Topic
Bamboo fabric and other alternatives to toxic fashion.
For the last couple of months, Dorothy Woodend and I have have taken a "Gladrags" pledge to only wear clothes designed, cut and sewn locally. We figured we'd be doing our parts to strengthen the local economy without encouraging the burning of all those fossil fuels it takes to ship material and finished clothes around the world. That would earn us a little guilt-free and hedonistic pat on our backs, no?
Well, nothing's so simple. The more I looked into the ethics of global fashion, the more I became aware that, even when fabrics are turned into clothes and sold close to home, they've likely been produced far, far away, with their creation involving a murky soup of pesticides, dyes, fossil fuels and waste.
Consider our "natural" friend cotton, for example. Twenty-five percent of agricultural pesticides are used on cotton, causing major water pollution, chronic illness in farm workers and devastating impacts on wildlife. In the United States, cancer rates in states that produce cotton are significantly higher than in neighboring states that do not. The acidic chemicals used to process synthetic fabrics find their way into our rivers and streams, lowering the pH and destroying ecosystems.
So what's the best way to cut down on the damage to the planet and people caused by the global assembly line of fabric manufacturing?
Option one: stop wearing clothes. But it's a little cold in BC.
Wal-Mart organic
The next best thing is to join Dorothy Woodend on her thrift store hunt.
Next best is recycled fabric. Sans Soucie, a Vancouver designer, makes all of her clothes from recycled nylon stockings. And Tanya Berger, another Vancouver designer, buys items from used clothing stores and reconstructs them.
Great. But if you're not crazy about their styles, you're kind of hooped.
The next best thing is sustainable fabric and there's lots of hype around this right now.
Just last spring, New York fashion week made its first eco-friendly splash. Designers like Diane vonFurstenberg, Oscar de la Renta and Imitation of Christ sent models down the runway wearing bamboo, hemp, lempur, soy and seacell. Sounds great, but they overstretch my measly fashion budget by, oh, several hundred times. And though I might like them, these are all designers who make clothes designed to be obsolete, style-wise, within a season.
What else? Well, there's organics which has also been slow to take off due to the high price (the fabric is usually at least double the cost of non-organic). Recently, Wal-Mart introduced a yoga outfit made of organic cotton. It sold 190,000 units at 290 stores in 10 weeks. As a result, Wal-Mart is now the largest purchaser of organic cotton in the world.
Wal-Mart made these organic clothes more affordable than organic clothes in the past. And Business Week reported that CEO Scott bragged about stocking organic cotton yoga outfits. "We sold out in just 10 weeks...by using organic cotton instead of regular cotton; we saved the equivalent of two jumbo jets of pesticides."
But wearing Wal-Mart organic cotton isn't quite style nirvana, nor do I want my solution to come from big box land. So since neither local nor corporate is quite the answer, I'm still looking.
Bamboo clothes
I found out lots of local designers are now using sustainable fabric. Hemp clothing that looks as sexy as a potato sack isn't all that's on offer, apparently. Soy, bamboo and hemp don't require pesticides, so they're not as damaging to the environment, according to Susan and Yves Gagnon who own Syka Fabrics based in Mission, BC.
Gagnon says like organic food in its early days, for a while it was hard to be sure of what you're getting. Syka's soy and bamboo knits are from mills that are certified by OKO-Tex. And some of their other fabrics come from mills certified by ISO 14000, two very reliable bodies that certify environmental and human rights standards.
I admit to being won over when I felt the fabrics. They're no longer just for those admirable people willing to sacrifice style for sustainability. In fact, Vancouver designer Jason Matlo is using a few of them for his fall collection.
"Fashion's one of the worst things there is in terms of the environment. So if you can use something ethical, why wouldn't you?" he asks.
"I appreciate that other companies are doing that for the sake of marketing or just for the sake of the environment. But I don't have the luxury of making choices like that. So if I choose a sustainable fabric, it has to be about quality." None of his customers have been asking for it, and he's not telling them he's using it. To me, this suggests sustainable fabrics now exist at the highest levels of design.
If this trend percolates down to Zellers level, it will be exciting, no doubt. So far, however, most of the clothes that people buy off millions of store racks are made the old fashioned polluting and exploiting way.
'The soul of cloth'
Clothes companies are beginning to respond to consumer, NGO and shareholder pressure to improve, according to Andrew Frank of Canadian Business for Social Responsibility. But many companies' sustainability plans are really about brand protection. "Largely it's risk management. When news about you becomes negative in this economy that works on shares and trades, it affects the company's share price, value, brand, goodwill. All of that impacts on the bottom line."
Perhaps the answer is to own fewer garments, but to form more personal, knowing attachments to those clothes we do choose to wear. Lorraine Smith, editor of Spinners Quarterly, likes to speak of "the soul of cloth."
