will get the chance to buy our first shirts. Please contact us if you want a chance to become one of The Fair Tailors first customers.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Fabrics are on their way to Nepal

Monator, the guys who are creating our website, are doing a great job. What they have showed us so far looks great and we are really excited to see the final result.

Our logo is finished and I am currently working on a newsletter in which we will present it. So if you've not signed up for the newsletter yet, send an e-mail to info[a]thefairtailor.com.

I have been back in Sweden for almost two weeks now and I have not been able to lose the cold I caught in Nepal yet. It's starting to take its toll on me, so I'm trying to slow down a bit.

Right now we are working on improving our budget and business plan. Since all of Nepal is closed for Dashain celebrations until October 2, nothing happens in the production house right now. But the fabrics are on their way from India. The organic cotton fabrics have been dyed outside Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in the north west of India. The egyptian cotton fabrics are beeing collected from storage and packed for shipment to Nepal.

It's going to be really exciting to get all the fabrics to Nepal so that we can start making the tailor made shirts.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

2000m fabrics

After having spent a weekend spent over fabric swatches Lina and I have agreed on which fabrics we want to use for the launch of The Fair Tailor. We plan to have 25% ecological cotton fabrics and 75% Egyptian cotton fabrics.

The ecological fabrics are as ecological as they get. The cotton is grown without cemical pesteciedes and the yarn is dyed using aincent organic techiques.

The Egyptian cotton is the finest you usually are able to get a hold of. If a fabric is 100% cotton, the fibers are 15-40mm (more 15 than 40 to be honstet...) and when a fabric is 100% Egyptian cotton the fibers are more than 40mm. And the result is a longer, smoother, lighter and stroger fabric. Perfect for high end tailor made shirts.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

I'm back in Sweden

So after a 28h journey from Nepal to Sweden I am finally at home again. Right now I must admit that I am a little bit jetlagged. But come on, can you really blame me. But I do warn you, some of the words might come out a little strange in this post.

I have just got fabric samples of Egyptian cotton fabrics from India and the quality is so good. Much better than I had expected and I had high expectations. We have maybe 500 fabrics to choose from and we have samples of them all.

The trip to Nepal was a great succes. It took 15-16h workdays but we pulled it of in the end. But I could not have done it without Tirtha, Govinda and the other guys. Thank you all.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Who brings a granade launcher to the opening of a childrens home?

Yesterday was the day for the big inauguration of Child Watabaran center's new childrens home. We were 300 guests.

I went there with the Child Watabaran minibus together with people from Leaseplan, who has funded the new childrens home, from Net4Kids, a Dutch NGO, Magnus from Xdin and some of the Child Watabaran staff.
After we had passed a point on the road, the miltary started shutting the road down, since the president was comming to the inauguration. 300 guests attended and there were 1200 military/police guarding the event.
The Maoists are threathening the president, hence the big security detail.
I can understand why they could find use for M16s and sniper rifles,
but I can not really understand why they brought granade launchers to the event.
Did they plan to shoot granades at the childrens home if something would happen there?

Anyway, in the last minute the president canceled his visit due to security reasons.
Despite the fact that the president didn't show up it was a nice ceremony and it is amazing to see the result
of all the hard work put into this project.

For The Fair Tailor things are going really well.
We have finished the 20 sample tailor made dress shirts that I set out to get with me back to Sweden when I fly out tomorrow.
Govinda is doing a great job and we are soo lucky to have found him.
I have had some troubles with YouTube this morning, so I can not add any video right now.
But stay tuned, it will come soon.

There have been something wrong with this post. It looks a bit strange and some of the words are missing. I have tried to fix it, but I may make it look even more strange.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

An amazing new program that can change mobile health care as we know it

Today I spent a few hours with Björn Söderberg, the guy who is to blame for The Fair Tailor deciding to put the production of our Fair Trade fine dress shirts in Nepal in the first place.

First Björn showed me an amazing new project that his company WebSearch is working on together with Tirtha at Watabaran. It is system to handle medical journals via cell phones. Child Watabaran has a mobile health service, where they drive around to find street children who are injured or sick and give them medical treatment. One problem they have noticed is that it is very difficult to keep track on the kids, if the medical team changes it is no way to know if someone for example is allergic to antibiotics of if she/he has HIV. With the system developed by WebSearch they can use their cell phones to take a picture of the patient and to keep an journal with a medical history. The next time one of the kids is sick or injured they are able to find him/her in the database and can know their medical history.

I am not sure that I'm able to really describe in words how amazing I think this project is. It has such a huge potential world wide.

Here is by the way a video of Björn talking about WebSearch in general.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Work has started. We are making shirts

Work has started in the The Fair Tailor/Watabaran production house.

Govinda Nepali has become our first employee and he is doing a great job so far.

I just wanted to show a few YouTube clip of him instructing the kids from the youth production house how to make fine dress shirts.

