Handcrafted and ethically traded silk products from Cambodia and other parts of South East Asia. Putting people before products and quality before profits!
From buying to selling, Floating Stone Enterprises is about people, connections and community.
VALUES
HOMESALES
WHOLESALE
SILK STORIES
POLICIES
A WORD ABOUT THE CREATOR OF FLOATING STONE
VALUES
From buying through selling Floating Stone Enterprises is about people, connections and community therefore:
We seek primarily handcrafted and ethically traded silk products from small scale business enterprises, cottage industries, self help and aid organizations.
We purchase and create silk products that are very unique and of excellent quality to offer customers something truly special and exciting.
We seek to form long lasting business and personal relationships with suppliers and customers to enhance the trade experience for each person in the chain of exchange.
We endeavor to purchase products that are not made through exploitive means.
We endeavor to purchase products that assist people to stay living in their communities with their families.
We buy from businesses that are working to enhance the well being of others and are contributors to the social good of their communities.
We recognize that for most of our suppliers getting a Fair Trade designation is not possible at this time. We will do what we can without being intrusive to assist where possible towards values of Fair Trade.
We listen to customer and supplier input and feedback. Customers and retailers are our source of information. We need to be in communication with you to find out about your preferences in terms of styles, colours, quality and what you are looking for. We don’t want to rely on the fashion industry to dictate what choices will be available. We are excited about being able to work with many of the designers that we are buying from to bring your requests and ideas to life .
We live in a global community but we seldom have the opportunity to understand much about the lives of the people who work very long hours for very little money to bring us beauty and adornment. Floating Stone believes that fashion is fun and can be a fantastic opportunity to share with others rather than simply the pursuit of individualistic vanity.
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HOMESALES
(Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland in BC, Canada only)
 Floating Stone Sells direct to you, in your home or workplace, so that we can share more than just products with you. We can illustrate the wonderful creativity of the people who make these products. We can tell you a little about their lives. We can share with you some of our amazing adventures.
Floating Stone Home Sales are simple events with no sales pressure involved nor food or fuss required. You provide the venue where guests can come and enjoy the beauty of the silks and purchase any that appeal to them. I help your guests with their choices and field questions about, where the silks come from; the people who make them; the techniques used for the hand woven pieces; as well as provide ideas on how to wear them or use them for home décor.
If you choose to host a home sale then it is your sale and you, of course, are welcome to structure it as you please. Typically the sales are drop-in format with a timeframe of two to four hours. I arrive, usually with a helper, an hour or so in advance to set up. My helper handles the cash, wrapping and helps with set up and clean up.
You invite your guests, post notices in your workplace or do whatever you feel comfortable doing to welcome your guests to the sale. Rule of thumb seems to be, however many you invite about half will show up. Giving guests something on paper (or via email) with the date, time, location and directions really helps. I will send you some information to include in the invitation, if you wish, on what kinds of products Floating Stone is currently offering. If you are comfortable with me inviting previous Floating Stone customers from your area then I will invite them by email.
Before the sale it is always a good idea to put away breakables and valuables and to have lots of open space so that people can move around easily. For display I need cleared tables and other surfaces to show the silks and accessories on. Couches, chairs, beds and kitchen counters are all great for display purposes.
For insurance purposes your guests are covered under your homeowner policy as long as we refer to the sale as a party.
For hosting a sale you receive 10% of sales in product as well as an automatic $25 worth of product. It is always a good idea to set aside your selections before the sale starts. The most important thing is that everyone enjoys the sale. If you have any questions feel free to call or email (250 337-5824,
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WHOLESALE
We also sell to retailers who value and promote fairly traded products. Wholesale inquiries are welcome.
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SILK STORIES
February 2007
Silk Stories from Southeast Asia – Importing from the Heart
Oh what relief! We have found a dusty junction with a grubby little roadside stand and hooray, bottled water. My daughter and I have been walking, stumbling and muttering, for over an hour under the Cambodian tropical sun in search of drinking water. We are greeted by curious children and barely noticed by really tired dogs. Almost immediately three women appear on motos (small motorcycles), the typical mode of transportation all over Cambodia for those that can afford it. Just like we pounced on the water, the women pounce on us hopin g to sell us the scarves cascading in a riot of colour over their arms. Looking down at the blisters on my feet and over to the dust streaked sweat running down my 17 year old’s face it is pretty clear that I am going to have to buy some of these over priced scarves of dubious quality, in order to negotiate moto rides back to the ferry.
