This blog aims to educate & encourage you on all things sustainable to do with clothing.
Whether it be to re-use old clothes, make new ones or money willing, buy good eco items, this is the place for you.
T-Shirt Dress
I was recommended Instructables.com, an online compilation of people's 'how-to's. One of the video tutorials had no narrative or instructions, yet was easy to follow and pause to catch up with. The video by Giannyl converts an old t-shirt into a summer dress. (Ignore the flouncing at the end!)
I saw it as a good way to reuse old clothes, and learn a bit more sewing know-how.
- First, cut off the sleeves at the seam and across the neckline.
- Cut further along the seam, below where the arms joined, towards the bottom of the t-shirt.
- Fold over the edges and sew inside out to create a hem.
- Cut across the sleeves to create triangles.
- Turn the triangles inside out and sew along the two edges, leaving a small gap to turn them back out again.
- Stitch up the remaining gap.
- Iron to create full triangle shape.
- Sew the triangles in place on the body, keeping the seam on the reverse.
- Cut the neckband from the collar to create the correct length halter-neck.
- Sew into place on the tops of the triangles.
- Try on the dress and adjust accordingly (I rouched the triangles and cinched in the hips with a further seam to give better shape).
People Tree
People Tree have won several awards, including being selected as one of the world's most "Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs" in 2004, by the Schwab Foundation.
Fair Trade Policy
- To work with disadvantaged producers in the developing world
- To pay producers fair prices
- To make advance payments when needed
- To promote traditional skills
- To promote rural development
- To operate with transparency
Eco Policy
- To promote natural and organic cotton farming
- To use natural, recycled and biodegradable substances where possible
- To recycle where possible
- To protect water supplies and forests
- To avoid using damaging chemicals.
The Summer 2009 catalogue includes information on the processes used to create the garments, such as the batik and block printing methods traditional in Gujarat, India.
We love ecologists - 'Bellamy & Attenborough & Nutkins & Oddie
printed in black on light grey. Made in India
£25
100% organic Fairtrade cotton
Olwen Frill Neck Dress
£75
Organic Fairtrade certified cotton
The range includes beautiful bold colours, good for staple pieces in a wardrobe that will stand the test of time and fashion. Online they also have Fair Trade Goodie Bags for £25 worth £75, you select your size and receive a selection of clothing and accessories. Tempting!
Buy Less But Better
The dilemma of ethical clothing at Primark
June 17, 2008
This is another, comprehensive article looking at several of the impacts surrounding high street fashion. Particularly focused on labour rights, there are examples of ethical stores and quotes from 'scrupulous' high street retailers. It's an interesting read, with plenty of food for thought, however the section which relates best to this blog can be found in the Anna Shepherd segment (see How Green Are My Wellies).
'Aim for a slim, manageable wardrobe containing good quality items that will last, rather than an overflowing dressing up box of poor-quality clothes. By doing this, you will reduce your contribution to the 900,000 tonnes of textile waste that we create in the UK every year, and limit your role in the energy needed to make textiles.'
This 'Buy less but better' idea is also seen in Gok Wan's new Channel 4 series, Gok's Fashion Fix.
'You lot spend on average £1,000 a year just on clothes
and yet you only wear a third of them.'
'I've got a brand new mantra - shop less but wear more.'
Adili
This post is focused primarily around Adili.com but also to compile a list of other retailers and links which may be useful/interesting.Adili is an online department store, where the homepage is designed to be like a shop window - updated each week. The store stocks 80 'of the best sustainable and fair brands from around the world.'
There is also the Adili Own-Label where the company went back to the beginning, 'sourcing supply chains from scratch, managing cultural communication, investing a great deal of time, boundless energy and of course, money.'
Often with 'eco' retailers, the expectation is of dowdy clothes in muted tones, but Adili is packed with modern, stylish designs to suit a variety of tastes. This is perhaps due to their working with young designers, 'we're nurturing and commercially supporting the very best young design talent. Together, with these young designers we hope to pioneer the new era of fashion - develop the next generation of the fashion industry to become more sustainable and ethically established.'
Stripe Party Dress
Annie Greenabelle
£65
The website is well crafted for accessibility and viewing, and you can shop by brand or garment and within that, by ethic.
Lenn Jacket
Kuyichi
NOW £86.25
'Refashionable is the home of recycled fashion. We trade exclusively in pre owned fashion or new items that have been made from recycled materials. We provide you with a great way to raise funds for and donate to the charities you love. Here you will find everything you need to unleash the cash in your closet, refashion your wardrobe and reduce your style miles!'
The website works in one of two ways, you can donate your good-quality unwanted clothes, and Refashionable photograph and list them for sale and 50% of the sale proceeds go to your chosen charity. Or you can shop - by Womens, Mens, Kids or by Designer.
