Green jean, baby.

In 1873, Levi Strauss & Company invented the first blue jeans, a durable pair of trousers that could hold up to the task of constructing America. The rest is history. Today, Levi’s 501 jeans are the world’s best-selling item of clothing, and the blue jean, whether skinny or bell-bottomed, has been a global fashion staple for as long as most of us can remember.

Levi’s commitment to social responsibility has similar historical clout. During the Great Depression, for instance, Levi’s instituted shorter work weeks to prevent the massive lay-offs that were happening around the country. Levi Strauss factories were racially integrated long before the Civil Rights Act mandated it. And in the 1980s, Levi’s became the first American corporation to publicly address the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping the nation. The fight against HIV/AIDS continues to be an issue central to the company’s not-for-profit Levi Strauss Foundation.

In addition to its social responsibility efforts, Levi’s has also been a pioneer in the world of sustainability. Their current eco-efforts are founded on an intensive study of the entire product lifecycle of their best-sellers – the Levi’s 501 jeans and Dockers Original Khakis – conducted in 2007. From this study came the idea to further evaluate – or “E-valuate”, as they call it – 11 of their most popular items using primary data across several categories: contribution to climate change, energy use, renewable energy use, water consumption, land occupation, qualified sustainably grown fiber content, waste generation, materials efficiency, recycled content, land transformation, eutrophication, and restricted substance list adherence.

The Good

From the product lifecycle analysis, Levi’s had a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses as a company. They made the decision to hone in on two key phases – cotton production and consumer use – and they have aimed to reduce their impact in the energy, water, chemicals, and materials aspects of apparel manufacturing.

By making the decision to focus, Levi’s has taken a “do less, but better” approach to sustainability marketing. Over the past five years, they’ve made particularly significant strides in the area of water preservation. In 2010, they introduced the Water<Less jean collection, which used up an average of 28% and up to 96% less water in the finishing process than traditional jeans.

“What’s different about the Water<Less collection is that we’re still using the same materials and techniques to create finishes for our jeans but we’ve substantially reduced water’s role in the equation,” said Carl Chiara, Director of Brand Concepts and Special Projects. “Sometimes, the way to achieve a more sustainable design is to rethink a traditional process and find a way to do it better.”

A typical pair of jeans consumes 919 gallons of water throughout its lifecycle, including what’s needed to irrigate the cotton crop, produce the pant, and wash them at home. For Water<Less jeans, Levi’s made simple changes like reducing the number of washing machine cycles by combining multiple wet cycle processes into a single wet process, incorporating ozone processing into the garment washing, and removing the water from the stone wash.

Levi’s also aims to change how customers use their products, after finding that nearly 60 percent of energy use involved in a product’s lifecycle happens after the jeans are taken home. Their “Care Tag for Our Planet” campaign instructs Levi’s owners to wash less often, use cold water in the cycle, air-dry jeans on a line, and donate old jeans to Goodwill, using innovative methods like a crowdsourced design competition for air-dry solutions.

The Bad

Apart from some backlash over a handful of tasteless ads, Levi’s reputation has been pretty pristine for the past few decades. That’s not to say their conscience is completely clean. In the 1990s, Levi’s was embroiled in a scandal involving factories in the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth territory of the United States located in the Pacific Ocean. Though jeans from these factories were branded “Made in the USA,” they were produced primarily by imported laborers operating under “slavelike” conditions: 12-hour work days, seven-day work weeks, poor living conditions, payment well under the minimum wage, and an atmosphere of fear and control.

The high-profile case spurred Levi’s to establish a workplace code of conduct for its manufacturing suppliers. In 1991, the company released the first version of their Terms of Engagement, which spells out the ethical standards, legal requirements, environmental requirements, and community involvement that all of their suppliers and contractors must agree to and abide by.

