In a back room at his home in Santa Cruz, California, George Leonard is amassing a stockpile of plastic bags. Most of the time he eschews the things. As chief scientist at Ocean Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit based in Washington, DC, Leonard spends his time advocating against single-use plastics that can clog up waterways, suffocate…
Author: jasmin
While Fashion’s Struggling for Survival, Will Sustainability Pledges Stick?
Sustainability can be a hard sell even in the best of times. With brands and retailers scrambling to keep their bottom lines from cratering amid shuttered storefronts and plunging consumer spending, however, the financial pain inflicted by COVID-19 could complicate hard-fought efforts to keep the fashion industry’s massive environmental footprint in check, if not derail…
What Is The Future Of Fast Fashion? It’s Complicated
Jenna Diioro is someone who lives to shop. A 28-year-old car-dealership manager who lives in South Jersey, Diioro used to spend hours cruising stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, H&M, and Hollister, where she’d spend upward of $200 each week, scooping up tops, dresses, jeans, and activewear. Just last month, she was preparing to…
Is California the Sustainable Fashion Capital of the US?
Allbirds. Levi Strauss. Nike. The North Face. Patagonia. Reformation. Think of an American brand with an earth-conscious bent and chances are it’s from California. The Golden State’s legacy of environmental protection runs deep. For decades, it has led on pollution, chemical, and conservation policies that have often served as proof-of-concept models for other states and…
US Garment Manufacturers Are Feeling the COVID-19 Crunch
Kathryn Hildebrand watched in horror last week as hundreds of thousands of dollars of production orders went up in smoke in a matter of hours. The president and CEO of the Good Clothing Company, a garment-manufacturing facility, in Fall River, Mass., knew it was coming, but she was still shocked when it did. Worldwide, scores…
Is Recycled Polyester Green or Greenwashing?
When Nike feted World Cup uniforms made from recycled polyester in 2010, the idea of melting down cast-off plastic bottles and spinning them into textiles was still a novel concept. Today, just about every apparel brand, from American Eagle to Zara, brandishes the material as evidence it is “going green.” The appeal is clear: Recycled…
In Denim, Investing in Sustainable Technology Is the New Normal
Eco-friendly denim is more ubiquitous than ever, but bringing it to market hasn’t been easy. Nor cheap, for that matter. While planet-pandering technologies—think Jeanologia’s water-sipping denim-finishing systems, Tonello’s bleach-less OBleach or Archroma’s botanically derived EarthColors—are increasingly available, they also require upfront costs from the mills that employ them. “Sustainability is really linked to research and…
Karl Lagerfeld Collab Raises Questions about Diversity, Inclusion in the DIY Knitting World
One year after his death, legendary designer Karl Lagerfeld is still stirring up controversy. It all started with a collaboration destined for the seemingly innocent sphere of the DIY knitting world. Before he died in 2019, the creative chief of Chanel, Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld Paris was working with The Woolmark Company — the Australian…
Those Shoes Were Made by a Uighur Detainee
Mustafa Aksu’s hometown is in an area punctuated by billowy fields of cotton, an agricultural prefecture of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in far western China. As a child growing up in the 1990s, Aksu watched as middle-school-aged Uighur girls around him left Xinjiang under duress to work in garment factories in other parts of…
The Battle Over Jane Austen’s Whiteness
It began, as things sometimes do on social media, with an emoji. A pineapple emoji to be exact. Fans of Sanditon, an eight-part Jane Austen adaptation currently airing on PBS Masterpiece, have been deploying the icon on Twitter as a shorthand for their esteem and support of the show, which padded out the surviving chapters…
Moda Operandi Co-Founder Returns to Fashion With New Low-Impact Label
In a sea of disposable, unsustainably produced clothing, Katla wants to stand out. Launched late last month by fashion veteran Aslaug Magnusdottir, the San Francisco-based brand seeks to be a force for good in the world—one that not only offers people a more mindful way to dress but also informs them about fashion’s impact on…
The Hidden Costs Of ‘Fast Fashion’
I spoke with Lucy Nalpathanchil, host of “Where We Live” on Connecticut Public Radio on Feb. 7, 2020 about the social and environmental impact of fast fashion, and what alternatives exist.