New York label Fanmail produces clothes with a conscience.

“Transparency” is a buzzword in the style world these days. And rightly so. In April 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,000 workers who, it turned out, had been producing clothing for a slew of well-known international fashion brands. Such was the complexity of the supply chains in question that many of these brands were not entirely sure whether they had been working with this factory or not. This state of affairs is obviously not good. Yet it persists. This year, to coincide with the third anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy, UK not-for-profit organisation Fashion Revolution published its inaugural Fashion Transparency Index, which ranked 40 well-known brands in terms of how readily they share the details of how their clothes are made and by whom. The report featured some worrying statistics. Half the companies surveyed did not (or could not) share where their raw materials come from. Forty per cent had no systems in place to monitor labour standards.

For many brands, then, there is plenty to do in terms of transparency and sustainability. But it would be difficult to level these criticisms at Fanmail, the New York-based label launched by former stylist Mr Charlie Morris in 2013 when he found himself unable to find a decent T-shirt from a trustworthy source. “It seemed insane to me that that didn’t already exist,” he says. But if T-shirts were the inspiration behind the brand (along with TLC’s 1999 album of the same name, which he had on repeat when he was working on initial concepts), Mr Morris quickly saw that its “differentiating factor” could be a completely transparent approach. “It’s holding both your vendors accountable to you and holding yourself as a brand accountable to your customers,” he says. “I think it’s something that customers care about and connect to. It’s good to know, in a globalised world, how all the components come together to make the garment that you put over your head in the morning.”

Mr Morris is serious about transparency. If you head over to the Fanmail website, you can clearly read about the reputable sources of his fabrics, and the different stages of Fanmail’s manufacturing process, most of which takes place locally, in New York. But he’s also seriously hands-on when it comes to his tactile products, which now include sweats, shirting and outerwear (Drake is a fan – he wore a custom-made Fanmail hemp suit on his 2014 tour) as well as his classic basic hemp tees. The fact that Mr Morris works with a lot of local suppliers means he’s able to focus not just on how these products come together, but what it’s like to wear them – as he puts it, “how a T-shirt feels as you’re putting it over your face and putting your arms through the holes.” Naturally, then, the details are key.

Below, Mr Morris talks us through three key pieces from the Fanmail spring collection that are available on MR PORTER.

This is where it all began for Fanmail – the ultimate T-shirt, cut for a loosely draping fit in 100 per cent hemp, which is sourced from Global Organic Trade Standard-certified mills in China.

“This material is so unique. When you think of hemp, you think of something super-crunchy and fibrous and brown. But this fabric is silky and has a beautiful drape and breathes really well. It’s like an even more elevated version of a viscose tee. It’s how you dream a viscose T-shirt would actually be, because those viscose tees, you get hot in them.

As Fanmail has grown, the line has expanded from basics into other categories, these simple twill shorts being a prime example. Enzyme-washed to give a particularly appealing, soft feel, they continue the same fastidious approach to colour and wearability that characterises Mr Morris’ tees and sweats.

“I want a Fanmail customer to be able to wear a total look, or be able to meet their look for every aspect of their wardrobe. Obviously, I don’t want Fanmail to grow just for the sake of growth. I want to be able to stand behind everything we do. But I see it as having a lot of potential. We’re doing knit sweaters for the first time this fall. In Queens.”

One of the biggest challenges Mr Morris faced was achieving his characteristic take on colour – vibrant, but also comfortably worn, as in this sweatshirt, which comes in a mixed hemp-cotton fabric.

“Something that’s really important to Fanmail is colour and the hand-feel of the fabric,” says Mr Morris. “Not everybody understands how to get accurate or rich, beautiful colour into a mixed-fibre fabric. I went through several dye houses until I found one that I was happy with and that could achieve the depth and richness of colour that Fanmail’s known for.”