Eco-Fashion

Julie Gilhart, Fashion Director of Barneys New York, said that their Creative Director Simon Doonan had originally wanted to do a Hitchcock Holiday for 2007.  “Personally I was having a really hard time with it,” she said, “because Hitchcock didn’t mean anything.”  Eventually they decided to do a Green Holiday – with sustainable fair-trade fashion, organic fabrics and recycled paper shopping bags.

Speaking last night’s panel on Eco-Fashion at FIT, she stressed that green fashion had to be chic and stylish before it would even be considered for sale at the store.  Barneys asked Stella McCartney to design an all organic line.  Gilhart was initially concerned that they wouldn’t have enough green products for sale.  “We had to start the learning curve.  As a fashion director, I never used words like supply chain before.  I had never asked designers ‘Where is that made?’ and  ‘What is your factory like?’”

Each of the five panelists stressed that eco-fashion has evolved from a crunchy chic to a commitment to a whole new way of envisioning the fashion business.  The audience, mostly students, young designers and industry insiders, were receptive and excited.  Many asked questions about where they could study new ideas like sustainability in design and how they could incorporate it into their emerging businesses.  Instructor Sass Brown said FIT is currently formulating new curriculum to encompass these changes.

Designer Susan Cianciolo, who normally works with recycled and reused fabric, said clothes made with organic fabrics have ‘a powerful energy.’  She described her process for an all organic line, designed for retailer Johanna Hofring, who was also present last night.  After she studied natural dyeing techniques, she wanted to use natural vegetable, tea and flower dyes.  She and her mother searched a forest in winter for untouched materials to work with.

Not everyone has that slow-paced process.  Sass Brown talked about her work with Coopa Roca.  Located in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s largest favella, Coopa Roca a women’s cooperative that partners with designers like Carlos Miele and Cacharel.  Most of the women who work at the cooperative have unique skills in working with fabrics and embroidery.  Designers who work with them design with their artisanal skills in mind so they become part of the design process and not just the manufacturing process.

Johanna Hofring was inspired early on to work with organic clothing.  She talked about the contrast of a village in India who’s environment was so damaged by effluents from a local factory that they could no longer grow their own food and instead had to work in the place that was responsible for polluting their village.  She contrasted this with bio-dynamic and organic farmers where she grew up in Sweden.   Eventually she opened an organic clothings store, Ekovaruhuset, in Manhattan.  “The few people who came to the store in the were really excited about it,” she said.  “There were a handful of people who kept me alive for the first couple of years.  They bought way more clothes than they ever had before.”

After the Swedish Fashion Council did a spread on their website about fair trade and sustainable production, Hofring’s business has boomed.  “All of the magazines called at once,” she said, “because there was no one else except for a couple of girls from Gothenburg who had a fair trade factory in Sri Lanka.  Now it’s mainstream and it’s taken a major turn.”  She said it is incredible how people react to her store.  Customers thank her for having opened it, saying there is hope for the future. 

Hofring said that the textile industry along has a devastating effect on the planet.  “Fashion used to be something kind of shallow,” she said.  “But now we have the possibility to do so much.  We have such an important role.”

Britt Bivens, the owner of 4.5 Productions said even big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target are getting on the sustainable bandwagon.  She showed a picture of a $22 Wal-Mart sweater made from 80 percent organic cotton and five percent cashmere.  “Companies with big names have to do more,” she said, “because we don’t trust them.”  She contrasted Wal-Mart’s $22 sweater with an early pioneer in the field, Project Alabama.  A lot of people didn’t understand their $600 t-shirts she said. 

Gilhart responded to that saying, their customers were the ones who bought those t-shirts.  If it had been priced any lower, she said, her customers would have perceived it as ”not so nice.”--Sherry Mazzocchi