Meet the supplier: our Between The Lines Charity Sailor Shirt

This year, we’ve created our Between The Lines Sailor Shirt in collaboration with our charity partner, Mind. All profits from its sale will go to Mind, to support the charity as it provides help to those who are experiencing mental health challenges.  

To produce this special Breton, we need to work with exceptional suppliers – enter Tamara Textile, the Global Organic Textiles Standard (GOTS) certified factory where our organic cotton Between The Lines Sailor Shirt is made. We caught up with Merve, Marketing Executive at Tamara Textile, to find out more. 

Tamara Textile has designed and manufactured private label collections since 1999.

“We have three factories in Turkey, two in Istanbul and one in Karaman (a city in the south of Turkey). We pride ourselves on exceptional quality and on-time deliveries.   

The smiles of our employees set us apart.

Our highest priority is the safe, happy and peaceful work of our employees under fair conditions. This is closely followed by caring for our environment. Sustainability is not a tool for us to increase sales volumes – it’s our biggest duty and responsibility as a producer and employer. At Tamara Textile, we’ve taken many steps towards more sustainable products and processes that reduce our impact on the environment. 

We have 400 workers in total. 

We support our employees against the increasing inflation rate in the country and have increased the salary hike periods. We’re also proud to give our employees free supermarket cheques at certain times, and we offer them free lunches – cooked fresh every day with organic vegetables and meats.    

The Zinde Association is open for our employees and anyone who wants to join from outside. As part of the association, we organise free training and activities to teach people about nutrition, daily exercise and the importance of looking after and enjoying nature.

We are also an official partner to vocational high schools in Turkey. As well as providing tools and materials to help students get a better education, we organise career seminars for girls. We introduce them to positions in the textile sector, and we mentor them to help direct them to the right position based on their skills.

There are many positions in our sector.

From designers to pattern makers, consumption specialists, sample technicians and cutting machine operators, as well as cutting specialists and fabric and garment controllers, we have a huge range of roles. There are also print and embroidery specialists, sewing workers (each worker is an expert in a stitch, meaning the worker who makes a single stitch and an overlock is different), packing and ironing workers, and testing technicians… to name a few! Many of our positions required significant experience and dexterity, and we also have skilled workers for some special stitchings.

We have worked with Seasalt for almost 2 years now.

We started with the striped Sailor Shirt, and now we produce all kind of garments like sweatshirts, dresses and pyjamas.    

The process for making solid colour shirts and striped shirts is different.

For solid colour shirts and t-shirts, we first buy the yarn then we knit it, so it becomes a raw fabric. We then dye the fabric. For stripes, it’s different. We buy the yarn, then we dye it before we knit the fabric in the order of required colours. Just like the sweaters knitted by our grandmothers. But this time, it’s not the beautiful hands of our grandmothers, but huge industrial machines that do the work! 

We love the way Seasalt cares for its suppliers.   

We hold meetings with Seasalt’s purchasing team twice a month in order to improve our partnership, working closely together to find solutions and explore new innovative products. We’re proud to support Seasalt in the work they do to make considered choices for people and the environment.”