ColumnThe Awamaki Lab returns with a Season 2 collection featured at the Textile Arts Center in Manhattan.

Fashion designers Andria Crescioni and Courtney Cedarholm both knew from a young age that designing was integral to their composition. Each grew up with an individual attraction to the tactile and hands-on approach to creative expression. Cedarholm was always especially drawn to fabrics and yarn, and by third grade, had already proclaimed her desire to be a fashion designer.

Crescioni, on the other hand, lived out her early days in the suburbs of Southern California, spending her weekends reconstructing vintage finds from thrift stores and flea markets.

“The process of seeing something go from a vague idea in my head to a tangible piece drives me to continue creating things and exploring new ways of doing so,” says Crescioni.

With the collaborative effort of Awamaki, a non-profit weaving project that works for sustainable community development in Ollantaytambo, Cusco, Peru (and empowers young indigenous women), these two fashion students from Parsons were given an opportune design residency to explore their own garment genesis amidst the Sacred Valley of Peru.

Cedarholm and Crescioni were off on a journey into unfamiliar lands and unknown textile territory. That adventurous spirit subsequently permeated into the depths of their design inspiration.

“The clothing was inspired by the idea of a vintage explorer, especially Hiram Bingham,” says Cedarholm. When reviewing pictures of Hiram Bingham exploring in the 1900s, Crescioni was instantly taken by the garments featured. “I decided to juxtapose the Andean textiles with more casual and tailored sportswear, inspired by vintage explorers, to make them feel more unexpected and modern.” adds Crescioni.

In their own collaborative format, the designers decided to each embrace a particular angle for the collection; Crescioni developed the woven pieces, while Cedarholm concentrated on the knitwear.

“One of the main focuses of the collection is to showcase the traditional hand-woven textiles from the Patacancha Valley,” Crescioni explains. She was also intent on incorporating an element of hand-woven textile into every design, whether it be the entire pattern or an adorning trim.

For Cedarholm, her knitting became an extension of her everyday existence.

“I was quite a fan of carting my knitting everywhere, walking and knitting is my new favorite skill.” As Cedarholm explains it, creating the garment sample was necessary before any of the next steps in production could be tackled. So, for both designers, developing their patterns was key to moving forward in relaying their design framework to the Quechua women weavers for production.

Rooted intentions of showcasing the authentic artisanship of the weavers vibrates throughout Cedarholm and Crescioni’s garments. Cedarholm says: “We did not dictate designs to them [the women weavers] but instead observed them weaving and began to learn it to really understand how much goes into one textile and that turns into a great respect for the material and a true questioning of design to make sure the textile is showcased in its best form.”

The collection’s evolution unfolded atop a table of collaboration in genius and resourcefulness – designers and artisans learning and sharing with each other along the way. As Crescioni says, “This hands-on experience really gave us the opportunity to design pieces that compliment the way they [Quechua women weavers] work, rather than hinder it.”

The cultural exchange of working with the women weavers of Awamaki undeniably affected Crescioni and Cedarholm’s design process. “I think the limitation on materials in terms of diversity was the biggest challenge, yet at the same time helped narrow things down,” Cedarholm says.

As the saying goes, less is more sometimes. For Crescioni, this idea of reducing the options almost calmed her creative process. “When you are working in a city like New York, there are no limits, which can sometimes be overwhelming for me. In Peru, you are forced to simplify, to be creative with less, not only when it comes to making clothing but in day to day life.”

Crescioni’s own reaction to the differing lifestyles of these locations inadvertently comments on the consumptive culture of the U.S. Through the art of the Sacred Valley of Peru’s local culture, themes of simplicity and necessity simply surface. Design in this context could potentially symbolize larger lessons and reflections of the societies in which they are harbored.

Experiences from the Awamaki Lab relationship fosters rewards that extend far beyond an exchange of creative innovations. For Crescioni, one of the most rewarding parts of the project is the direct relationship that one gets to have with the weavers at Patacancha.

Cedarholm reflects on her time spent working closely with the women.

“Beginning to know them more has given me such a curiosity and respect for those who are behind the actual making of a garment. And in thinking about who made a garment you also think of who designed it. They are usually on the higher end of the food chain, but this collection attempts to disregard any mention of food chain.”

For her, the intention of the Awamaki Lab Season 2 collection was to just work together to create something fresh and new.

