Source: leaderpost.com
Remember the early days of sustainable clothing? Your choice was hemp, or hemp. Once you got past the jokes about smoking it, you almost had to pick the granola out of the threads. It was scratchy, thick, unflattering, and hippie-dippy. You had to be pretty dedicated in those days to don it.
Oh, what a difference a few years can make. Today, sustainable fabrics are soft, silky, form-flattering. They offer so much variety, you can even find sustainable fabrics in haute couture.
There is bamboo, sustainable because it grows so fast; soy, a byproduct of the tofu industry; and linen, a flax product that grows well without pesticides and uses very little water. There's modal, a cellulose fabric made by spinning reconstituted cellulose from beech trees. It's soft like rayon and more absorbent than cotton. There is tussar silk, made by silkworms that are not killed at the end of the process. And there is organic cotton, much better than the conventional cotton, but still requiring a lot of water.
Then there are the blends of all the above. But hemp is still the apex of environmental sustainability. It grows really quickly, needing little water and no pesticides or herbicides. The hemp fibres are long and strong, but also porous so they allow your skin to breathe. It has been used for 6,000 years but now, finally, designers can find hemp fabrics that are soft, and sheer, and even knit. Sustainable designers are giddy with the options.
But there are other ways to be sustainable in the fashion business. You can recycle, like the folks who turn water bottles into fleece or athletic wear. You can reuse, like Ashley Watson, who remakes old leather products into great new bags. And you can keep production local to reduce the carbon footprint. What is cool today is that fashion designers often use as much creativity to be sustainable as they do to create their spring or fall lines.Here's a look at some Vancouver-based designers who have found their own unique ways to be sustainable and fashionable.
Katherine Soucie
Katherine Soucie is a reuser, or maybe a repurposer. She takes hosiery waste from a Montreal manufacturer who would otherwise throw it out, and creates spectacular pieces for her label Sans Soucie. Using a process she developed while at Capilano University's textiles program, she creates pieces for clients aged 30-75 and all sizes. Some are casual, some formal. Sometimes she gets a lot of ultra-sheer hosiery, sometimes it's opaque. What she gets defines her designs. This spring, she got small pieces.
She stabilizes the nylon in the (non-toxic, metal-free) printing and dying stage. When the inks cool on the fibre, it gives it a sense of structure and reduces the stress on it, she says.
"Nylon is a really strong fibre, she says. "It's a petroleum byproduct, so it lasts a long time, but if it runs or pills, we toss it out after one wear. I thought, 'That isn't right.' It made me take a disposable non-functional textile and make it into something functional."Sans Soucie's lines look different every season, but this year, due to a collaboration between Capilano University and Emily Carr University of Art + Design, she has access to a digital embroidery machine.
"It completely changes the fabric," she says, adding she's excited to see her work evolve. ÒThere is a lot of waste in the textile industry. Hopefully, it won't always have so much garbage, but as long as it is wasting, I will be producing work with it. It is my responsibility to give back."
Soucie says her clients like the pieces, because they're so comfortable and figure-flattering. As a size 12 herself, she attests to its plus-size wearability. She loves to see how women integrate the pieces into their own wardrobes, layering and accessorizing or wearing it alone as a statement.
Sans Soucie is available at several stores in Vancouver and Canada. www.sanssoucie.ca
Jada Lee Watson
Jada Lee Watson started her sustainable line, Nixxi, four years ago, but was working with eco fabrics for two years before that and conventional fabrics before that. She remembers the old hemp days, but she also remembers how well using environmentally friendly fabrics sat with her.
"As soon as I sourced those fabrics, knowing they came from a good place really resonated with me," she says. "It works with my lifestyle. I believe in taking as gentle a step as I can."
Back then, there wasn't much variety and Watson had to really stretch to create something even workable.
"It is really exciting to see how far it had come in six years."
In its first few seasons, Nixxi was exclusively a jersey line, blending organic cotton with bamboo or soy. But gradually she has added woven fabrics like linen to her line and this spring, the mix of knit and weave is nearly 50-50. But she is most excited about the hemp jersey she discovered. It's as soft as bamboo, but it's 100 per cent hemp. Everything is produced in Vancouver. Style-wise, Nixxi offers a mix of edgy contemporary looks with more feminine classics. Watson wants women of all ages to be able to wear them through the seasons and change them up for day or night with accessories.
Nixxi is available at many stores in Vancouver and Canada. www.nixxi.ca
Nicole Bridger
Nicole Bridger sees eco-friendly design as a work in progress. When she first started, choices were more limited both because she was a smaller company with a smaller voice, but also because she lives by the adage of taking one step at a time.
Right now, sustainable means the fabrics she uses. These include organic cotton, bamboo, hemp, soy and, her newest addition, organic wool from New Zealand that's woven into fabric in Vermont. She also produces her line locally. Eventually, Bridger would like to create a zero-waste system in which all scraps get used for other products or are recycled. A solar-powered studio and green stores are also on her dream-big list.
Bridger uses blends, and while spandex isn't exactly a green fibre, she likes to have about five per cent spandex in her fabrics because it extends the life of the garment and that is sustainable. "It's not always crystal-clear," she says, adding that in her mind, linen and hemp are the most eco-friendly of fabrics.
In terms of design, Bridger interned years ago with Vivienne Westwood and learned the art of draping. Then she worked for lululemon, which wanted clean lines and no draping. When she started her own company, she returned to draping, incorporating it into most pieces. Now she has found a nice balance, she says, adding her pieces are wearable, functional, and easy to wear and wash.
"The styles I like are more about what I really like to wear," she says. "Kind of rocker-cool but really mom-friendly," says the mother of a 13-month-old boy. "My pieces are easy-looking," she says. "You're not walking down the street like a parade. But you are in your own.Ó
Nicole Bridger can be found at various locations in Vancouver and Canada. www.nicolebridger.com
WE3
WE3 is a collaboration of three local women: Glencora Twigg, Christine Hotton and Jessica Vaira, who are also owners of the store Twigg and Hottie. In an interview, Hotton says each of them lives conscious of her footprint on the earth, so it was a natural progression to bring the green theme into the business.
WE3 uses blends of organic cotton with bamboo or soy and merino wool. The locally produced line is a three-part combination of knit essentials that provide the basics to a wardrobe, plus pieces that can be layered over the essentials and, finally, a few fashion-forward designs. While many of the pieces are basic designs, women make their own unique statements by combining them in various ways.
So for example, the V-neck kimono top in the spring line can be worn with the V in front or in back. And the mobius strip can be a scarf, a shawl or a headpiece. The trio's inspiration for spring 2010 is change or growth, says Hotton, adding that choosing sustainable fashion is part of that. But personal expression is, too.
WE3 is available at various locations in Vancouver and Canada. www.we3.ca
Vancouver Sun