"Knowing the producer makes you feel good about it. I don't know the science of why that feels good, but it does. I knit baby blankets for friends, and without fail, people really appreciate it. There's something intrinsic in that sense: they think 'You took the time to think about me and the baby I just had and bundle these bits of yarn together to give my baby warmth.' There's an essence there. I guess it's soul. It's a code or a language that isn't manufacturable.
"I might make a blanket that looks just like the one you get at Pottery Barn," says Smith. "To the unknowing person, there is no difference. But when you say 'I made it myself,' it looks entirely different. Sometimes there is a difference of quality, sometimes in look. But it's often just in the perceived reality of how that came to be. And that is very valuable. It's invaluable."
"Last year, I made my man a Toronto Maple Leafs sweater," Smith continues. "And his friends tell me they want one. My starting price is $15,000 and I probably wouldn't even do it. Because I made it for him. If Wal-Mart made it, too, and we put them both under the microscope, we couldn't tell. But there's a spirit that's irreplaceable."
I think about the items in my closet that mean something to me. Either a friend made them or I did, or I know the designer is local, or it's handmade. I have a shawl I knitted a few years ago, a t-shirt silk screened by a local designer and a dress that a dressmaker around the corner made for me. I like those pieces best.
They are what Iris Murdoch might call "good." She believed only things that embody ethics and wholeness could be beautiful. To her, neither a model nor the sweatshop-produced clothes she sells can be beautiful.
So when I have a piece of clothing with a story that means something to me, I don't need 10 pieces from the GAP. Though, granted, it's not the perfect solution I thought I'd find when I decided to try and just dress local.
Vanessa Richmond is the assistant editor of The Tyee.
Vanessa Richmond and Dorothy Woodend will be speaking at the launch of BALLE BC's Fashion High "Dress Local" event tonight (April 26th) at St. James Community Square, 3214 West 10th Avenue, Vancouver. Click here for more information. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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marta
7 years ago
Comments on "'The Soul of Cloth'"
Why dismiss Walmart so cavalierly? At least they did one thing right. You don't really give a reason for not buying there except you hate big box stores. Did you end up buying anything?
Chris Bouris
7 years ago
Nice article Vanessa.
Cavalier? The author is rather polite.
The optics of "doing one right thing" and the real facts behind optics should be investigated closely.
You might consider having look at the documentary: "Walmart: The high cost of low price". Available in many video rental shops.
And not available at WalMart.
skeptikool
7 years ago
I don't know whether it's because the material does not breathe but any underpants other than 100 per cent cotton, leave me with awful groin problems. I imagine that hemp would work - if it wasn't too much like sackcloth.
Anybody else not too embarrassed to render an opinion on their jockey shorts or knickers?
gardensnake
7 years ago
Hemp/Cotton hybrid clothing rules.
Gerhardius
7 years ago
skeptikool:
100% cotton here mate. During an impromptu trip to the Eastern Bloc in 1989 my girlfriend and I needed some new underwear and we went to a large department store in Warsaw. The selection was minimal, the style was Sears circa 1955, and the material was a mix of cotton, nylon and something rough. The first day wearing the new undies was the last: we left on the train for Krakow @ 9AM and before noon we had both "unfurnished the basement" after chafing.
skeptikool
7 years ago
Gerhardius,
Those Eastern Bloc people are a tough breed. Guess they have to be.
While I'm not a Scot, I'm increasingly drawn to the kilt. If I should take the plunge, I'm sure that the answer to the inevitable question would be, "No"
Of course, we're talking Canada here - not the most benign kilt-climate.
skeptikool
7 years ago
Vanessa,
I saw no mention of flax - another versatile plant providing, also, a valuable food.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but is not flax the basis of the famed Irish linen?
Yammer
7 years ago
Cotton is overrated. It chafes like a sumbitch when it gets wet. I learnt this when I took up running in a serious way. Gaaa. The pain, the pain.
You would think that BC produces lots of hemp... I have tried on a few of these shirts and they were surprisingly un-scratchy. However, they were all loose, unconstructed, Folk Festival type things. As a guy who has to look somewhat professional from time to time, there's really nothing yet I can buy in hemp.
Gerhardius
7 years ago
I forgot about the "athletic activites" angle. I have some really soft "wick away" stuff for sports, I just checked but all the labels are cut away so I don't know the blend of fibres.
nquastel
7 years ago
I spent a bit of time worrying about these issues.
I noticed that traditional men's wools suits are (i)worn far more often and so less disposable than most cotton based clothes like jeans or cords, (ii)use wool, which is, generally, organic (Although clearly not great for the local ecosystem it might be better than cotton)
(iii)very often produced locally (or at least in Canada) by well paid, often union labour.
and (iv)all a man used to need was two good suits.
Which makes me think that part of the ecological problems with clothing have to do with how style is developed around systems of provision which don't want that kind of sustainability.