Due to the way Crescioni and Cedarholm approached their adventure abroad, they were able to absorb authentic and intimate connections. Their openness allowed for true dialogue outside of the daily design activities, such as time spent in the homes of the Quechua families, learning their crafts and sharing meals with them. Crescioni reminisces about one weekend in November when a weaver in Patacancha taught them her age-old methods. “It was an intimate experience, walking through the surrounding hillside with her and her children while their sheep grazed. As we walked, we would take a seat, set up our back-strap looms and weave, enjoy the view, and chat. It was an incredible example of life and craft coinciding together.”

For Cedarholm, the garments largely represent that comfortable, content, and serene atmosphere. “We want the clothing to feel like home, you can just climb into them and live.”

Meditating on the process, Crescioni says, “I have a deep respect for the artisans that create the textiles and I hope the garments we’ve created allow the weavers’ unique vision of life to be appreciated in a new context.”

The Awamaki Lab Season 2 Collection will be unveiled in its entirety on Friday, January 27th at the Textile Art Center‘s Manhattan location. Featured alongside the garments will be a backpack collection; Brooklyn-based pattern maker Hannah Flor volunteered with the Awamaki Lab this season, developing a project with the sewing co-op in which each weaver designed their own backpack.

Stockholm’s Royal Vintage exhibit gives us an inside look at Swedish Royalty.

Most girls dream of someday getting to play dress-up inside the closet of a real-life princess. Perhaps getting to peek into it would be a close second, and that’s exactly what a show at the Royal Armory in Stockholm lets us do. Entitled Royal Vintage, it’s a showcase of dresses worn by the women of the Swedish royal family, from the early 1900s up until today, with a main focus on the 50s and 60s. Over 70 couture pieces are featured in the exhibit, all displayed according to color. Most of them come from the gilded closets of King Carl XVI Gustaf’s mother, Princess Sibylla (who would have been queen had the current king’s father not died in a plane crash in 1947, before the crown was passed on to him), and sister, Princess Margareta, Mrs. Ambler.

The dresses are all hand-made, mostly locally in Stockholm by prominent tailoring schools. One of the most respected ones was the Märtha School, named after sewing enthusiast Princess Märtha. Like most tailoring schools at the time, it included a French department with models often sewn from original Parisian patterns. The school founder, Countess Margareta von Schwerin, considered that French fashion led to more economical consumption as the garment lasted for at least three years.

At this time, slow fashion was the only kind of fashion, accessible merely to the privileged elite. Hooks, buttons and closures were all made by hand, although as the times progress, zippers start making appearances. The curators of the exhibit has made durability and eco-conscious thinking a main focus of the show. It’s hard not to ponder the fact that these dresses all look as good as new even though some of them are going on 100 years old. One factor may be that they probably weren’t worn that many times, but it’s clear that a well-made garment does last.

For those interested in seeing more garments from the wardrobes of Swedish royals, it would be worth your time to check out the rest of the armory. Stand-out garments include garb that two kings wore when they were killed, complete with blood-stains that tell the eerie tale, and even a stuffed horse named Streiff, upon which King Gustavus Adophus rode when he met his demise on a Polish battle field in 1632.

Besides an amazing red coat (very 70s-style, which was right, except it was from the 1870s), and the fact that the people seem to have been very short (yes, it seems Swedes were short once upon a time) a few hundred years ago, what I am most enthralled by is the clothing from the early parts of the 1900s, when King Gustav V brought lawn tennis and the whole romantic, English-influenced style that went along with that to these Northern parts of Europe. King Gustav was quite the sharp dresser — he always wore hats, often vests and driving gloves (a garment for each occasion), had enormous feet and, rumor has it, tended to fancy the gents over the ladies. I got to try on one of his hats (or, more likely, a replica), which is about as close to actually playing dress-up in a royal closet as I got.

Here’s some photos I took from the exhibit:

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Green is a complex issue as illustrated in this new textile exhibition in Washington, D.C.

There is no doubt that new directions in fiber and textile art are influencing the recent crafting and handwork surge in contemporary fashion. Makers are always swapping ideas between the realms of art and design, so it is inevitable that a collective unconscious of sorts permeates shifting style and color trends. The Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. is on to this creative phenomenon with their latest exhibition, Green: The Color and the Cause, on view through September 11, 2011. This call-to-artists showcase features a diverse spectrum of wall pieces, sculpture, and site-specific projects — all celebrating the role of green as an influencer of rising eco-consciousness as well as a hue that is evocative of change.

