Behind the seams: The disadvantaged women creating Hong Kong fashion

Dorcas Design provides a nurturing environment for disadvantaged women in Guangzhou.

In a non-descript low-rise building a young woman, who only wishes to be known as Murighul, smiles as she heads to her workstation in a small clothing factory.

Murighul is disabled from the waist down. She is a seamstress at Dorcas Design, a social enterprise that provides job opportunities for physically and economically disadvantaged women in China who have skills in clothing manufacturing.

A native of Kashgar in the northwestern province of Xinjiang, Murighul now lives in Guangzhou where Dorcas Design is based. Today, the 25-year-old is working on a cloth trimming order for Dialog Worldbutik, a Hong Kong-based fair trade fashion label. 

Murighul works on Malaysian-style trimming, a signature of Dialog Worldbutik's designs.

The founders of Dialog Worldbutik, Malaysian Dong Shing Chiu and New Generation Award winner Cassandra Postema, started their social business after the 2004 tsunami. They sold “Hope Tee” T-shirts for tsunami relief fundraising and expanded into women’s handbags and accessories using recycled materials by 2007.

“Eco-friendly and fair trade is our trademark and the stories behind our designs are important. But the design is what sets us apart,” says Postema.

Dialog Worldbutik's fair-trade clutches are a far cry from the wholesome image of socially conscious products.

Their work has not gone unnoticed. Worldbutik won the Overall Accessories Award at New York Fashion Week Accessories Magazine and was the Editors’ Choice at Fabulous magazine in the UK.

More importantly, their social enterprise business model works. The organization has injected over US$90,000 into the local communities that they work with around Asia. 

Yet, co-founder Dong says that "pricing is not the most crucial aspect of our operation." People are a priority over profit at Worldbutik, as a social enterprise should be.

Since Worldbutik depends on textiles that they salvage and recycle, they have to focus on continuously pushing the boundaries of their designs and maintaining employment of their network of communities and workgroups.

A quilt made entirely from recycled materials.

Dorcas Design is only one of several workgroups that manufactures for Dialog Worldbutik. It was founded in March 2006 with a group of skilled disabled women who overcame poverty and social stigma to establish a financially independent life for themselves.

"If I don’t take care of myself, who will take care of me?” says Murighul. “Working here has given me more self-confidence and skills to be a good seamstress." 

We visited the workshop to see what goes on at this social entreprise located in The World's Factory. 

"Sometimes we only get to work on the trim, so it’s nice to see the final product," says Murighul.

Dorcas Design founder Ruth Winslow: "We are reaching our goal of developing a sustainable micro-enterprise that enables women to regain self-esteem and confidence."

The design team discusses the lining of a handbag.

Dong (center) and Auntie Mai (right) look over African textiles recycled from the Tianxiu building, also known as Little Africa.

Auntie Mai weaves a quilt from the African-designed fabric. Although illiterate, she has memorized the pattern blocks and keeps track of everything she makes using number codes in a little notebook.

The Dorcas Design team admires the workmanship of a handbag made in another factory in the Dialog Worldbutik network.

A Dorcas Design factory worker looks at Dialog Worldbutik products shown in magazine clippings from around the world. Many of the workers are surprised how much publicity their work has gotten in the fashion industry.

The ladies from Dorcas Design and Dialog Worldbutik.