Moral of the story: Focus on social custom, regulation, and the way consumption is often led by producers needs.
mikev
7 years ago
From the article:
"Hemp clothing that looks as sexy as a potato sack isn't all that's on offer, apparently."
Yammer:
"surprisingly un-scratchy"
I guess it shows my young age, but I'm really surprised when I see these sentiments. For denim there's nothing that will last longer, for t-shirts and such cotton blends do the trick just fine. I just read an article on Wired today, and if you can get by the dismissive attitude they do have points (I go there occasionally for tech news, their oh so hip social commentary doesn't impress me at all)
http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.05/neo.html
You'd expect the "they want to be seen as someone who's concerned about the world around them" attitude from a bunch of marketers, but as long as they pump out more environmentally friendly products then who cares what kind of shallow reasoning is behind it. I'm not offended if they think I buy a hemp product just to show people how stylish I am.
"Hemp ponchos and vegan sandals are butt-ugly" - more of the same. Was hemp sexually molesting children before I was born or something? Why do so many older people have such a deep seated disgust for hemp?
The shirts here look professional enough to me:
http://www.canhempco.com/thc_products_home.html
or here:
http://www.rawganique.com/ShirtsBCS2.htm
or here:
http://www.hemptown.com/?p2=/modules/hemptown/catalog.jsp&catalogId=2
or here:
http://www.trendzclothing.com/hemp.html
You just have to be willing to pay a premium. I think it's worth it for durability, the price might be high because of a lack of economies of scale but I think it's worth it anyway.
From the article: "Soy, bamboo and hemp don't require pesticides, so they're not as damaging to the environment, according to..." - how about according to our government:
http://ats.agr.gc.ca/supply/3307_e.htm
skepticool: "I saw no mention of flax - another versatile plant providing, also, a valuable food." Hemp seeds are pretty much nutritionally perfect, better than flax, not quite as good as soy - but many more uses than soy.
http://www.vegparadise.com/otherbirds37.html
Anyway, good enough for now. I'm just surprised (again, see my posting on the Gladrags article) that hemp doesn't get a much higher profile when talking about ethical fabric.
Stump
7 years ago
Wool is often 'harvested' in less than ideal conditions for the animal. Something to think about.
Yammer
7 years ago
That animal would not exist but for its wool. Something to think about.
Yammer
7 years ago
Mikev - thanks, those do look good! I am not Mr. Fashion Plate, I just need some stuff for work. To be honest, 99% of it comes from thrift store finds, so the point is a bit moot.
kootowl
7 years ago
Yammer and Gerhardius,
For an alternative to synthetics that wick away moisture...and then reek for the rest of their unnatural lives, you might want to try the athletic gear made from "smartwool." Got some for X-country skiing, and it's awesome, not at all scratchy. Washes really well, too.
Stump
7 years ago
Yammer:
If you mean it couldn't survive without it, then yes. If you mean there's no sheep w/out people you might consider the bighorns.
Yammer
7 years ago
Kootowl - my stuff doesn't generally reek. But I do know about reek, being a hockey player. My understanding is that these smells are from mould, exceptionally hardy and gross mould! There is stuff you can get to fumigate them into oblivion, but I don't know how "green" it is. I will keep my eyes peeled for smartwool though.
Stump - I get your point. My point was that for centures, humans have bred animals for meat, byproducts and as emotional crutches, taking them so far from their naturally evolved forms that they would be pretty useless in the wild. I'm thinking of yappy minature poodles you see on the street, and the moronic chickens that I raised in the countryside. Being kept, that is their ecological niche.
I'm not absolutely sanguine about the morality of this. Does it mean that agriculture is immoral?
bourie
7 years ago
Skeptikool, I wonder what kind of hemp are you referring to that is like sackcloth?! You obviously are not using hemp cloth made for humans! It is so very soft, and wears forever! The same with linen, although it may take longer to get it soft (look for some antique linens). Hemp and flax are so very much alike, it is difficult (even under the microscope) to tell them apart.
The thing to do is get to a real store that sells quality hemp products. You’ll be amazed!!
And Stump: where are you getting this information?? You need to get to a sheep farm and watch a shearing – there is nothing wrong with their conditions there!
Please people – get your facts straight before you start pontificating! (go look it up)
Stump
7 years ago
Not all sheep live bucolic lives down on the farm my friend.
http://www.chai-online.org/en/compassion/clothes_wool.htm
RickW
7 years ago
skeptikool:
You obviously haven't run across properly prepared hemp.....much softer (and tougher) than cotton.
kootowl
7 years ago
Thanks for the Chai link, Stump. Ewwwww...or is that Ewwwwwwe?
kanatakiwi
7 years ago
you forgot to mention TECEL, which is a beautiful natural fiber made from the natural fibre found in wood pulp. The fabric looks almost like a silk blend, it feels soft, and looks elegant. take a look at http://eartheasy.com/wear_tencel.htm