Completeness index
The Twelve Questions
Twelve things a garment should be able to answer about itself. Three of them a label is required to carry. The other nine appear only if the brand decides to say them. This page publishes the list and the rules for reading it, before a single label has been read.
Required
Three a label has to carry
These three are on the label because labelling rules ask for them. They are the floor, and a garment that answers all three has answered what it was obliged to answer and nothing more.
- 1
What is it made of?
The fibres, with their percentages. A blend named without figures leaves half the answer out.
- 2
Where was it sewn?
A named place: a country, or a region inside one. Made in Asia names a continent, and a continent is not where anything was sewn.
- 3
How do you care for it?
Washing, drying, ironing. See instructions is not an instruction.
Voluntary
Nine nobody is obliged to answer
Nine questions no rule requires. Each one is answerable. Each one is a decision a brand makes, and the point of listing them is that they are decisions rather than impossibilities.
- 4
Where did the fabric come from?
Where the cloth was made, which is a different place from where the garment was sewn.
- 5
What dyes, finishes and hardware?
Dye class, finishing treatments, hardware, elastic. A care label declares none of them.
- 6
Who made it?
In the form the maker prefers, whether that is a name, a workshop or a group.
- 7
When was it made?
A date, or at least a year.
- 8
Where can it be repaired?
Somewhere you could actually take it. Repairable on its own says nothing about where.
- 9
How long is it meant to last?
A length of time. Built to last is a sentiment, not a length of time.
- 10
Can it be recycled?
Given the actual blend, and with a route. Recyclable with nowhere to take it is aspiration.
- 11
Where do you take it back?
An address, a shop, a channel that answers.
- 12
What happens to it afterwards?
For the material class, stated as fact and not as a hope.
How it is read
Binary, and reported as two numbers
Answered or not. Nothing in between.
No partial credit and no weighting. Weighting is where an index becomes arguable, and this one has to be unarguable: anyone can take the list, take a label, and get the same result.
Answered means present and specific.
A blend with no percentages is unanswered. Made in Asia is unanswered. Recyclable with no route is unanswered. Text in the box is not the same as an answer in the box.
Two numbers, never one.
The required block and the voluntary block are reported separately and never added together. Adding them would hide the only thing worth seeing, which is how far apart they sit.
The list is fixed before anything is counted.
Published first, then read against labels. A list assembled after the numbers arrive is a list built to produce them.
On country of origin
An absence is named, never warned about
A label often names where a garment was sewn and says nothing about where its fabric came from. That gap is written down as what the label says and what it does not: sewn in Indonesia, fabric not stated. It is never written as a warning. A tool that lets a country name stand in for quality argues against everything Mula is for, and argues it against garment workers in the same region as the makers Mula works with.
What this is not
A reading of a label, not a verdict on a brand
This index is read against one label at a time, and it describes that label. No surface classifies a company, ranks one, or characterises a catalogue from a sample. A label that answers three and leaves nine blank has answered three and left nine blank. That sentence is the whole finding, and it is not an accusation.
Version
This list, dated
The list is repeated year on year, which is what makes it an index rather than a one-off reading. Every figure carries the version of the list it was counted against, so a list that changes later does not quietly rewrite what was counted earlier.
List version 2026.1
Read a label with it
Type or paste what a care label says, and see which of these it answers.
Open the reader