Eco-friendly slow fashion

At Dye Me Bougie we strive to reduce our carbon footprint and avoid tariffs by keeping a close to local supply chain and sourcing most of our materials from within Canada. This helps keep our prices reasonable without those cost savings being at the expense of the environment. 

Sourcing materials from within Canada also ensures the workers along the entire supply chain are not exploited for their labour. We support unions, worker's rights and worker's right to strike. We also believe in supporting other Canadian based businesses.

In the early 1600s, Polish people were brought to the first American colony in Jamestown as indentured servants. They were responsible for building the first glass factory in the 'new world' and the glass they produced was the first product exported to Europe from what would eventually become the United States. 

The English colonists didn't hold Polish men in high regard and didn't want them making babies with English women. So they agreed to bring Polish women to the new colony because at the time, it was believed that the indentured servants would be more productive if they had some kind of intimate relations with a woman in their downtime. Most of the glass made in these factories was for use in stained glass windows of churches. Sometimes the servants would bring home pieces of colourful glass to their women. The glass was a replacement for precious gemstones for these indentured servants and the women who accompanied them. 

As you can imagine, Polish women weren't accepted by the wives of the English colonists and ended up building friendships with Indigenous women. Polish women were tasked with finding food sources for their men, but being new to the area, had to learn from Indigenous women what plants, animals and fungus could be eaten, what was medicine and so on. In exchange for this knowledge, they traded glass beads, floral scarves and colorful ribbons. 

Traditionally, Indigenous beads were made of long tubular shaped items like hollow bone, dentalium shells and porcupine quills and the technique of flat-stitching beads to a fabric backing is something Polish women learned from Indigenous women. 

. . .

While women were never allowed to vote at all back then, in 1619, the first vote was cast in the new colony and Polish men were excluded. Part of indentured servitude is that once your service is completed, you're supposed to be free and equal to other citizens. Equality means the right to vote. So they put down their tools and refused to work until they were granted fair and equal rights. The Jamestown Polish Workers Strike became known as the first workers strike in north american history. Because the colony was dependent on funding from glass exports, a strike would have been detrimental. 

In July of 1619, the English colonists granted the right to vote to Polish indentured servants who had completed their servitude. One of the things they voted for was the right to return to Poland on one of the export ships. Upon return, they often brought with them some of the plants and seeds they learned about from Indigenous people. That's how we ended up with ingredients like potato or blueberry filling in pierogi. 

There's a centuries old and very rich history of trade between Polish and Indigenous women and it's one of the reason's you'll see me supporting various Indigenous-led initiatives through my business. I also understand that the history is skewed because of colonial gender roles brought here by europeans. So I don't limit that solidarity to just Indigenous women. Men, 2spirit and other non-colonial gender roles are all cool in my books.