Eco Fashion: Dress to impress the environment!

‘Because of its sheer size, the clothing and textile industry’s impact on global warming is probably larger than all of Africa.’ Katharine Hamnett

The fashion and textile industry in the US alone is worth an estimated $300 billion. Add to that the rest of the consuming world and that’s an awful lot of energy, fabric, dye and sweatshop workers. And what’s really sad is that an awful lot of it ends up in landfill within just a few years.

But the fashion industry is at the dawn of a new era. Just as the food industry and the toiletries and cosmetics industries have proved, ecological awareness can be big business.

British designer Katharine Hamnett launched an ecological line, E, in 2005 and Oscar de la Renta, Diane von Furstenberg and Linda Loudermilk are all working on sustainable lines or pieces in the US. And it’s not just the high end designers. The UK has a large number of middle range independent labels creating hippy chic, sports and urban wear and in America 100% organic Loomstate are a ‘must-have’ label among stylish greenies.

Melissa Laird, Senior Head Teacher of Fashion and Applied Studies at The Whitehouse Institute of Design, is hoping to see more Australian designers embracing sustainable practices. ‘The traditional fashion roles are based on planned obsolescence, where garments are intended to be out of fashion from one season to the next, forcing people to buy new clothes,’ she says. So is there any hope that fashion could become sustainable?

Of Australia’s independent designers Susan Dimasi and Chantal Macdonald’s Material By-Product are attempting to create sustainable lines by reworking old clothes, and using cloth cutting techniques which minimise waste. There’s also Peter Boyd and Denise Sprinskyj’s label, S!x, incorporating elements of sustainability, such as re-using and re-inventing fabrics, into their designs. And Gabriel Scarvelli has created an excellent reputation for himself using a high percentage of natural fibres and dyes, recycling, and paying bead workers in Calcutta up to 48 times the average wage.

Last year’s After Fashion exhibition at the National Wool Museum showcased an impressive selection of Australian designers including Material By-Product and S!x, and also Simone le Amon, Nicola Cereni and India Flint.

Curator of the Exhibition, Anthea van Kopplen said, ‘Designers have a responsibility to ensure that their products do not harm the world we live in.’

Cereni began making handbags from off-cuts of furnishing textile and now sells around 10,000 bags annually. Her designs often feature endangered native plants and flowers to raise awareness of environmental issues. Every bag sold featuring native flora makes a donation to the Tree Project, a volunteer based organisation dedicated to the re-vegetation of the Victorian countryside. She also takes pride in producing within Australia. Flint, working in Mount Pleasant, has created a natural dye using native Australian gum leaves which she has patented as Eco-print.

Simone le Amon featured Bowling Arm; bracelets made from leather discarded in the manufacture of cricket balls, of which Heath Ledger purchased a number for cast members of A Knight’s Tale.

But individually recycled pieces are far too costly to point the way forward for the fashion industry. Rather they are intended to get consumers thinking about their consumption.

At the high street level Hunter Gatherer now have two stores, in St Kilda and Fitzroy, selling vintage pieces, accessories and their own label. The ‘No SweatShop’ accredited label is an initiative of the Brotherhood of St Laurence and all proceeds go back in to helping people.

Cotton requires very large amounts of pesticides and water. In addition, cotton farming is increasingly becoming subject to genetic engineering as cotton plants are gene-spliced with a soil bacteria which enables the plant to emit its own pesticide. According to Ronnie Cummins at the Organic Consumers Association, genetically modified cotton crops already account for approximately 60% of all US crops. Unfortunately organic cotton is still relatively difficult for designers to get hold of in Australia and its alternative, hemp, is still way out on the periphery of the fashion industry.

But the presence of high street brands entering the environmental arena proves that ecological fashion is hitting the mainstream. Levi’s US stores launch a line of 100% organic cotton jeans in November this year made with recycled buttons, rivets and zippers and natural indigo dyes. And Nike have set a target to blend 5% organic cotton into all their cotton-containing materials by 2010. Of course these big brands still use sweatshop labour, and threaten to corner the organic cotton market. But they can raise awareness of ecological fashion through mainstream pieces, which is something Rachel Bending, founder of Slingfings in NSW, also wants to do.

Bending says, ‘There are two sets of consumers that are buying ‘green’ products. The first are interested in taking care and will automatically buy green first if they can. The challenge for me is converting the people who don’t care. My mission statement is pioneering sustainability in fashion design because fashion is an industry that’s notorious for not caring.’

Rachel began Slingfings four years ago with an old car battery and a couple of solar panels while living on a solar powered community in Bellingen, and now sells to forty countries worldwide via distributors and their website slingfings.com. What began as a single line of sling style bags made from reclaimed and recycled vintage fabrics now incorporates a range of bags and garments locally produced in Byron Bay. They are also Australia’s first business to be declared climate neutral which means they counter balance their entire carbon emission by putting funding into projects that slow global warming, such as Codrington wind farm in Victoria.

Continuing this ethic Bending has just launched new label Bird textiles which creates hand printed textiles using water based dyes. The textile designs, inspired by local flora are, once again, locally produced with solar power and is climate neutral.

Sue Thomas is a fashion lecturer at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She believes ecological fashion has a great future thanks to the next generation of designers. ‘I have found that the push has been very strong from the students who are in their late teens and early twenties. They are not happy about (current practices),’ she says.

But can we stop consuming? Sue says we can change the way we shop. ‘The students are interested in the notion of, not stopping consuming because it can’t just stop, but rather re-visiting the idea of how often and why. So garments are made very well and are interesting enough that you don’t want to bin them after a season and move on to the next silly throw away thing. That this is rather a beautiful thing and you may pass it on.’

We need to begin thinking more like the Native American Indians who analyse how an item or an action will impact for seven generations into the future. That can be an easier concept to grasp than forever. There are consequences to our technology and we need to remember that.’

Shopping List
www.slingfings.com
www.birdtextile.com
www.huntergatherer.com.au
www.blessedearth.com.au
www.nicolacerini.com
www.indiaflint.com
www.ocadvantage.com.au
Ilka White www.ilka.com.au

Material By-Product is available from Assassin in Melbourne

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