If you’re unfamiliar with any of the nominees, we’ve compiled a short dossier on each, to help you cast your vote:
Honest by. Bruno Pieters
After shuttering his namesake label and stepping down as art director from the Hugo Boss diffusion line, Hugo, Bruno Pieters spent a year traveling around Southern India, where he observed that the locals “wore clothes that were grown, woven and sewn from sources they could identify around them.” Pieters (whose design aesthetic leans towards avant-garde) saw this as a kind of radical transparency, one he used as a model for his Honest by. label, which launched in January 2012.
Honest by. lives up to its name: The site offers a full cost breakdown on each item, including composition, supplier and manufacturer information for every single element of the garment — that includes the hang tag, brand label and safety pin used to package it. In addition to raw material costs, the label details wholesale and retail markup calculations. The manufacturing disclosure includes the location, size and manager’s name at the production facility, as well as the number of fittings which were needed to produce the basic sewing pattern. The online store features clothing and shoes for both men and women, as well as jewelry.