Green: The Color and the Cause has unified artists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines in conjunction with thirteen textile examples of historical precedents from the museum’s own extensive collection. To assemble the group of artists represented, The Textile Museum issued a call for entry to contemporary fiber artists across the country and around the globe. Exhibition co-curators Rebecca A.T. Stevens and Lee Talbot reviewed more than 1,000 works of art submitted by nearly 300 artists. From this group, the co- curators selected 32 contemporary artists—representing 18 U.S. states and 6 countries—to participate in the exhibition.

A Woman of Substance basket coiled from discarded silk blouses by Jackie Abrams (photo: Liz LaVorgna)

Materials and methods featured include the innovative recycling of household textiles and threads, sewing and embroidery, cast papermaking, green typography, as well as a lace vegetation arbor. Several of the show’s pieces reference craft and women’s work as an indicator that the resourceful use of fabric and cloth bits has always been a natural expression of green as an eco-friendly studio methodology. As an environmental fiber artist, I would never make the claim that women are crafters first and environmentalists second just because they opt to pick up a needle to get the job done. What I do know, is that crafting a green vision is a total process and something that flows between the head and the hands with some serious input from the heart.

Hand-sewn and hand-embroidered ‘Swing Coat’ by Alabama Chanin

Some of my favorite artists and crafters are featured in this exhibit, and one of the most intriguing observations made by designer Natalie Chanin is the irony that true green dye is not any easy thing to produce naturally. “Despite the prevalence of green in nature, no single plant produces a color-fast, deep green dye. Until the invention of synthetic dyes in the nineteenth century, people around the world typically combined indigo blue with various yellow dyes to create green textiles.”

Chanin’s contribution to the show is a show stopping cotton jersey ‘Swing Coat’ hand-sewn and hand-embroidered by her team at Alabama Chanin. As the exhibition’s curators highlighted: “Incorporating organic and repurposed materials, Alabama Chanin garments are hand-sewn using traditional quilting and stitching techniques by women who live and work near Florence, Alabama. These women, ranging in age from their 20’s to their 70’s, work together in circles reminiscent of quilting bees to create socially and environmentally responsible fashions.”

Treatment?, 2009, hand-painted silk quilt by Linda Gass

The subversive quilting spirit is alive and well in Green: The Color and the Cause, as illustrated by the work of Linda Gass. Her quilted reproduction of an aerial photograph of a water treatment plant on the San Francisco Bay, calls our attention to “the engineering wonders that have made contemporary lifestyles possible, but also questions the wisdom of our long-term strategies for sustainable development.”

Estuary: Moods and Modes, 2007, Nancy Cohen (photo: Ed Fausty)

Nancy Cohen’s handmade abaca paper sculpture of the ecosystem of coastal New Jersey emulates the ebb and flow of the artist’s study of the New Jersey Pine Barrens ecosystem—a million-acre tract of largely undeveloped land in the nation’s most densely populated state. Her wild topographical melding of marsh grasses and cast paper is perhaps a more revealing way of conducting an environmental impact study while also creating allure with undulating folds.

Arbor Lace, 2002-2011, live vegetation installation by Michele Brody

One of my personal favorites is artist friend Michele Brody’s Arbor Lace (2002-2011) project, an outdoor installation assembled out of synthetic lace, grass seeds, copper pipe and water. Brody has been working with live vegetation in sculpture before green design or eco art became trendy, and her site-specific projects create structures, which she calls “passageways,” for both rural and urban dwellers. The grass seed planted in the arbor will sprout, grow, and die in approximately six weeks time. New seed will then be planted and the cycle will begin anew. You can watch the seeds grow over time at the following link. Brody’s work is the perfect metaphor for understanding the life cycle of textiles and the precious resources required to sustain life and beauty as we desire it.

Gyöngy Laky’s ALTERATIONS,  featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine in spring 2008

There is so much visual fodder in Green: The Color and the Cause that the exhibition is obviously something to be experienced more than described. As a participant, celebrated artist Gyöngy Laky humbly shared, “I am interested in making a small dent in changing attitudes about the environment and our relationship to it.”

Detail of Gyöngy Laky’s sculptural typography work

Green as a color and marketing phenomenon is increasingly a part of our daily lives, but for me, the transformative aspect of this hue is the fact that it’s deep range urges us to see green in those things that also lie at the other end of the spectrum. Craft, innovation, and renewal is often about taking something seemingly mundane and transforming it into something life supporting and wildly complex. No formula exists and no pattern need be duplicated.