We came to Mekong Island, near Phnom Penh in Cambodia, looking for hand woven silk pieces for my import business. Besides the shy smiling weavers, working on lengths of garishly dyed silk destined for the commercial market, we found little else besides polyester scarves intended for tourists, and a great deal of poverty. The deal is cinched with the scarves and the motos are hired. We are three on one motorcycle and two on another and thankfully on our way back to the ferry.
By getting out to the weaving villages we didn’t find what we were looking for but we did observe a little about the lives of the people who live there. Homes are built on stilts to keep the sleeping area dry during the rainy season. Weaving looms are set up under the home, shaded from the scorching heat. This is where a lot of daily life takes place. Meals are prepared, children play, there is almost always someone in a hammock as well as pets and domestic animals lingering and lounging about.
Here, people make next to nothing for the rice growing, weaving and other work they do. Most Cambodians live rurally in abject poverty, many disabled from landmines and demoralized from the horrors of Pol Pot’s genocide. On top of it all, they graciously suffer the indignities of tourists, gawking at their meager lifestyles, hoping to buy stuff at rock bottom prices.
Comparatively, life in the weaving villages sounds like paradise when you hear the shocking stories associated with the large factories. Factories are one of the prime recruiting areas for the sex trade vultures. Demoralized by the conditions of their employment, too many women opt for the harsh reality of the sex trade rather than toil in the sweat shops. Cambodians are desperate for work and the opportunities are very limited. Many are essentially forced to work in the factories or the sex trade if it means feeding families.
This is a country where there is no social safety net and no health care assistance. Orphans roam, looking for garbage to sell or eat. Four year olds start solvent sniffing to fill up the hole in their hearts f rom being entirely alone in the world. Babies are “rented” by beggars, drugged and dragged around touristy areas to ply the tender hearted. Amputees, survivors of the still present landmines, are as much a part of Cambodia as are lotus flowers.
So here is the dilemma. How do I make an import business work and stay true to voice in my heart that screams, “Do not take advantage of the impoverished circumstances of people.” Importing with a social conscience is an adventure requiring a great deal of commitment and endless flexibility. It starts within, listening to the voice of compassion and continues by following the road less traveled wherever it leads.
It is easy to find all sorts of amazing stuff in Asia. You can go to the mother of all markets in Thailand and shop ‘til you drop. There are shippers set up on the perimeter of the market just waiting for boxes to fill up with funky clothing, textiles, cleverly constructed doodads, religious icons, jewelry, chic home décor, crafts from every nation, and a multitude of other temptations. They will have them sent to Canada, waiting on the doorstep before you can get home. Or for those who want the air conditioned malls there are plenty of those too, just brimming with cheap factory goods. Thing is, it is pretty predictable that most of the stuff comes from sweat shops or from people who were paid next to nothing for their hard work.
My importing adventure got started in Bangkok in Thailand “The Land of Smiles”. Bangkok is not for the faint of heart, spewing out so much pollution that you can taste it. This is a city of 10 million people with unbelievable traffic. Temperatures in the inferno range combine with humidity that leaves you drenched and parched the instant you step into it. You get weird rashes, sore throats, burning eyes, headaches and more from Bangkok traffic. Crossing the road is an adventure in itself. The best way to safely navigate the road is to get close to the locals. Really close! Abandon your sacred personal space, and cling to them like sauce on a noodle while weaving through the traffic whizzing by in both directions.
Getting close to the people, in my experience, is the best part of the adventure. I started purchasing from small shops where it was easy to establish a rapport and connection with the people working there. The shops were located in what seemed like massive rabbit warrens with tiny streets and passageways choked with people, motorcycles bearing huge loads, food vendors, street hawkers, and beggars.
