The Horse 2020/21

Livia and I are collaborating with two teams from the Basque Country:

Team 1
- Ane and Ibai

Team 2
- Izar and Roman

With both teams we are communicate per Whatsapp. So far it has worked out very well. We update each other as soon as we did something for our project.

Last week we contacted some clothing stores in Switzerland and asked them if we could do an interview and if they could answer some of our questions. This is the update so far (until 22th of April 2021):

• Tally Weijl
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• H&M
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• New Yorker
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• C&A
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• Zebra
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• Chicorée
  We got an answer. But unfortunately they said that they could not help us and do an interview with us.
• Brandy Melville
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• Dosenbach
  We didn't get an answer yet.
• Walder Schuhe
  We got an answer. They told us that they could not help us with our project because they don't have a production by themself. They also don't produce their shoes in countries abroad.

We are still waiting for some positive responses but it could be that we will not get them.

[in progress]

Today we contacted some clothing stores in Switzerland and asked if they could answer some questions about our project. We contacted the following stores:

• Tally Weijl
• H&M
• New Yorker
• C&A
• Zebra
• Chicorée
• Brandy Melville
• Dosenbach
• Walder Schuhe

Now we are waiting for their response.

[in progress]

What we have accomplished so far (until 8th April 2021)

• We have created a video pitch (Post: Video Pitch)
• We got in contact with our collaboration teams from the Basque Country and presented our project idea to them and what information need from them. They responded and told us they will look for the information we need as soon as they are back in school (they have holidays until 12th of april)
• We prepared the questions for the interview we would like to do with a swiss clothing store and posted it on the horse
• We started to think about some questions to put in our survey
  
  

What is our next step until 15th April 2021

• Get in contact with a swiss clothing store and ask for an interview
• Do a brainstorm of searching questions for our survey

These are the questions we are going to ask the workers of a clothing store here in Switzerland.

1. Where do the the clothes you sell come from? (it would be interesting to know where they got their clothes from)
2. Where are they produced?
3. Do you know how the clothes are produced? Is child labor included? (it's interesting to know if child labor is still used)
4. What is your opinion about child labor? (every person has an other opinion, we are interested to see the differences)
5. Do you know which means of transport are used to ship the clothes to Switzerland? (think about the environment, is it sustainable)
6. Is is important for you to sell sustainable clothes or do you prefer as cheap as possible? (individual opinions of clothing stores in Switzerland)
7. What are the advantages and disadvantages of cheap clothes in your opinion? (individual opinions of clothing stores in Switzerland)
8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of sustainable clothes in your opinion? (individual opinions of clothing stores in Switzerland)
9. What do you think about green lifestyle? (to see if they are thinking about a green lifestyle)

Livia and Sandrine

First we start to think about the whole project and how we will get the information we need. We will do the research after we collaborated with our collaboration teams. We think it would be much easier to see how much information we will get from our collaboration teams so we know which information we have to search by ourself in the internet and outside in maybe an interview or something and add to our project.

Some links we found where we think would be helpful:

• Wichtige Herkunftsländer für Bekleidungsimporte in die Schweiz 2019 (de.statista.com)
• Import von Textilien, Bekleidung und Schuhen in die Schweiz in den Jahren 2000 bis 2019 (de.statista.com)

We didn't find many links we could use because there aren't many websites which are helpful for the main content of our topic.

[in progress]

I really hope we can do an interview with a clothing store here in Switzerland where we find out a lot of information about our project topic.

I hope that we will get the information we need from our collaboration teams and can use them good for our project.

I hope our triangle works well and we can support each other in our projects.

I hope we will find as many people as possible to participate at our survey. It will show us if people are interested in the sustainability of the clothes they buy or if they don't care about it.

I hope that our research is going on well and we will get as much information as possible.

(I) Names of research team
Livia and Sandrine

1. What do we need for a collaboration?
- Communication tools (Zoom, Whatsapp, E-Mail, etc.)
- Schedule for meetings
- Good and clear communication / instruction
- Post our progress on the horse

2. What are the important questions?
- How do we start?
- How can we find the perfect cooperation?
- How do we structure our project?

3. What are the advantages of the international collaboration project?
- We can compare our country to another one abroad.
- We can improve our english.

4. What difficulties could arise?
- The time until the submission date could be too short.
- The different timezones could become difficult.

5. How can you get connected and involved?
- Contact the collaboration team and see if they would like to collaborate with you.
- Get in closer contact with the team (zoom meetings, phone number, etc.)

6. How can you become a team?
- Tell them your imagination and explain everything clearly.
- Listen carefully to the collaboration team and their opinions.
- Be prepared for compromises.

Livia and Sandrine

We found a topic that could be very interesting and has been polution the environment for a very long time but no one is doing anything about it. We buy so many clothes without questioning where they come from and how they are made. We would like to focus our attention on how sustainable the production and transport of cheap clothes is. We are interested in finding out how staff are treated in production companies abroad and how large the proportion of child labor is. We are also questioning how many clothes are imported to Switzerland per year and which means of transport are used. And last but not least how did shipping change in the past years.

Livia and Sandrine

Cheap clothes production and transport from The Horse Education on Vimeo.

Livia and I thought, that it would be interesting to know how the clothes in India are produced and how bad the transport to the markets in Switzerland is for our environment. Is there an eco-friendlier way to transport the clothes? Why don't we produce the clothes only in Switzerland instead of abroad?

We'd like to collabrate with some students form India to find out more about the clothes production there. We also would like to get in contact with some clothes stores in Switzerland and try to find out from which country they get/import their clothes.