ASOS box pleat skirt
black
size: 12
£5.00 + £1.50 postage
'This item would have travelled approximately 5070 miles from China
and 4160 miles from India if bought new.
By buying locally you have helped reduce
the environmental impact of the fashion industry
and reduced your style miles.'
The website also has several video tutorials on sewing, mending, and adjusting your clothes. Over the course of this project I've learnt some sewing techniques, and added darts to a top from a charity shop to make it fit better. Knowing the basics of how to sew is a great life skill and good for adjusting second-hand clothes or creating new ones!
This site is mainly concerned with labour rights and looks at the affect of cheap clothes to the factory workers. The link is to the resources page - there are a selection of interesting articles.
Better Thinking is an ethical branding consultancy, which has decided to try and create the Perfect T-Shirt. The idea is collaborative and readers are encouraged to send in the name of eco-fabrics or names of good, ethical factories. 'we're going to consider every impact the t-shirt could have, so we can justify every decision we made, showing how it results in the lowest overall impact.'
The idea of deconstructing every stage of a t-shirt's manufacturing right back to the materials used is a clever one. The T-shirt has its own manifesto and is being supported by Kate Fletcher, howies and Katharine Hamnett. Again, there is lots of information, so its well worth having a look for yourself.
Bag For Life
Plastic
We use a lot of plastic - 100 million tonnes is the current world annual consumption, that's 20 times more than 50 years ago.
Nearly 3 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated in the UK, each year. Of which, it is estimated only 7% is recycled.
Plastic production requires significant amounts of fossil fuels, as a raw material and energy for the manufacturing process. It is estimated that 4% of the world's annual oil production is used for plastics production and a further 3-4% during manufacture. *
'Bag for life' bags have been popular for some time, with various retailers offering their own version. Supermarkets offer stronger plastic bags and Marks & Spencer have their own canvas monochromatic Twiggy totes.
Considering a plastic bag can take 100 years to decompose in a landfill** it makes sense to recycle and make use of current plastic bags and promote bag for life usage.
I found this Etsy tutorial 'How-To: Fuse Plastic Bags'
And decided to use up all the spare plastic bags in my student halls kitchen, to make a bag for life. I started by trying different bags and heat settings until the plastic fused well into a strong material and collected a patchwork of material.
I then worked out a size from an existing canvas bag and made a pattern from old newspaper to cut the fused plastic to.
Once sellotaped together (I used Magic Tape) in the desired patchwork I tried sewing some offcuts of badly fused plastic to get the correct tension. I found zig-zag stitching the most affective. Stitch together the patchwork panels and then the sides inside out. Use talcum powder if the sewing machine doesn't want to hold the material.
Fuse narrow pieces to create handles and fix with tape in the correct place before zig-zag stitching in two place.
And use!
Katharine Hamnett
To best understand Katharine, I recommend reading her online biography. She has had a significant impact on international fashion, from inventing stonewashing, distressed and stretch denim, to launching the first protest t-shirts in 1983 - designed to be copied and raise awareness whilst a percentage went to charity.
In 1989 Katharine became aware of the impact of conventional cotton agriculture and it's causing 1,000,000 deaths per year through long-term acute pesticide poisonings amongst other by-products. She campaigns from then on, particularly focused on the issue of cotton, and in 2003, having been invited to visit cotton farmers in Mali with Oxfam, decides she must be the demand for organic cotton. In 2004 Katharine launches a new, online store KATHARINE E HAMNETT - E for being manufactured Ethically and as Environmentally as possible. In 2005 she designs and sources the manufacturing of organic cotton for the 'Make Poverty History' campaign. And in 2006 she signs a contract with Tesco for an ethical and environmental organic cotton clothing collection.
Katharine Hamnett wears
'58% DON'T WANT PERSHING' T-shirt
to meet Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street.
The Katharine Hamnett website sells organic and ethical clothes, as well as being the platform for several campaigns. There is a plethora of information, well compiled and explained. It is particularly interesting in terms of cotton agriculture. For example,
'Conventional cotton represents 10% of world agriculture and uses 25% of the world's pesticides.'
'20,000 people die every year from accidental pesticide poisoning in conventional cotton agriculture (World Health Organisation). Death by starvation is alarmingly prevalent and 200,000 cotton farmers commit suicide annually due to spiralling debts incurred from buying pesticides. A further 1,000,000 people a year suffer from long-term pesticide poisoning (Pesticide Action Network).'
'By growing organically, farmers get a 50% increase in their income - due to a 40% reduction in costs - and the 20 % premium for producing organic cotton allows them to feed, clothe, educate and provide healthcare for their children.'
Well worth a read and consideration.
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