It's Time For A Fashion Revolution!
On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka collapsed. It killed 1,138 garment workers. The building had visible cracks in the walls the morning it fell. Workers reported them. They were told to go in anyway.
I had been working inside large-scale manufacturing in Asia for years when it happened. I knew what those factories looked like. I knew how the pressure worked. And I knew that Rana Plaza wasn't an anomaly — it was what happens when an industry decides that the people making the products are a cost to be minimized rather than a reason to do the work well.
Fashion Revolution Week started as a response to that collapse. Every April, it asks: Who made my clothes? Who made my jewelry? For a period of time I was the Pacific Northwest lead for Fashion Revolution. I know what this campaign asks of the brands it targets because I was on the other side of it — helping organize the conversations, fielding the questions, watching which brands answered and which ones went quiet.
The ones that went quiet had a reason.
What it actually takes to be an ethical jewelry brand
Being an ethical jewelry brand isn't a positioning decision. It's an operational one. It means choosing a casting partner whose facility you've personally evaluated. It means accepting that certification costs money and time and involves auditors who will find things you'd rather not know. It means building a supply chain you're prepared to be fully transparent about — not because it's good marketing, but because you believe the people making the work deserve it.
Before I started Astor & Orion, I spent years working with factories across Asia. I saw what a supply chain looks like when the priority is lowest cost at highest speed. I also saw what it looks like when a facility genuinely invests in the people doing the work. The difference isn't subtle. It shows up in turnover rates, in the quality of the output, in whether workers feel safe raising a grievance.
That's what I was looking for when I chose our casting partner. And it's what the audits confirm, every year.
Who made your jewelry: the actual answer
Our casting partner holds four independent certifications — SMETA 4-Pillar, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001 — each requiring an auditor physically present at the facility. The 2025 SMETA audit found 523 workers on site. 61.6% of the workforce are women. 73.1% of supervisors are women. 85.46% earn above the legal minimum wage. 99.4% hold permanent contracts. Zero workers exceeded 48 hours per week.
That's who made your jewelry.
The metal is recycled sterling silver and recycled brass. The packaging is FSC-certified paper and compostable bioplastics. When you're done with a piece, you can send it back and we'll recycle it.
I can answer every part of the Fashion Revolution question. The fact that this is unusual says something about the industry, not about the difficulty of doing it.
Why eco conscious companies are rare in jewelry
The jewelry industry has specific supply chain problems. Raw materials — metals, stones — are often mined in regions with weak environmental and human rights protections. Recycled metals exist and work identically to virgin metal, but most brands don't use them. Third-party certification programs like SMETA exist specifically to verify labor and environmental claims, but most brands don't pursue them.
The brands that don't pursue certification usually have a reason. Auditors find things. Findings require responses. Responses cost money. It's easier to say "ethically made" on the website than to submit to the process that would prove or disprove it.
Eco conscious companies that stay eco conscious over time do it because it's structural — because the commitment is built into how the business runs, not bolted on as a brand claim. That's what Fashion Revolution Week asks you to look for. It's a good question to ask all year.
Karen Hartman, Founder, Astor & Orion. Updated April 2026.