Before starting at The Fair Tailor Govinda has worked in Jordan for six years, where he was in charge over production in a factory with 800 people. He is very skilled and I am really happy he decided to start working for us. He will definitly help us make fine dress shirts with perfect fit and finish.

There are by the way many more clips on YouTube, check them out.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

I would rather be ashes than dust!

"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” - Jack London

We have organic fabrics!

We have found organic cotton fabrics! I have today received samples of organic cotton fabrics from a supplier in India. The cotton is basically as clean as it gets. It is grown without pesticides, it is dyed with organic natural dye from plants and it is produced under fair conditions. And I am impressed by the quality.

It is of course not quite as good as the top quality cotton fabrics that we have, but they are better than I had expected.

I am currently conducting the interviews for the position as quality inspector and I have met some really good candidates. Hopefully we will know more soon.

Every morning at 6am an orchestra across the yard from my hostel starts practicing:

I changed hostels to get away from a huge cockroach, but it looks like he found me after all. It took him three days to travel 1km. I hope some of his little friends will stay behind at the old place... One is OK, 10 is not.

The work here at Child Watabaran is really crazy right now, there are so much to do for all of us.

I made a video of what it's like in the office. Tirtha and Poonam are busy with the inauguration and I have my hands full with the start of The Fair Tailor production.

Who would have known it would be so difficult to make Fair Trade tailor made shirts =)

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

A meeting with Björn Söderberg

After yesterdays tour of the fabric markets to look for fabrics for our fair trade tailor made shirts this has been a much calmer day. Saturday is the day of in Nepal so I thought it would be more quiet today. Little did I know that the neighbours have an orchestra and the orchestra had practice time a 6am today. I am glad that I can sleep fairly well despite of the noice.

Me using public transportation on the way to the fabric dealers

If the video doesn't work, use this link.

Today I have met with Björn Söderberg, a Swedish entrepreneur that is the reason that we have decided to put our production in Nepal. We had originally thought of having the production in Cambodja, but we started talking and here I am, 8 months later, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

We talked for hours about what can be done here in Nepal and why some things can not be done. It was interesting to get his insight to the situation in Nepal. He also had some really exciting projects planned for the future, but I can reveal here what he has planned. Today we discussed entrepreneurship, our business and Nepal. On Friday we are going out to see the Watabaran paper production facilities.

I have uploaded nine videos on YouTube now, you can find them if you search for The Fair Tailor.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Cockroaches in the room and ants in the laptop

Yesterday I met with Tirtha and Poonam at the new office of Watabaran. It was great seeing them again and the new place looked great. They have changed offices to try to get many of ther projects located in the same area.

This is a video showing me and Tirhta going over some CVs and Poonam working by the computer.

During my visit Tirtha and I set up a busy schedule for my time here. I'm fully booked until Thursday so far, but I have a feeling that more things will turn up.

Video showing the outside of the new Watabaran office and the production house.

After the meeting with Tirtha and Poonam i found myself involved in a game of some kind with the locals. I don't know the name for it in English, but it is a little bit like pool.

I didn't get much sleep last night. I am a little, but not to much, jetlaged. But one thing that definitly kept me up was my bed company...

Big Bob, the king of my friendly room mate cockroaches

My first night here I was to tired to notice it, but the rooms was filled with cockroaches. I know that they'r not dangerous in any way, but I still don't like them. When I started my computer this morning I realized that I had some more friends. Suddenly there was an ant on my laptop keyboard. I flipped it away but soon there was another. And another, and another. I guess they moved in to my computer over night...

I have already called a new hostel, I'm moving after I have finished breakfast.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Getting ready to meet with Tirhta

Nepali shoomakers have their shop in the middle of the street.

I'm currenly sitting in a café to get some lunch and to upload pictures to Picasa/this blogg and to upload some videos to YouTube.

I will try go get the videos into the blog, we'll see if I make it.
If it works, this is what my room looks like:

Nothing seemed to work for me last night, but now things are looking better. I am glad I'm usually don't have a problem with sounds when I sleep, because the sound level in my room is, well, loud. I have a YouTube video to show it.

In halv an hour I'm meeting with Tirhta, I'm looking forwad to seeing him again.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

I'm back in Nepal

The trip to Nepal went fine, there was no problems what so over with the flights.

I might change hostels though. The place I stay at is nice, but it has no wifi in the rooms and no place to eat at.

If you can read Swedish you can read more at blogg.va.se/entreprenor

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Hanging out in Abu Dhabi

I'm on my way to Kathmandu and right now I'm changing flights in Abu Dhabi. It's going to be fun to get back to Nepal again. It is the end of the monsoon season right now, so I suppose it will be a little rainy...

We are planing to conduct several interviews for our open position as quality inspector and I am also planning to meet with Björn Söderberg.

I'm a little tired right now, but this time I managed to get a few hours sleep on the flight from Frankfurt.

I just realised that they have a free wifi connection here - much better than the public computers.

I hope to be able to update the blog in Swedish - http://blogg.va.se/entreprenor as well before I leave here.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet