Our people

Ethical Classics has been established by Joanneke Kruijsen. But she would never be able to do all the work on her own. Throughout the production cycle, Joanneke cooperates with many people. Whether they are farmers of organic cotton and sheep, spinners of wool, weavers of the organic cotton and wool, suppliers of ready made fabrics, producers of garments, people with a disability who make various products, the people who help with the website, the women who send out the orders, they all form a dedicated network of people involved in making the products of Ethical Classics.

Joanneke Kruijsen

Joanneke Kruijsen is Dutch and the designer of both the company and the clothing. She studied Industrial Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology and finished as an eco-designer. She wrote and successfully defended her PhD-dissertation on the diffusion of solar energy, partly carried out in the United States of America. She then left the University and worked for 3 years at the International Institute for the Urban Environment on sustainable urban development in Europe. Prior to being a member of the Dutch Parliament for the social democratic party, she worked at Woonlab, an innovation centre for the social housing sector in the Netherlands. After four years of politics, she did not stand again, but started her own business to enable people to live an ethical lifestyle: Ethical Classics.

Motivation and inspiration

The idea for Ethical Classics was born when Joanneke was looking for stylish, human and eco-friendly clothing for her work as a Member of Parliament. Unable to find these clothes, she made them herself. Since she was not the only person looking for this kind of clothing, she wanted to give others the same opportunity to opt for stylish, ethical clothing. The idea for Ethical Classics was born.
During the development of the business plan, three women formed an important source of inspiration:
• Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel: because of her contribution to innovation within fashion. She freed women of the tight corset and introduced the use of knitted fabrics and tweed for the familiar straight suits with stitched-on breast and waist pockets and braid around.
• Anita Roddick (the Body Shop): because of her contribution to the protest against the tyranny of the beauty industry and the development of human and eco-friendly beauty products. Originally, her idea for refilling bottles was born out of poverty. It was cheaper to ask customers to bring back their bottles and to refill them. Over the years, it became an environmental friendly option for the enormous production of bottles and developed into an integrated philosophy on environmental and animal fair trade.
• Barbara Sansoni (Barefoot): because of her contribution to Barefoot, a Sri Lanka based organization for the production of craft products with a strong focus on the human dimension of the production. The people who produce the colourful products of Barefoot receive a fair price for their production.