Code of Conduct and Statement of Expectations
This document sets out the standards that apply to everyone who makes Myrah Penaloza clothing, and the standards we hold ourselves to in return. It applies to 100% of our production.
Who this applies to
Myrah Penaloza garments are made by approximately thirty Balinese artisan families. About half work from their own homes, and about half from small workshops that the artisan tailors own and run themselves. We own no production facility and we use no factories.
This means our supply chain is not made of corporate suppliers. It is made of individual people and small family businesses we know by name and visit in person. We have written this document to fit that reality rather than adapting a template designed for factory auditing, because a code nobody in our chain could read or apply would be worse than no code at all.
It applies to every person and workshop producing our garments, and to our fabric mills and dye houses where our purchasing gives us standing to ask.
1. No child labour
No person under the age of 18 works on Myrah Penaloza garments, at any stage, in any location.
Because much of our production happens in family homes, we state this precisely: children are present in some of the spaces where our clothing is made, because they live there. They do not work on our garments, they are not permitted to, and no order is ever sized or scheduled in a way that would create pressure for family members to help meet it.
2. No forced labour
All work is freely chosen. No maker is bonded, indentured, or working to repay a debt to us or to anyone acting on our behalf. Nobody's identity documents are held. Nobody is required to lodge a deposit. Any maker may stop working with us at any time, without notice and without penalty, and continue to be paid in full for work already completed.
3. A living wage, paid directly
Every maker is paid a living wage, not the Indonesian legal minimum. Payment is made directly to the maker rather than through an intermediary who takes a margin along the way.
Rates are agreed with the maker before work begins. Payment is made in full and on time, and it is never delayed, reduced, or made conditional on our own sales. Through the COVID period we paid full wages across the network for the entire duration, while our own factories in India and the United States closed.
4. Working hours and self-determination
Makers set their own hours. There is no shift, no clock and no supervisor. Work happens around school runs, ceremonies, harvests and family life, which is a large part of why this structure exists.
We do not accept orders whose deadlines would require anyone to work excessive hours, and where a customer requests a timeline the network cannot meet comfortably, we quote a longer lead time rather than compress the making. Our published lead times exist to protect the maker, not to manage the customer.
5. Safe and healthy working conditions
Every space our garments are made in must be safe, clean, adequately lit and ventilated, with drinkable water and safe electrical installation. We visit these spaces. Where something is missing or unsafe, we raise it directly with the person able to change it, and we contribute to the cost where the requirement arises from our work.
6. No discrimination, and no harassment
No person is refused work, paid differently, or treated differently on the basis of gender, religion, ethnicity, caste, age, disability, marital or parental status, or any other personal characteristic. Harassment and abuse of any kind, verbal, physical or sexual, are grounds for ending a working relationship immediately.
The majority of our makers are women. Pregnancy and motherhood never end a working relationship with us, and work is held open.
7. Freedom of association
Every maker is free to associate, organise and bargain collectively, and to raise concerns with us individually or together, without any consequence to their work or their pay.
We are being straightforward here: home-based and small-workshop makers rarely have access to formal union structures, and we recognise that this is a genuine limitation of a distributed model rather than something our good intentions solve. Our answer is direct access. Any maker can raise anything with Myrah or Robindra in person or by phone, and does.
8. Subcontracting
No maker may pass Myrah Penaloza work to an undisclosed third party. If a maker wants to bring in additional help, that is welcome, and it must be disclosed to us so the standards in this document reach whoever is actually doing the work. Undisclosed subcontracting is how supply chains lose sight of their own labour conditions, and it is the single most common way codes like this one become fiction.
9. Environmental standards
- We do not use polyester. Around 95% of what we make is certified sustainably sourced linen and organic cotton.
- Our linen carries OEKO-TEX Standard 100. Lighter colourways carry European Flax and Masters of Linen. Our mills hold GOTS at fabric level.
- Botanical dyeing is used on our signature colourways, and dye waste is disposed of without discharge into waterways.
- Production is made to order or in small batches. We do not produce stock in order to destroy it unsold.
- Packaging has been plastic-free across the full supply chain since 2020.
- Where we find seasonal deadstock fabric that would otherwise be discarded, we buy it and use it.
10. Animal-derived materials
We use no fur, angora, exotic animal skin, down, leather or wool, and no material derived from a wild or endangered species.
Silk is the only animal-derived fibre in our range, in a very small number of ceremonial pieces. It is conventional mulberry silk rather than peace silk, and we do not currently hold farm-level traceability or third-party animal welfare certification for it. We name this rather than leave the word silk unexplained.
How this is communicated and upheld
This document is shared with every maker in a language they read, and discussed in person rather than sent as a file to be signed and filed. New makers go through it with us before their first order.
Compliance is monitored through direct, regular, in-person visits by the founders, not by a third-party auditor. Where a standard is not being met, our first response is to ask what is missing and to help resolve it, because in a network of family businesses the usual cause is a lack of resources rather than a lack of will. Where a standard is deliberately breached, particularly on child labour, forced labour, harassment or undisclosed subcontracting, the working relationship ends.
Raising a concern. Any maker, or anyone else, may raise a concern about conditions in our supply chain by contacting us at support@myrahpenaloza.com, or in person with Myrah or Robindra in Pererenan. Concerns may be raised anonymously. No maker has ever lost work for raising one, and no maker will.
What we do not yet have
We publish this section because a code of conduct that lists only strengths is a marketing document.
- No third-party social audit. A single audit runs into the thousands of dollars per site, and across thirty homes it carries the same arithmetic as the certification below. Compliance rests on direct relationships and our own visits, not an external auditor's report.
- No chain-of-custody certification. That standard asks every sewing site to be certified individually as a facility, at roughly $2,000 to $6,000 each per year, across around thirty homes and workshops. With a brand certificate of $1,500 to $4,000 on top, the arithmetic reaches somewhere between $60,000 and $180,000 a year, which for a brand our size is 8 to 25% of a year's turnover. We could consolidate into one certified factory and hold the mark within months. It would cost these families the way they work, so we have not. We set out the full arithmetic in why ethical certification prices out the most ethical brands.
- No published supplier list. Our makers are individual families rather than corporate suppliers, and we have not asked their permission to publish their names and locations.
- No formal grievance mechanism beyond direct contact. At our size, direct access works and is used. It would not scale, and we will need something more structured before it does.
- No measured carbon footprint. We have not yet measured this properly and will not publish an unverified figure.
Our full approach to sustainability and ethical production, including materials and certifications, is at myrahpenaloza.com/pages/slow-fashion.