Green: the Color and the Cause is co-curated by Lee Talbot, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections, and Rebecca A.T. Stevens, Consulting Curator, Contemporary Textiles. The exhibition will be on view at The Textile Museum April 16 through September 11, 2011.

image: “Hothouse Flowers” by Maggy Rozycki Hiltner via The Textile Museum

SeriesPart 3: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Now more than ever, is eco-fashion inextricably linked to conscious connections with land and place?

We might attribute eco-fashion to ’60s youths, with their natural approach to style, but the official terminology came much later. The term “eco-fashion” came into the mainstream in the late ’90s, and 2005 was perhaps the most significant year. EcoSalon’s Louise Lagosi writes, “In 2005, it became a marketing tool which is why we suddenly knew about it. Capitalists needed to bank on a trend and this was something they couldn’t ignore. It became the tipping point for eco-fashion.”

While eco-fashion most certainly did become a focal point for all industry sectors circa 2005, if we take a look at why it has stuck, we might be surprised.

Textile Arts Center knitting group

A Consciousness We May Not Be Conscious Of

Owyn Ruck, General Manager of the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, says our green awareness has gone beyond being just “eco-friendly” to a deeper understanding of how things are made.

“Understanding not only reminds you of the impact of an object on the environment, but also allows for the true appreciation of the object. Things from our past are easily represented through physical objects, and by understanding more about the making, we pay more respect to our past – and thus ourselves and current environment,” says Ruck.

Permacouture Institute batch dyeing

Pioneering women have entered the sustainable scene, with many dropping the “eco” terminology altogether, introducing heritage craft with natural textiles and dyeing to further promote this awareness. These designers and entrepreneurs have taken our appreciation of what is eco to a new level, where natural materials are not only being used, but are being designed to biodegrade to leave virtually no footprint at all. But there’s something deeper yet at work – something bordering on the primitive.

Ruck says the growing desire to go past the surface of the eco label is a weighty subject.

“What does this even mean to the average person, who may know nothing about the production of the product? The more prevalent these words become, the more people want to understand them. People are not stupid,” says Ruck. “They want to understand what this movement is about, what do these words mean, why the large price tag on designers using natural and sustainable methods? Maybe it’s not to the point yet where the H&M’s of the world using such terms are ignored, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

She adds that education is key, as well as knowing the person or the story behind the brand.

A New Seasonality

Adie + George

Sasha Duerr, Founder and Co-Director of the Permacouture Institute in San Francisco, author of The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes and co-designer for Adie+George, is one of those pioneering women willing to educate and create in concert. Duerr says creating her line has been an experiment and a labor of love fusing natural textiles with a desire to test out a new seasonality.

Having just completed a full collection of Northern California artisan spun (fair trade), local and seasonal naturally-dyed knits, Adie + George hopes to broaden the topic of biodiversity for color, while also looking at connections to the physical source of materials. Duerr says she hopes her collection will ultimately finish in the compost pile after a very long and well-loved life to create more food, color and fiber for future fashion.

Adie + George co-designer, Permacouture Institute co-founder and author Sasha Duerr

She also asks us to consider something we’re not used to when it comes to fashion: seasonal colors based on what’s in season, as we do with food. Though she says it takes more care, thought, and common sense to understand the benefit of why we should use natural dyes, following what makes the most sense for nature is not always perfect, and it is not always commercial.

“Fashion seasonality in the industry is so far out of sync with actual seasons, that it is difficult to sync your samples to your production process with batch dyeing. So we choose some plant dyes that are always readily available in the urban environment (example: avocado pits). This created the mauves, grays, and pinks in our collection. For the other color [yellow], we derived a system to use two weed dye plants that bookend each other in wet and dry season so that we know if one is not available the other will be,” says Duerr.

Permacouture Institute

Can there be four seasons in fashion when designers are creating this way?

“I think there can absolutely be four local seasons of fashion in sync with what makes the most sense for nature and culture,” she says. “Refining the process is ongoing and creating a healthy and thriving life for ourselves as designers and human beings, also means saying ‘no’ to the insanity of how the industry currently functions on the expectations of  ‘fast fashion’ seasonality. Time after time, appreciating more with less is usually the most satisfying.”

Primitive Permaculture

Another design duo working closely with nature is designer John Patrick of John Patrick Organic, in collaboration with knitwear designer Amanda Henderson, for the A/W 2011 season. To document the story of the collection, Patrick collected video footage and provided visuals of his supply chain onto a Sourcemap to document the garments from fiber collection through manufacturing and production local to the Eastern United States. See the inspiring video here about the people behind his collection.