 My first supplier had some funky bags that caught my eye. We made a deal and I waited in Merville to see if the bags would show up. They did and all went well. She has been of invaluable assistance in getting me started. She patiently helped me find shippers and warned me away from people and places where I would likely fall prey to the criminal element in Bangkok. She mostly employs young people who are deaf and mute. She also looks out for the younger street children, encouraging them with small jobs for food and pocket change, in the hopes that they won’t get caught in the criminal snares. I don’t know who made her products or if they came from a large factory. But I do know that without people like her, life on the streets for the vulnerable would be a little worse off.
Getting close to the people is also the best way to determine if any of the products I want to import have any redeeming social value. How do you talk to suppliers or ask them about such things as fair trade? Mostly I don’t. Cultural difference, language and the lack of relationship all get in the way of getting answers. What they know is that most people want their stuff for the least amount of money possible. They are painfully used to North Americans, Europeans and other tourists coming in and “bargaining” them down. So they counter with strategies that make some tourists feel “ripped off” The bigger questions are, “Are we paying fair prices and what are the underlying ideas constructing our notion of ‘fair’?” In the west we can think about, talk about, hold conferences about and set standards for so called free or fair trade. In the East, for most people, survival dictates that they work as hard as they have to for whatever they can get. How fair is that? Don’t get me wrong, we have to work towards fair trade but I worry about what happens to all the people who will never be able to participate in anything that offers them anywhere close to a fair deal.
Wages are only part of the picture. The broader working conditions and associated impacts are really important too. My friend Greg Booth, who has done development work for over nine years in Vietnam, explained that social capital has to be figured into the equation. For example, if a person can stay home in their village and work for a small wage doing piece work they can contribute in other ways to the family or community. Food preparation for the family, keeping company with the elders, watching the children, rearing food animals and so on are examples of these activities. While the person may be able to make more in the city, all of the other family needs have to be filled by someone else.
Family bonds are highly valued and separation from family and community is often a last resort. But many are forced to leave their homes to become one of the 40,000 taxi drivers in Bangkok or to some other urban center to work in shops, set up a food stalls, work in sweat shop factories or find some other means of survival for themselves and their families. It is not uncommon to meet people who are only able to visit their small children once or twice a year. Social capital recognizes the intangible values of family and community life.
In my quest for products that have socially redeemable qualities I spend a lot of time building relationships with suppliers. It happens slowly. I hang out, observe and ask questions about situations that occur in the shops. Mostly we understand each other but often context and meaning get quite confusing. I curse my inability with language and admire their multilingual talents and incredible patience. We muddle through our differences to make deals, understand shipping arrangements and agree on quality issues and timelines. When I return time and time again and keep purchasing from them the trust starts to develop. Questions about staff, product origins or distribution chains and so on are easier to ask. Mostly the answers are not what I want to hear but it is always an education about the reality that small businesses here are working with.
I look forward to hanging out with several of the shop keepers who have become friends over the years. They tell me about their lives and dreams, their musical interests, special holidays, their health, about the problems with their business, their fears for their teenagers, their abusive or philandering husbands, their political concerns, the tourists who offer them money for sex, and all the stuff of life that makes up their reality. We help each other. Sometimes I get on their computers and edit their marketing materials for English speakers or help with assignments for English language school. The list of things that they do to help me is just too long for this article. They always insist on feeding me and offering me special things, like bird spit. Good for the health I am told.
Initially my suppliers were small family enterprises in Bangkok and in other far flung cities, towns and villages in Thailand, Laos and China. My search continued for silk products that were as fairly traded as possible. There has not been any silk produced anywhere in the world that has the official “Fair Trade” designation. While only a handful of them are close to what could be called “fair trade,” there are a growing number of silk product businesses trying to address production and employment issues.
 I have visited amazing cottage industries where women are trained to work with silk. In these “factories” working conditions are good; babies swing in hammocks between the looms, smaller children play nearby, food is cooking, dye pots are steaming, orchids cascade down from latticed sunscreens and there is lots of laughter and chat. Tremendous pride is taken in showing the various processes associated with the creation of piece of hand woven silk. In some of these places women are trained to a level where they can work independently. Some choose to start their own businesses, others continue to work for the factory. Some weavers return to their villages and do piece work. They have choices about how to make a living and where they are going to live. But these situations are still relatively rare.