The Questionable

Levi’s has a strong track record of operating responsibly, and is considered a pioneer in sustainability by many in the industry. The company has compiled an impressive body of information, literature, and resources surrounding its operations, and has been transparent both with its failings as well as its dedication to improve.

However, much of this information isn’t necessarily translated to Levi’s customers. The other day, I popped into a Levi’s retail store in lower Manhattan, expecting significant promotion around the Water<Less campaign, or the Better Cotton Initiative jeans shipped out just a few months ago. Within the store, I couldn’t find any information concerning sustainability, and when I asked a salesperson for information about their sustainable jeans, she said she had no idea what I was talking about. When I mentioned water, she said that most of the denim in the store was made using 96% less water than usual – a pretty big exaggeration of the truth, which is that the Water<Less process uses on average 28% and up to 96% less water than usual.

It was only when leaving the store that I finally stumbled upon a mention of Levi’s sustainable initiatives: a wooden “Care Tag for the Planet” sandwich board placed just outside the front entrance. Funny enough, the actual care instructions faced the wall, while an advertisement for a 30% off sale had prime real estate.

Levi’s is one of the few major apparel brands making waves in the world of sustainable manufacturing. That’s a major accomplishment, but it also comes with a major responsibility. Levi’s is missing the opportunity to educate a wider audience about the importance of sustainability by leaving its efforts out of its mainstream marketing.

A November New York Times article described a recent scene at Levi Strauss HQ:

After being briefed on the cotton initiative by the sustainability team, the new Chief Marketing Officer, Rebecca Van Dyck nodded her approval, then asked, “But do our customers know?”

They won’t if you don’t tell them.

SEE ALSO:

Behind the Label: H&M’s Conscious Collection

Behind the Label: McDonald’s See What We’re Made Of Campaign

The balance of sustainable fashion lies within your every purchase.

A year or two ago this article would have been entitled “Fashion Giants Ride Sustainability Wave.” At this stage in the game talking about companies like Wal-Mart, Target, H&M, Gap Inc doing their bit is like greenwashing the chairs on the Titanic. With climate change officially confirmed, fashion companies have an irrefutable responsibility to green their manufacturing and products. But, given the choice, would they?

We often go back and forth discussing the future of the fashion industry here at EcoSalon. I don’t know if the model is broken and needs to be dumped on its stylish head, or if we can fix it with some earnest action and better designed products. Maybe both need to be happening at the same time. You can do both by going ahead and protesting against the concentration of wealth among the privileged few by shopping local fashion from small independent merchants this holiday season, but also check out the fruits of the big brands’ eco initiatives. Their partnerships to minimize energy waste and hazardous chemicals help to encourage eco-fashion at reasonable prices too. Well, some of them.

Here are the latest developments from three of fashion’s well-known brands, Levi’s, Havanianas and Manolo Blahnik.

Levi’s goal is to support the 300 million people currently engaged in cotton farming around the world.

At a cocktail reception last week, Levi Strauss & Co. announced that 2 million pairs of its Denizen and Levi brand jeans now contain a blend of cotton certified by the Better Cotton Initiative. In partnership with other leading brands such as H&M, Adidas, IKEA and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Solidaridad and PAN-UK, they’re adhering to the standards of Better Cotton – cotton grown in a way that is less harmful to both the environment and some 40,000 farmers in India, Pakistan, Mali and Brazil. Levi’s executives say their goal is to eventually support the 300 million people engaged in cotton farming around the world.

Sales of Havaianas limited edition “Conservation International” collection have raised approximately $100,000 per year for the Brazilian marine organization.

According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, Havaianas, the Brazilian company that makes about 200 million pairs of flip-flops each year, has just introduced Eco Havaianas that are made from scrap materials incurred during regular production. Other products include Havaianas IPÊ, which designates 7 percent of its revenue for the Institute for Ecological Research in Brazil. Another style, the CI-Brazil, funds projects for the protection of local endangered species and in its first year sold more than 500,000 pairs.