John Patrick Organic and Amanda Henderson’s A/W ’11 collection

The supply chain began with wool fibers sourced in upstate New York at Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Company. After the wool was sorted and washed, it traveled to either a mill in Canton, Massachusetts, or directly to Queens, New York to be knit into hand crafted sweaters by Henderson. The fabric used in the collection was created at Draper Knitting in Massachusetts, then cut and sewn in NYC’s historic garment district and finally previewed and exhibited at New York Fashion Week in February 2011.

I asked Henderson if she thinks designers need to have a better connection to where they’re getting their materials. She believes it’s “a fundamental connection that greatly inspires the end result,” and adds that elements of story-telling and honor in fashion has been lost to the past and that perhaps we need to have more of it when considering clothing.

A John Patrick Organic knitting mill for the A/W ’11 knitwear collection

“Native Americans would worship the animals that brought to them necessities for survival. They adorned simple garments beautifully and meticulously in order to honor that animal and what was provided to that individual person and what it meant to them,” says Henderson. “That is the element of fashion I wish to resurrect, which is why this project with Organic meant so much to me. Why I felt that establishing a connection with my materials, and the story of those wools, was so important to both John and me.”

But with a hungry society enamored with fast fashion’s quick catering to trends and bargain basement pricing strategy, can this story really matter to the consumer? Do we as a society have the patience to hear it?

“Now is a perfect time for the consumer to cease spending on numerous new garments with short-lived spans, especially from designers who consider price over both human and clothing quality of life. Rather, to invest in few, very selective pieces, with great meaning to that person, at a higher material quality and technique level. Timeless clothing with hand-made history, and primal human meaning. After all, clothing has been around since the early beginnings of human existence, and can inspire a modern person to consider their roots. That ancestral element, to be passed through the generations,” says Henderson.

Fashioning Self In Relation To Environment

Abigail Doan, fashion writer for EcoSalon, textile artist and founder of Ecco Eco, says that while she is an “eternal optimist” regarding consumer’s connections to clothing, she isn’t so sure that we are closer to being significantly connected to what we wear as a result of a raised fashion consciousness.

Doan says cost and overall availability are things that still influence which items consumers select and incorporate into their wardrobes. Someone living a few hours from a major city is likely to either shop at a local mall, a local main street retailer, or hunt for bargains online when trying to locate new fashion acquisitions.

“This is why I feel that ‘conscious fashion’ also needs to incorporate ideas about fashioning self in relation to the environment as a complete approach to how clothes shopping relates to one’s ethical and environmental views,” says Doan. “Being connected to nature via our clothes must first come from an awareness that is generated by the individual in response to how to create or style an identity that reflects one’s awareness about conservation, materials, and craft.”

Doan, who grew up in a household where hand spinning and sheep shearing were regular activities, goes on to say, “From this platform one can build a wardrobe that reflects a connectedness that is meaningful and perhaps even sustainable.”

Abigail Doan photos

Designers will always have to make money and consumers will always want something new, but the psychology of fashion is changing.

Duerr-Fossel says it will all come down to our individual lifestyles – that this consciousness extends beyond fashion to many areas including food, transportation and even the way we love one another.

“It is an overall choice to do things that help the environment, in many aspects of your life, and when you start with one, it’s easier to keep going. Which we can see with this idea of homesteading very clearly. I think all these changes and movements feed off one another in a nice way that keeps our society changing to something more positive,” Duerr says.

Our hearts are set on it.

Image: sydigill, b3d, Dan Zen

How a road trip through the rural South created deeper connections.

With spring rituals now officially underway, there is no debating that we are eager to shed the last winter layers for the fresh green shoots of the new season. Every day life is also alarmingly unsettling with recent natural and political events hanging heavy in the atmosphere. It is at times like these that we need to feel the soil beneath our feet as we reach out to help others in the rebuilding process. Feeling grounded goes hand in hand with an ability to effectively observe our surroundings in order to cultivate genuine solutions and deeper connection.

No one understands the spirit of authentic presence better than designer Natalie Chanin of Alabama Chanin and her hard-working team of Alabama-based fashion talent. This last weekend of March was the annual Doo-Nanny festival in rural Seale, Alabama, and in the spirit of bootleg craft spliced with regional outsider art, this Southern-style Burning Man gathering might just be the tonic that many of us are thirsting for.

I first started writing about the work of Alabama Chanin in March of 2008 and more than three years later this homegrown American label seems timelier than ever. As a bright testament to slow fashion resolve, the appliqué appeal of Chanin’s hand-embroidered garments, rural chic home collection, and community-based crafting workshops continue to thrive because of the staying power of organic materials and local talent.

