When you get to the recently opened Twine Studio on Wen­zhou Street in Tai­pei, you see that the entrance is an unusual louvered sliding door, calling to mind the simple and natural elegance of historic Kyoto. But inside the shop you find a different vibe. Small designer objects with an exotic flair are set out everywhere, dazzling the eye, though it is only when you pick some up to examine them more closely that you realize they have an unmistakably modern streamlined aesthetic. The whole space is infused with a rich sense of multinational fashionability.

Fair trade aims to ensure that the workers who actually produce handwoven goods, folk pottery and the like will receive fair compensation and have decent working environments.

The biggest difference between here and other designer shops is that there is a small card next to each item introducing the current situation in its place of manufacture, and stating the percentage of the price that goes back to the producers. These cards have the dual effect of teaching people about the specific industry and promoting a broader perspective.

One of the best-selling lines is the handmade animal-shaped eye pillows. You put them on your eyes when you sleep, and they are said to relieve stress. Twine has designed a variety of models, including cats, tigers, frogs, and fawns. The pillows, made of a combination of organic cotton and felt, are so adorable that you feel an irresistible urge to reach out and pet them.

On the card next to the eye pillows, which sell for NT$390 each, it says that they have been made by women working for the Ma­ha­gu­thi NGO in Kathmandu, Nepal. These women, scattered in remote villages across the country, not only get cash income from the organization’s operating revenues, they also get occupational training and help with their children’s education.

Other popular items include ka­lim­bas (thumb pianos), pottery mugs, stainless steel food containers, calf­skin backpacks, and clothing made from organic cotton. Since they are made of natural materials and/or are reuseable and recyclable, such products are environmentally friendly, and they combine modern design with traditional handicraft techniques. In the past, few people in Taiwan thought of “fair trade” as applying to anything but coffee, but you find out at Twine that cultural/creative products can also be acquired through fair trade and be manufactured by NGOs around the world.

Fair trade aims to ensure that the workers who actually produce handwoven goods, folk pottery and the like will receive fair compensation and have decent working environments.

Because Twine has an open floor plan, visitors to the shop can see the two owner-designers, ­Vinka Yang and Elizabeth Tsai, right there in the shop making handicraft items or drafting design sketches.

Yang and Tsai are two years apart in age, having been born in 1979 and 1977 respectively. They both worked in the Shanghai branch of the famous US architecture firm Ben Wood Studio. Building on their shared love of craftsmanship and design, in 2007 they and a friend opened a shop in the Tian­zi­fang Creative Park in Shanghai to sell their own handmade clothing and felt goods. At the end of 2009, now overflowing with the entrepreneurial spirit, they decided to return to Taiwan and go into business. Starting with only NT$200,000 in capital, they rented an old house in Tai­c­hung as their combined residence/storefront/studio.

For a year, they engrossed themselves in design and lived quite happily on a small income. They participated in handicraft markets and gradually built up name recognition with their felt products. Business steadily improved until the two of them were no longer able to meet demand with their own production. But they found out that factories in Taiwan would only take orders for at least 1000 items, so they began to look for an alternative production chain. Yang says that they happened to run into a manufacturer of fair-trade fabrics, and he suggested that they try placing orders with transnational fair-trade producers who would manufacture goods on a small scale. On top of that, the couple would also be making a contribution to global economic justice.

Having made their decision, they started out on a wondrous journey.

Stainless steel lunchboxes and adorable animal-shaped eye pillows are among the top-selling items at Twine.

The fair trade production chain differs from the traditional model in that the end link—the actual makers—have to be contacted individually across national boundaries. ­Vinka Yang and Elizabeth Tsai spent virtually the entire half-year starting in the summer of 2010 researching the techniques, materials, and operating rules of production organizations belonging to the WFTO. Because no one in Taiwan had any experience with this business model, they were basically pioneering brand new territory entirely on their own.

