Our young people have talent: Sabay, ethical dresses created in Cambodia<

Anastasia de Wenden, a 23-year-old French girl who recently arrived in Cambodia, is launching her first collection of handmade dresses. It was by noting the difficulties faced by the textile industry and the Cambodian workers that her brand Sabay was born. Through the seamstresses of the Kampot market, Anastasia hopes to be able to help Cambodian craftsmanship on her own scale.

In order to finance her project, the young woman launched an Ulule fundraising campaign. Lepetitjournal.com met him.

You recently arrived in Cambodia and you are already launching your first collection, tell us.

I arrived in Cambodia in January 2021, so that I could get involved in an association that helps the poorest in the slums of Phnom Penh. I lived in Phnom Penh until Covid-19 arrived in March. The curfew and then the confinement, and more generally the general fear surrounding the virus, made it very difficult for us to go to the slums and carry out our missions.

Can you explain the origins of the Sabay adventure, how did you start this project?

Shortly before confinement and my activity being at a standstill in Phnom Penh, I was lucky enough to be able to go to Kampot where the situation is much calmer. As soon as I arrived, I wanted to develop a project that would be close to my heart. With friends also interested in the textile industry, I learned a lot about the situation of this sector in the country, and the considerable ravages of the Covid crisis. More specifically, I discovered the extent of the wave of layoffs targeting women textile workers, who find themselves without jobs, without activity and without protection. At my level, I thought about a way to act. On the Kampot market, I met seamstresses with whom I immediately hit it off. Their smile and their kindness touched me a lot and I started making prototype dresses with them. To say that I was impressed by the quality of their preparation would be an understatement! The rendering of my first tests corresponded exactly to what I wanted, to the vision I had of my dresses. From there, I really considered working directly with them, without choosing to go through a factory, however ethical and responsible it might be. This choice has a cost, but it corresponds perfectly to my initial desires, since I know concretely where the money that I devote to the confection goes, without any intermediary in the whole process.

Can you explain to us the process of making Sabay dresses?

The process is simple: I go to the Kampot market to source the fabric, with patterns in the spirit of SABAY - bohemian, chic, relaxed and flowery. After choosing as many fabrics as possible that I like, I go back to see the seamstresses I work with. They are four at the moment. And I ask them to make me different dresses according to the orders I have received. I created four models of dresses so as not to diversify too soon, too quickly, and so that the SABAY spirit is easily identifiable: the Phnom Penh, the Koh Rong, the Battambang and the Siem Reap, a small tribute to the cities of this country that I loved to discover.

You have just launched a fundraising campaign on Ulule, can you explain how it works?

Ulule is a platform that helps people who start a project, to raise funds and to make themselves known. Ulule's concept, which works on pre-orders, also makes it possible to avoid another flaw in the textile industry, which consists in producing dresses even before they have been sold, with an inherent risk of overproduction. Thus, it is only when I receive an order, with the model, size and pattern chosen by the customer, that I go back to the market to make it. We can therefore almost speak of a "tailor-made" dress since each model is unique and I can meet the specific requirements of each person who supports me, especially in terms of size. The Ulule campaign has now been launched for four days, and I am devoting all my energy to it, since the project will only succeed if I reach 100 pre-orders. This is how the site works: if this level is not reached, each customer will be reimbursed and the project will never see the light of day.

Your brand is ethical and you work with Cambodian seamstresses, what are your commitments?

Cambodia is one of the countries with the cheapest labor in the world. In our case, by getting out of the classic straitjacket of the traditional textile industry, we remunerate our seamstresses not by paying them a salary, but by paying them by the dress, with a share devoted to labor costs ultimately identical to those that we would support if we produced in France. And talking here with people who have worked in the sector for several years, they were very surprised at our cost price, which they consider "exorbitant". But I am very happy to sacrifice part of SABAY's margin for the benefit of its seamstresses with whom I have developed a real relationship of trust, and to whom I allow to have a source of income in these times when their activity is to the point of death. And it is important to remember that the textile industry has too often accustomed us to paying high prices for clothes for the mere name of the brand. Neither the materials used nor the know-how behind the creation justify such exorbitant prices.

How do you anticipate the development of your brand, will you keep the same functioning?

If the Ulule campaign is a success, I intend to continue the project and give it more scope. The idea would be to perpetuate this slightly different production model and make it viable. In this sense, it will be essential for me at one time or another to structure a team on site, probably from the second collection. Perhaps we will manage, on our scale, to contribute to making the textile industry more transparent and more responsible.

With a collection in honor of Cambodia, its inhabitants and their smiles, the dresses can be found on Ulule until May 23.