There are some non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) that are trying to assist with skill development working with silks and other textiles, as well as lots of projects that are aimed towards poverty relief. While I salute their intentions I want to work business to business. From my own experience it takes a lot of guts and determination to be a business person. My goal was to find businesses in South East Asia that have a keen interest in and awareness of the necessity for fair trade. I dearly wanted to find some businesses that actively contribute to the well being of their workers.
In one of those rare fortuitous moments I was introduced to a French women, by a Korean man in China, who told me to go to Cambodia. The voice of my heart had been whispering this suggestion for years. I had been afraid of going to Cambodia on my own to witness the devastation left from Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s years of genocide without having someone to process it with. But the heart will not be denied and I was on a plane headed for Phnom Penh without a hotel booked or a single contact.
In Phnom Penh there are some amazing small business that offer employees dignified livelihoods, skill development and choices.  I work primarily with now with two suppliers. One women, Kong, lost her leg to a landmine at the age of 12 and now trains people with a range of disabilities, including other survivors of landmines to work for her.
Another friend works for an NGO traveling all over Cambodia working with women issues, AIDS, gender awareness, abuse and so on. She is a young mother and also a passionate designer and loves to work with silk. She has transformed part of her household into a showroom and works at night and on weekends to create her masterpieces. She hires and trains women to tailor for her and is supportive if they choose to set up their own businesses. She also hires other women to care for her children and to cook for the household, which includes several members of her extended family.
Increasingly we co-create original products. We share our knowledge and skill bases to produce contemporary products that are more profitable for both of our businesses. We meet in their storefronts, factories, homes and in my hotel room. We go to the silk fabric shops where we “play” with designs and colours, and share the joys of our passion for silk.
My heart still aches for the conditions in which most of these people work and live but here at least there is an opportunity to work towards improving the situation. We talk and dream about ways of improving silk production in Cambodia which will mean reforesting land with the Mulberry trees that feed the silk worms. Cambodia only produces twenty percent of their own raw silk. The rest is imported from Thailand and Vietnam. Maybe one day Cambodia will once again be one of the world’s biggest and best suppliers of silk.
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POLICIES
Floating Stone guarantees all of our products against defects and flaws. We will repair or replace any item that is damaged prior to purchase or due to faulty workmanship up to and including 2 months after purchase date with a receipt. We will not replace or repair any item that is damaged due to wear and tear.
Returns will only be accepted within 14 days of purchase for credit with a receipt.
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A WORD ABOUT THE CREATOR OF FLOATING STONE
Lynda Drury - Owner and creator of Floating Stone Enterprises
It was time for a change. My Master’s degree in Comunication had provided a challenging career teaching Media and Women’s Studies combined with research, writing and community development consulting on Vancouver Island in Canada. I yearned to put all of what I had learned into practice in a new way. Looking at all of my goals and dreams on paper resulted in a brand new direction, a business that combined social justice, working with people from different cultures, a passion for silk and a love of travel and adventure. The rest was written in my heart. All I had to do was show up and commit all of my savings, time and inner resources to the project! My days vary from feeling like the luckiest person on earth to the most insane!
I am blessed with amazing family support from my two beautiful daughters, Rosa and Matia, who help me with purchasing suggestions, design ideas and drawings, selling, marketing and modeling. They are both featured in photos throughout the website.
I couldn’t have done this without my mother, Jane Drury’s loving support and capital investment. She held the first home sale and we haven’t looked back since. She is also my most enthusiastic shopper!
Julieta Miranda, my sister by choice, will soon be officially joining Floating Stone. Up until now she has most generously volunteered amazing amounts of time lugging product to sales, setting up displays, filling in when I can’t be in two places at once, working up displays and providing endless moral support. Julieta is a sounding board with practical suggestions on systems, exquisite taste and the guts to tell me exactly what she thinks! (She is also featured in photos on the website)
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