Everyone in the design business loves howies. It’s the innocent you’re not obliged to disparage.

The company makes simple, hardwearing clothes, has a website filled with dreamy images of weekend relaxation, and, above all, it’s run by honest, ethical people. (You can tell, because, like innocent, they never capitalise letters.)

Personally, I’ve never believed a word of it.

(Picture by Stéfan) 

Before he created of The Wire, David Simon was a journalist. He made his name writing Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, a remarkable account of his time shadowing the Baltimore murder squad.

In the book there is a delicious exposition of the art of the interrogation, in which one of the detectives suggests a way of unnerving suspects. His idea is to put a poster up in the interview room listing the ways he can tell if someone is lying to him. The signs of someone holding out on you are, apparently:

·         UNCOOPERATIVE

·         TOO COOPERATIVE

·         TALKS TOO MUCH

·         TALKS TOO LITTLE

·         GETS STORY PERFECTLY STRAIGHT

·         MESSES STORY UP

·         BLINKS TOO MUCH, AVOIDS EYE CONTACT

·         DOESN’T BLINK, STARES

The guilty man, you see, isn’t always the one who refuses to answer your questions. The skill of the interrogator lies not in getting someone to talk, but in listening closely and picking at the holes in his story.

With that in mind, I went hunting for evidence on the howies site to see if the company is as ethical as it likes to give out. And what did I find? A lot of what to me appeared to be artfully contrived, non-specific nonsense like:

“We put our thoughts onto T-shirts in the belief that if enough people thought like us, they would sell.”

And: “The challenge for us was always to make people think as well as to buy.”

And: “One at a time. The best we can do.”

And: “Our Purpose – Why are we in business? For us it is not as simple [sic] to make a profit... The thing that has not changed from day one is the desire to make people think about the world we live in.”

Primed by Simon’s words, I sensed someone talking a lot and not saying much. Sounds like someone has something to hide, I thought.

So I emailed howies to ask where its clothes are actually made. For all the talk of the virtues of ‘organic’ and the business’s rootedness in Wales, there wasn’t a word about production facilities on the site. “After all, no point in buying organic if it’s made by toddlers in Vietnam,” I wrote, employing the sarcasm apparently beloved of Baltimore’s finest.

Two days later, howies emailed back.

What it sent was a friendly, personal note with a full breakdown of where each clothing line is made. “We visit all of our facilities,” howies said, “and assess them for their compliance to human rights, to ensure a fair, safe and non discriminating [sic] working environment for all workers.” The email finished: “Just to let you know, we’re working on adding country of origin info on the website….”

All right, good enough for now, I thought – as I believe a cop does after a pat-down fails to turn up anything incriminating. I’ll be watching you, though, and next time I’ll be back with a warrant.

So, last week, I paid them an unannounced visit. And what do you know, there was a new page saying:

Factories

We have decided to give information about the country of origin of our products in the catalogue so that you can make an informed decision before you buy. We have a formal assesment [sic] done on each of our factories to ensure the conditions for the people who produce our clothes are fair, safe and non-discriminatory. We will be putting more information about our factories on our website in the coming months. We will keep you posted.

That impresses me a little. The company listened and it’s trying to show some good faith. Of course, I want more details – something verifiable that would eliminate it as a suspect. Can it really not be more specific about pay, conditions, monitoring, child labour? We’ll see.

Granted, it never claimed to be squeaky clean – but with its artless professions of virtue, it has made a show of being one of the good guys.

Brands need to recognise that the web gives all their customers the opportunity to play detective. There’s a force of millions out there just waiting to throw you against a wall and demand some answers.

So woe betide those who haven’t got a convincing story to tell.