Fabric Scandinavien is a fast growing fashion company that was also the first Swedish company to join FWF in 2007. Fabric Scandinavien owns several different fashion brands, most famous being the Cheap Monday jeans brand and Monki. Fabric Scandinavien AB is the mother company and is owned by 60 % by H&M. Weekday Brands AB, Weekday AB and Monki AB are subsidiaries to Fabric Scandinavien. Monki AB owns the brand Monki. Weekday Brands AB owns the brands Cheap Monday, Kostym and Latjo Lajban Vintage. Weekday AB owns the brand MTWTFSS.

Fabric Scandinavien has used FWF teams for the audit some of their factories and have now started cooperating with H&M to cover more production sites in their auditing program. A management system audit is scheduled for the end of December 2009. FWF, FLA, Fabric Scandinavien and H&M is working on a memorandum of understanding to avoid double audits and take advantage of synergy effects.

In December 2009 FWF carried out the second management system audit. The resulting report can be downloaded here.

During Fabric Scandinavien’s first year of FWF affiliation the focus of the work was on auditing the suppliers in China. During year two, Fabric Scandinavien shifted focus to strengthening suppliers’ ability to cope with CSR-issues themselves. A training program was developed and implemented at one third of the supplier base. The first two years of affiliation has also to a large extent been used to adjusting to structural changes in the company, in part caused by H&M buying a majority share of the company.

Fabric Scandinavien owns several fashion brands including Cheap Monday, Monki and MTWTFSS. The products of these brands are sourced through three different entities of Fabric Scandinavien: Monki, Weekday and Weekday Brands. The factories producing for Weekday and Weekday Brands are covered by independent verification through the affiliation to FWF. The sourcing by Monki should be covered by independent verification on factory level by Fair Labour Association (FLA) of which Fabric Scandinavien’s owner H&M is an affiliate. It is also the mandate of FWF to verify the total management system for social responsibility of all entities of Fabric Scandinavien.

Fabric Scandinavien had covered 65% of the supplier base of Weekday and Weekday Brands with audits within two years which is more than the 60% required for two years membership.

Fabric Scandinavien has put a lot of effort on awareness raising within the company. Originally one person worked full time with CSR-issues including implementation of FWF affiliation. More people have become involved in this work over time, resources from H&M’s compliance department have also been used and now one auditor in China will be engaged in doing audits and following up corrective action plans.

At the MSA at the head office in Gothenburg not all documents could be inspected since the management actually is done from three different locations, Gothenburg, Tranås and Stockholm. Furthermore issues regarding sourcing are to a large extent handled at the Puls trading office in China. Therefore, next year’s MSA will give extra attention to verifying the supplier list and other documents.