ok so saving the world might be a little extreme, but as you know i've been seeking out more sustainable fabrics. Yesterday I visited 2 vendors that tout eco-friendly materials and it is quite sad how little effort seems to go into creating them. They tend to be bland and unexciting- of course the world is going to continue using toxic materials if nobody out there is going to take the effort to make the sustainable ones chic!
The first place I went to uses organic cottons and hemp and bamboo (which is actually not eco friendly at all) but still makes those fabrics with some polyester to keep the prices down. On top of it the fabric isn't actually all that wonderful. TRAGIC!
The second I went to is the only leather tannery in the country, perhaps the world, who has perfected a vegetable tanning process for more than just saddle quality hides. The leathers were actually gorgeous and I will use them in the future for jackets and purses, BUT they're much too heavy for the leggings and dresses I make - I will look into this a bit more to see if there is a way I can work with it, but sadly I am stuck with lambskin again this time around until I get the samples from the fish leather tannery in iceland (still waiting!) The other issue I had with the tanner was that in a huge warehouse full of hides, they had maybe 2 shelves dedicated to the eco-friendly ones. Granted they do take custom orders and I could request any number of colors or finishes, but it still irked me, especially because the regular hides come in so many different weights where the eco hides are only the one heavy weight.
The other problem I'm running into is that because my business is run on such a small scale, I am often at the will of whatever small quantities I can find. On the plus side, I wind up buying ends and deadstock of already made materials, not generating more energy to create something that is already there, but I still want to know that if something of mine winds up in a landfill it will not leach harmful chemicals into the earth. Still researching, but in the meantime continuing with the same materials I've been using.
No comments:
Post a Comment