“When we first started to contact these overseas production organizations,” recalls Yang, “we got very few encouraging responses.” Some people even asked, “Where is Taiwan? In Asia or in Europe?” But after numerous explanations, these organizations finally began mailing DVD catalogues of the products their factories could make to Taiwan, allowing Twine to study their unique features and styles and make orders.

In April of 2011 Twine finally got the go-ahead for cooperation from two NGOs, with neither of the two orders exceeding US$1000. One was a women’s organization in Ghana, specializing in making soap, glass, and batik products. The other was a factory in Bangladesh using recycled concrete packaging to make bags. Yang and Tsai were overjoyed when they got the news. And in the two years since, Twine has gone from a starting point of absolute zero to a total of 30 cooperative producer organizations, stretching from Africa across the Middle East to the South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India, and Nepal, and has become the nexus of a fair-trade production network.

With the production chain taking shape, the next thing on the agenda was for Yang and Tsai to formally apply to join the WFTO.

Under the WFTO, both the seller and the producer must be certified in order for the product to use the WFTO label. The seller, in order to get certified, must meet two conditions: (1) they must have had at least two years of continuous cooperation with the producer, and (2) they must provide complete documentation, including records of fund transfers between the two parties, a financial statement proving sustainability of operations, records of sales levels to date, and a mission statement for the future of their business.

Once approved, Twine would have to pay an annual fee of about €400. Moreover, the owners would have to regularly go to the producer country to determine whether the conditions there meet WFTO norms, and send a written report to the WFTO.

After a year of effort, in March of 2013 Twine received formal approval to join the World Free Trade Organization, becoming the first cultural/creative brand in Taiwan to join, and essentially making a promise to incorporate global economic justice into their operations. They guarantee that one-half of the sales price will go to the producer, and that the producer organization pays decent wages and is not simply an exploitative factory.

Stainless steel lunchboxes and adorable animal-shaped eye pillows are among the top-selling items at Twine.

Looking back over the first three years, Twine has faced a ­variety of challenges.

The first year, every day the owners stressed over inadequate capital and low sales volume. The second year, having relocated from Tai­chung to Tai­pei, the main difficulties they faced were having too few items and the inability to find manufacturers to produce what they wanted.

The third year, sales increased considerably, but this brought a different kind of shortfall: cash to pay for orders for more goods. This is because under WFTO regulations, the seller must make a prepayment of 50% of the costs of an order up front, paying off the remaining 50% when the order is ­delivered.

This is very different from the normal business practice of paying the whole price only when the order is delivered. As a result, under WFTO rules, the higher sales get at the retailer, the more pressure the retailer is under to come up with the funds for the prepayment on replacement goods. And if it takes three or four months from the time of an order to the time of delivery, that’s considered “fast,” whereas a “slow” delivery could take up to a year! No wonder Yang’s tone is wry when he says, “Every month our sales have been quite good, but our bank account has continually been empty, because everything we earn has to be sent off immediately for prepayment on more products!”

Nonetheless, they are very upbeat about the future. Besides continuing to sell cultural/creative products, to further promote the concept of fair trade Twine plans to organize and train a volunteer team of speakers to go all around Taiwan to lecture on the theory and practice of fair trade. Moreover, they have begun to organize overseas tours of fair trade producers, so that like-minded people in Taiwan who want to open a shop of their own can go directly to Nepal or Bangladesh or wherever to better understand the factory production process.

Says Elizabeth Tsai, “When you go right to the scene, and see that people are being treated decently and that their community is functioning in a healthy manner, that’s when you feel, in a very concrete way, that your tiny commitment can really produce big changes.”

Taiwan design, overseas production; Taiwan consumption, global compassion. Twine is using the model of a social enterprise to open a path to a new era.

Without making any deliberate effort at interior design, Twine achieves an exotic atmosphere just by having a dazzling collection of folksy design products out on ­hangers and tables.

Twine explains the ideas behind fair trade in this simple, easily understandable illustration.