Global Girlfriend Introduces Its Latest Collection of Fair Trade Fashion and Accessories That Make Shopping a Socially Conscious Experience

Fair trade boutique offers inspiring accessories, gifts and organic apparel from over 20 women’s cooperatives worldwide that support women’s human rights education, child trafficking, homelessness and poverty.

Littleton, Colo., (PRWEB) May 25, 2006 -- Global Girlfriend, a unique web based and mail order fair trade boutique, is pleased to announce the launch of its latest collection. The line, which supports women’s human rights worldwide, features fashion forward items such as an exclusive line of beaded and silver jewelry from well known designer Amy Kahn and KABW, a women's cooperative in Nepal that uses traditional Nepalese skills to create much needed employment and income for impoverished women and their families. Another key item in this season’s Global Girlfriend collection is 100% organic cotton clothing line made by women at Assisi Garments, a fair trade organization started by the Assisi order of nuns in southern India. The entire Global Girlfriend collection can be viewed and purchased at www.globalgirlfriend.com. Additionally, Global Girlfriend items are now being carried at Whole Foods Market’s Belmar location in Colorado. The partnership marks the first national retailer to join the Global Girlfriend family – a huge step for independently owned Global Girlfriend and an even bigger step for the women behind the products.

Owned and operated by longtime women’s advocate and former social worker Stacey Edgar, Global Girlfriend is a fun and simple yet powerful way for consumers to support women in need, both at home and across the globe. Global Girlfriend believes that economic opportunity for women holds the promise for real change because when women have an income, they reinvest in their children’s health, education and nutrition, creating a multiplier effect that creates stronger families and communities over time.

The one-of-a-kind boutique has designed and hand selected a line of stylish items that benefit women’s human rights without compromising style. This philosophy is the underlying theme behind Edgar’s attempt to help women help themselves.

“The women we work with are incredibly enterprising and tenacious, they just need design input to appeal to the Western markets and economic opportunities to get their products to those markets” she commented. “By helping them create marketable products using their amazing skills and craftsmanship, we are able to create a sustainable business model that can help break the cycle of poverty,” Edgar continued.

“This is such a simple way to give a ‘hand up’ when you shop and now, with the addition of Whole Foods, customers can experience the Global Girlfriend line online, by catalog or in person,” she added.

This season’s collection is perhaps the most personal to Edgar to date, after a recent trip to visit her artisans in India and Nepal. Edgar was most moved by her visit to Conserve India, a non-profit based in the slums of New Delhi where women collect plastic bags from garbage dumps and recycle them into amazing high fashion handbags.

“When visiting the women who work for Conserve at the dump site where they also live, it was incredible to see what they have been able to create from what most of us would consider nothing,” Edgar reports. “When Conserve began working with the women in this slum they were illiterate to the point that they had never even held a pair of scissors let alone written with a pencil. Conserve is working to change this with adult literacy and skills training as well as much needed resources for housing, health care, water treatment and education for this vibrant, dynamic and truly resourceful community,” she continued.

Conserve’s products include handbags, messenger bags, makeup bags, and day-timer style organizers all made from colorful plastic fabric recycled from plastic bags resurrected from the dumps of India.

Global Girlfriend’s new collection includes products from ten different countries and over 25 different women’s non-profit organizations and cooperatives. The products benefit causes such as women’s human rights education, child trafficking, homelessness, fair trade and poverty. Items may be purchased at www.globalgirlfriend.com through a mail order catalog and in person at Whole Foods Belmar in Colorado.

About Global Girlfriend
Global Girlfriend is a unique fair trade boutique offering stylish accessories and gifts that help women in need help themselves. All of Global Girlfriend’s products are hand made by women’s non-profit programs in the US and cooperatives worldwide. The line of apparel, accessories and gifts is a marriage of the talents of female artisans worldwide and the trends that grace the pages of today’s fashion magazines Global Girlfriend’s catalog and web based boutique lets shoppers support disadvantaged women in over twenty organizations around the world. Global Girlfriend was founded by longtime women’s advocate and social worker Stacey Edgar and inspired by her mother in law, former Illinois first lady Brenda Edgar. The company is headquartered in the Denver, Colorado area with ties in Chicago and Boston. For more information please visit www.globalgirlfriend.com.

Media Contact:
Anna Bahr
Tel 303 680 7004
Cell 303 229 6558

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