The shoes are sustainable. Is the price?

Fish skin is very much the medium of the moment with Alexander Wang unveiling a collection of sneakers with fish skin detailing for Spring 2012 and Sex in the City favorite, Manolo Blahnik, announcing recently that he was using the “fish leather” in his new range of eco shoes. Made from sustainable tilapia skin, raffia and cork, the collection is part of a collaboration with eco designer Marcia Patmos. Patmos told Womens Wear Daily, “I love the idea of Tilapia skin because it is a by-product of the food industry that would otherwise be discarded, but it’s actually a beautiful material perfect for small leather goods’. The shoes will be sold at Manolo Blahnik shops for $895, WWD reports.

Benetton gets a new creative director who hopes to strike a balance between fast fashion and luxury.

In the mid-’60s, when the Benetton family introduced the idea of saturated color to the masses, it was that color that would become their trademark. At the time, 30 year-old Luciano Benetton – the eldest of four children – was a salesman in Treviso, Italy, and saw a market for colorful clothes. He sold a younger brother’s bicycle in order to buy his first second-hand knitting machine.

His initial small collection of sweaters received a positive response in local stores in the Veneto region, and soon after he asked his sister and two younger brothers, Gilberto and Carlo, to join him forming the “Benetton Group.” The concept was very cool and shoppers knew from the minute they walked into a Benetton shop, they were part of something strangely revolutionary and fun. Looking back, Benetton might even be credited with the blueprint for fast fashion, with how convenient they made it to energize sullen wardrobes and pick up our spirits in the midst of war and racial chaos that was the ’60s, ’70s and early ’80s.

Benetton sweater, 1989

Italian-made Benetton. We loved to wear it, walking proudly into a room, hopefully emulating the high-profile, exotic models of all colors that graced editorial spreads in glossy fashion magazines. When the Benettons created their strategic advertising campaign in 1991, it would be what we all remember, even today as the dawning of a youthful global consciousness – The United Colors of Benetton.

Controversial, albeit racial Benetton, fall 1991 campaign, “The Angel and the Devil”

But what happened? Where did it go? While it may have lost its presence in the U.S., in China, India and Russia over 400 stores have done very well.

The Independent says “Alessandro Benetton, head of the family firm, is banking on Italy’s giant retailer becoming as famous again as it was during the 1980′s and lasting another 40 years.” They’ve given the reins to this new strategy with the appointment of You Nguyen, the former vice president of Levi Strauss, now Benetton’s head of design and merchandising and in charge of everything from fashion to store architecture.

“You is a cosmopolitan and international designer who will be able to take us to the new chapter. The rise of disposable fashion – and many new competitors in an overcrowded market – has meant we have had to evolve further. This is a new chapter for the 46-year-old company – but the book is the same,” Alessandro says.

The Independent writes: “As Mr Nguyen said, who would ever have thought that luxury designers such as Karl Lagerfeld would design ranges for H&M, totally upsetting the market. Instead, he said his vision for Benetton was not fashion per se, but for classic and timeless pieces.”

Here are some of their s/s ’11 looks:

Benetton, S/S ’11

In addition to being committed to global social issues, Benetton has recently taken on initiatives to combat fast fashion by also reducing six hundred tons of plastic in the environment in 2011 implementing 100% biodegradable and recyclable eco hangars this past February. They will be pulling in more organic cotton garments and eco-friendly paper shopping bags, as well.

In the Benetton children’s collections alone, organic cotton already accounts for over 30% of all cotton apparel, and with the spring-summer 2011 collection, organic cotton garments will reach a total of 13 million across the Group’s various brands. These products are all certified according to the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) ethical and environmental criteria, focusing on ethical and environmental sustainability (ensuring that products are GMO-free and come from low-impact farming).

The impact Nguyen could have on Benetton could prove impressive given his significant nod to sustainability introducing Levi’s first organic jeans, and his work promoting quality and a sensitivity to nature towards a younger generation brainwashed by disposable fashion.

