Conscious Choice: Green: The New Black

Sporting garments from Earth Speaks’ fall collection, the model wears the hemp, wool and yak blend Kimi skirt. Photo: Roberto Fauceglia

Fast Fashion Facts

• According to the Organic Textiles Association organic apparel and diapers accounted for $138 million in 2005

organic fiber sales (which includes apparel as well as home furnishing, linens and more) accounted for $160 million in 2005 in the U.S., which was 0.1 percent of total fiber sales

cotton uses approximately 25 percent of the world’s insecticides and more than 10 percent of the pesticides

• According to Organic Exchange, over the past five years:

organic apparel accounts for less than one percent of retail sales in the U.S. and worldwide

the number of brands and retailers in North America, Europe and Japan with large organic cotton programs grew from five to more than 30; the number of small brands and retailers in North America, European and Asian markets has grown from a few hundred to over 1,200 companies by the end of 2005

organic cotton retail sales globally increased from $245 million in 2001 to $583 million in 2005, an annual average growth rate of 35 percent

• the Sustainable Cotton Project says the amount of cotton used to produce one non-organic t-shirt requires roughly one-third of a pound of chemicals

• the Council for Textile Recycling discovered that about 85 percent of used textiles go to landfills, where they occupy four percent of solid waste

November 2006

Green: The New Black

Sustainable fashion attracts the mainstream market with modern looks

By Jessica Herman

An emerging breed of fashion designers with a conscience are showing this season’s new black: green. While for decades, sustainable clothing has reeked of patchouli, today’s eco-friendly designers offer a refined, modern aesthetic that’s right on the money with contemporary fashion. Yesterday’s burlap sack tunics are making way for structural, fitted styles.

So what is “sustainable fashion?” Jill Danyelle, whose blog Fiftyrx3 ( fiftyrx3.blogspot.com ) documents the intersection of sustainability and style, uses the environmentalists’ mantra—reduce, reuse, recycle—to loosely categorize the types of green fashion on the market.

“Reused is anything from the Salvation Army to eBay to flea markets to high-end vintage stores,” she says. “Reduced has a dual meaning: It may be reducing consumption but also looking for fabrics or a production process with a reduced impact on the environment. Recycled is when you alter something from the past and reuse it again.”

As Danyelle suggests, there’s a whole world of sustainable fashion beyond American Apparel’s organic cotton tees. For starters, in addition to using organic cotton, designers are using fibers such as hemp, linen, soy, bamboo, ingeo and seaweed; unlike standard cotton, which typically requires heavy use of pesticides, these fibers grow and replenish naturally.

Beyond the choice of fabric, sustainable design runs the entire production process through the wringer. Portland-based designer Anna Cohen addresses some of these issues by packaging her skinny-leg jeans and batwing-shaped jackets in as little plastic and recycled paper as possible, recycling water and then cleaning it before dispensing it outdoors, offsetting the amount of diesel energy that she uses in shipping by contributing to renewable energy sources, and making sure that her workers are paid and treated fairly.

Earth Speaks clothing founder Bi Li opted to open her own fair trade factory in China to ensure that her hemp-and-silk blend garments, studded with semi-precious stone buttons, are produced by her standards of sustainability.

Over the past few years, pioneers such as husband-and-wife duo Karen Stewart and Howard Brown have paved a path for eco-minded designers. Four years ago, when the couple launched their all-organic apparel line Stewart + Brown, many boutiques that they approached scoffed at the concept. Since then the couple’s coveted looks, like sweet green hoodies and cowl-neck sweaters, have appeared in countless fashion rags for their stylish and sustainable wares sought after by high-end as well as exclusively sustainable boutiques like Green Loop in Portland and BTC Elements online. Howard finds that stores are treating the “o” word less as a stigma and more as a selling point.

Even the catwalks are showing shades of green. During New York’s Fashion Week 2005, the Future Fashion Show, sponsored by Earth Pledge, saw body suits, bustiers and billowing wrap dresses by Diane von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta. But unlike your standard high-style affair, the show challenged the haute couture designers to use only eco-friendly materials in their designs. San Francisco and Paris have followed suit by hosting their own green fashion shows.

Two significant stamps of approval are helping to make strides in growing the green clothing market: First, the collaboration of Bono and his wife Ali Hewson with New York fashion designer Rogan Gregory to create the “socially conscious clothing label” Edun gave organic wares the all-important celebrity-backing. Then, by transitioning a portion of their lines to 100-percent organic or green, big name brands like Simple, Levi’s and American Apparel are doing the same for organic clothing that Wal-Mart has attempted to do for organic food: made it accessible for the mainstream market.

In Chicago, the soil is fertile for green design. Two sustainable clothing stores opened in the past year: Grow, a children’s boutique, and Oqoqo, a Canadian brand that sells yoga-inspired wares. Designers are sprouting up, too: Donna Piacenza of Studio 1 a.m. creates cuffs from the sustainable material cork; artist Dolan Geiman follows the recycling route by embellishing used garments with screen-printed images, patches and grommets.

It’s becoming increasingly easier to shop organic, but Howard Brown advises consumers to be savvy shoppers and distinguish the designers who are committed to the cause from those who are merely “waving the flag” as a marketing ploy.

“Sustainable means putting back what you take out,” says Brown. “To me it transcends just the fiber that’s used. I think about our Mongolian Cashmere line, the way we’re employing indigenous Mongolians so they’re able to continue with the cultures and traditions they’ve developed and not have to…get a crappy factory job in the city.”

Several designers and companies join One Percent for the Planet, an alliance of small businesses that donate one percent of their sales to non-governmental, non-profit environmental organizations. They only hope that consumers will meet them halfway by demanding more green design on the market.

“With the kind of brand we’ve created it is about a mindset,” says Brown. We want people to make educated choices. You’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.”

If all goes well, style and sustainability just might coexist happily ever after.

Jessica Herman is a Chicago- based writer who has a love of nature, fresh and abundant produce and, of course, fashion.

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