China often gets a bad reputation for labor practices, but just like everywhere else in the world, ethical options exist. Our manufacturing team is a women-led, SA8000 certified, and a family-owned operation that is headquartered in NYC with an office in Guangdong. With a steadfast goal of utilizing technology as a method to reach higher levels of sustainability, our close knit team is able to provide high quality products that continue to be cherished by our community. Their commitment reaches further than just paperwork, as manufacturing is kept locally to them so through the production process, they can physically conduct frequent site visits as well as do quality control checks on products.

We are SA8000 certified, which is a social accountability standard and certificate developed by Social Accountability International (SAI). This standard promises that every single factory worker that touches a Forest Ink garment are well paid and working in a safe, comfortable environment. SA8000 covers important requirements such as absolutely no forced or child labor, living wages, and safe working conditions. It also covers the right to unionize, anti-discrimination, and diligent training for machinery and processes. Read more about the SA8000-2014 requirements click here

View our SA8000 certification

We have become a close-knit group all working towards the same ethical and sustainable goals, and we will continue fostering the highest ethical standards possible for the people that are beloved to our company.

We see other companies give excuse after excuse on why it's too challenging to offer inclusive sizing: we're not one of them. Our size range covers XXS-5XL, and as demand increases, we continue to add new sizes to meet demand. With the average US woman being a US size 18, we think it's unreasonable that a majority of the population is excluded when brands only stock a small size range. While many companies make their samples for XS and then grade the rest of the size range based off the proportions of an XS, we start our design process with fitting our samples to a size XL, the most common size in our community. We then grade our range outwards, using fit models at different ends of the range to provide a personalized fit on our smaller and larger sizes. We also focus on stretch fabrics and adjustability, since we recognize everyone comes in different shapes and sizes. We want every person to feel comfortable and beautiful in Forest Ink clothing, regardless of shape or size!We don't believe in charging more for plus-sized clothing than straight-sized clothing. Often referred to as the "fat tax", some companies will charge more for larger sizes causing plus-sized people to have to pay more for the same piece that a straight-sized person can get for less. While it does add cost to have a larger, more inclusive size range, we charge the same price for any size because access to clothing should be fair across all sizes. We refuse to discriminate and financially penalize a portion of our loving community. As we grow as a company, we are using more and more diverse models for our website and social media. On social media, we work with a plethora of different sized influencers and content creators to show our products on as many bodies as possible. For our website, we currently feature two main models with different body types, but our goal is to have a straight-sized, mid-sized, and plus-sized model for each product! As we have more access to time and resources, we will be able to provide an even more diverse selection of models for the Forest Ink community.

We work diligently to provide as many unique collections as possible without sacrificing any of our practices or cutting corners. Here at Forest Ink, we strive to take our time with producing high quality clothing that will have a lasting place in your wardrobe, which includes small batch production, data driven restocks, and taking our time with the development of any new garment.

The timeline from conception to production generally takes a year or more, which is significantly slower than other fast fashion brands that may be able to produce a new piece within 3 days. We take our time sourcing fabrics and notions, perfecting our garments through the sampling process, and making sure our size grading is done consistently and inclusively. Many fashion companies produce clothing on a very large scale, but we only use small batch production methods, often launching a new product with only a fraction of the units that a large fast fashion company usually orders. Small batch productions ensures we avoid clothing wastage and avoid excess carbon emissions in the shipping process.

In our design process, we try to avoid trends and focus on highlighting our favorite subcultures and classic alternative styles that we feel like will be evergreen to our audience. This practice allows us to design clothing over a year out from our estimated drop day without our clothing seeming outdated. Evergreen styles mean we can keep up with consistent collections without implementing any fast fashion practices like mass production methods, unethical labor, and rushing the design process.