Back in 2006, when Nguyen was still with Levi’s and he’d helped to launch the eco jean of the year, he told The Guardian: “The whole organic and sustainable platform is one that is growing,” Nguyen said. “In future, if this is successful we may look at ways of expanding it, but it will never be 100% of the Levi’s product. This is because the availability of organic cotton is limited,” he said. “We are hoping that as a leading player we may be able to persuade producers to grow more.”

Let’s hope he takes the same philosophy to Benetton.

Images: Benetton and Josh Olins

Lucky 3P writer Jen Boynton says of her recent dinner with Levi’s and a gaggle of writers: “The Levi Strauss folks came across as down to earth and honest. We talked about the sweatshop labor that plagued their press coverage in years past and how it started the company on the road to sustainability: first socially, with safe working conditions and fair labor practices, and now environmentally, rolling out EPA wastewater standards for all their international factories, life cycle analysis and energy reduction plans.”

Sounds to me like Levi’s is getting the environmental spirit.

By their partnering with Goodwill to promote “A Care Tag for Our Planet,” Levi’s new initiative aims to put billions of pounds of unwanted clothing to good use instead of into landfills. How? By using a new Levi’s tag and launching a campaign to encourage the owners of Levis to donate their jeans to Goodwill when they are done.

Goodwill can then resell to Levi’s fanatics as well as those who need affordable clothing, and provide job training programs to at-risk populations.

According to the Goodwill site, beginning in January 2010, the Levi’s® brand will be the first major retailer to include messaging on product care tags that encourages people to donate their unwanted clothing.

This is Goodwill’s first partnership designed to increase the lifecycle of clothing and textiles to address the approximately 23.8 billion pounds that end up in U.S. landfills each year.

A simple tag? Is that all it takes? We’ll see and we’ll hope.

I hope Mom doesn’t mind, (she’s my #1 fan) but I have to let you in on a conversation we had recently about sizing for curvier women. My mother, fully comfortable with her figure and maybe uneven sizing (bigger on the bottom than top), can’t find anything great to wear anymore so she’s taken to making her own clothes.

Luckily, I benefit as well.

She wishes more eco-designers made clothing in her size, but I told her they’re still designing for the teeny tiny woman. Most of the designs really wouldn’t look good on a larger woman. I’ve written before about the few who do design in larger sizes, but not yet at a style level suitable for the fashion-conscious larger woman.

While in New York City a week or so ago, I worked with Prairie Underground which just began offering a size extra large. Buyers were thrilled for some of their regular customers that could now buy more than jewelry or accessories from them. “This will bring in a whole new customer for us,” I heard a buyer remark.

While designers are getting more size savvy, customization companies are also on the rise.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, in the early 1990s a Newton, Massachusetts entrepreneur named Sung Park started a company called Custom Clothing Technology Corp. It sold software that enabled apparel companies to take measurements and crank out a perfectly fitted bathing suit, bra, pair of pants, or shoe.

Acquired in 1995 by Levi Strauss & Co, Park’s concept of mass customization could be the way of the future. Park is now an adviser to several companies that are part of this new customization crop.

The Globe cites another company, Paragon Lake, that sells jewelers a touch-screen display and software that allows the customer to customize pieces – like changing white gold to platinum, or ruby to emerald – and see how the price changes as they go.

Personally I wish there were customizing kiosks in every boutique so I could special order all my outfits to accommodate my “unevenness”. (I better patent that idea before you do!)

More consumers are cautious with their money and wanting more bang for their buck, and not everyone has an atelier they can afford. Me? I’ve got my mom and (nervous laughter) maybe a few other people.

How are you going to find the right fit? Or are you willing to settle for the baggy jean, the bra that accommodates only one of your breasts properly or the shoes that comfortably fit well, but only on your left foot.

Email me. I’d like to hear.

Image: sidewalk flying