Code Creations Eco Apparel Website Review

Code Creations is an online fashion website. Sounds simple enough. But when it asked for a paid review of its website it turns out it’s much more.

Firstly, it offers 100% organic cotton t-shirts for adults, kids, babies and, believe it or not, dogs. There’s some other stuff made out of hemp and bamboo too. What makes it different is that its funky designs and funny slogans aren’t its own creations, but rather an online community. Artists from all over the world come up with designs and then vote on their favourites which are them made into t-shirts for sale.

What they sell is limited edition designs which means you’re very unlikely to bump into someone wearing the same thing. Their aim is to make this process fun and exclusive and get people who wouldn’t normally wear eco apparel interested in it through design.

The website makes all this quite clear but it took me a while to work it all out in my head, especially as you can sign up to be in the Code Club which means you get a new t-shirt every month plus three free ones thrown in or you can just treat the site as a regular shop. As a way of appealing to trendy people who update their look all the time, the club is a great idea. For someone like me it’s good to have the option to buy a new t-shirt when I feel like it, which is normally twice a year or something.

You could spend days on this website, even without going on the shop. There’s information on there not only about Code Creations but also about if you’re going shopping for apparel and what to look out for. There are links to videos, information about fundraising, the red team and even tea parties. It’s a bit like a social network, but just for design fans and you can become involved as much as you like. If you want to get out and try and find one of the 50 limited edition t-shirts they’ve hidden in a treasure hunt style around America then you can. Or you can just buy a night shirt.

Registration is free and simple although your application does have to go through a moderator but that literally took a minute. It seems you can actually vote on designs without registering but where’s the fun in that? Submitting a design is a little more complication, with the focus on ‘little’ as the team have made it pretty easy for you to do. You can download templates and do whatever you like. Even for those like me who can’t draw to save their life you can use some of the site’s codes like the t-shirt pictured on the left. Each bird corresponds to a letter which you need to decode through the site (it says “ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY” by the way). Or if you have a funny slogan in your head you could just do that.

The Code Creations team approve the designs and put them up onto the site for others to vote on, which is where the fun begins. If the design is popular enough and then sold by the site you’ll receive US$1 per t-shirt sold. But you can also win prizes and other fun stuff too to get people involved.

There seems to be lots and lots of t-shirts on there for around $25 but there’s also stuff for your baby or dog. Which reminds me that 25% of the company’s profits goes to animal rescue organizations.

Reviewing the website is also a bit like reviewing the company itself although I don’t know anything about the quality, delivery times etc etc. Writing this review has left me feeling very impressed and surprised as I didn’t know anything like this was out there. Take a look for yourself at www.code-creations.com. And until 31 December 2008 if you enter AMBER at the checkout you’ll get 15% off your bill.