The Doo-Nanny’s temporary weekend campground is a spin-off of this concept with an art-music-crafting event which takes place on Butch Anthony’s rural compound in Seale. Having made a road trip through the region this past Sunday, I can vouch for the fact that folks had arrived in droves to celebrate the spirit of Natalie and Butch and the unfussy aesthetic that they both have helped to cultivate. The cast-off and the abandoned gain new life in their uniquely recycled creations, and the opportunity to wrangle the impossible into the possible is contagious.

Anthony practices what he colloquially refers to as ‘intertwangleism.’ His outsider-like art, ad-hoc bicycle sculptures (as well as sparkly chandeliers with bleached cow bones), and even his natural twang, defy the conventions of urban design polish and self-conscious design-speak.

Museum of Wonder in Seale, Alabama

I was struck while driving the back roads of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia by the deep chasm that exists between the pure local aesthetic and the “fast fashion fix” of the highway and the shopping malls along its flanks. The Doo-Nanny cannot be accessed via a quick turn off on the interstate, and consequently runs counter to modern life and what we have come to expect as part of our entertainment and fashion consumption.

Not everyone at the Doo-Nanny is an artist per se, but for one weekend anyone might freely demonstrate just how clever she or he can be with discarded doodads and pickled ideas from the domestic sphere. Southern couture has a lot to teach us not only about slowing down but also taking stock in what we typically deem to be irreparable. This includes our communities and local businesses. After six months in Europe, it is apparent to me that poverty is on the rise in America, and folks are scratching the soil (and the highway pavement outside of McDonald’s), to piece together scraps of meaning in order to stave off personal humiliation. Natalie Chanin often speaks of “loving one’s thread,” and perhaps it is time for us to acknowledge that our collective thread is frayed, not only because of a weak economy but because of our inability to take stock and invest in the junk out back and the laborers whom we have thrown out like a bucket of rain water.

What amazed me about getting to and from the Doo-Nanny was not the energy of the gathering, which is surely worth the road trip, but the eye-opening sights and truck stop voices that you are privy to along the way. One of the most poignant images for me was an elderly woman in a shopping mall café who was obviously installed there for the entire day with her satchels full of possessions, medications and pills laid out on a table, recycled tea bags, and a huge crocheted blanket that she was working on obsessively as if to preserve her sanity.

The scene made me feel elitist for scrutinizing things like sustainable fabrics and fashion, as I was completely paralyzed to even mutter a word to a woman who obviously loved fiber as much as I do. The difference between the two of us was nonexistent in this moment of loving one’s thread. She was authentic, proud, and probably even someone’s mother. But as an American citizen, I was shocked at her overall predicament and had to look away. How might we mend these torn moments and injustices that seem to be silently slipping away? I can only think about fashion in the context of the “other” now, and what some one else might be toiling over or enduring in an effort to simply stay afloat and maintain a thread of dignity in the face of displacement.

lead image: Alabama Chanin; Robert Rausch for The New York Times; City Profile/Seale

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A weekly round-up of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Take five. Here’s an at-a-glance chance to reconnect with or catch top stories you might have missed this week at EcoSalon:

1. Fashion writer Kelly Drennan thinks We Can All Afford To Slow Down, asking us to consider why it is we need so much in our wardrobes. Investment dressing, slow fashion and an awareness of clothing production are highlighted.

2.Frenzied marketing campaigns to move out excessive SUVs are the target of senior editor Luanne Bradley’s article on Greenwashing The Beast. Says Bradley: “While the sticker deals appeal to all consumers, the language lauding eco-flavored 2011 models is shamelessly aimed at a specific audience: The responsible buyer who might break down and crossover to a road hog at last.”

3. Is it possible to disappear off the grid and do it in style? Writer Leigha Oakes says yes with her article on an Australian eco-friendly retreat in No Water, No Electricity, No Roads. Architect and owner Rob Brown, of Casey Brown Architecture says: “You can stay and be at one with nature on a mountain. The ability to go to a place and be in solitude in today’s over-scheduled urban lifestyle is romantic, something perhaps we all long for.”

4. Food expert and chef Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate: Street Eats, shows how you can virtually travel all over the world eating street food from the comfort of your kitchen. From Banh Mi in Vietnam to Falafel in Israel, Barrington has even gotten you all the recipes.

5. Ever open your bedroom’s closet doors and realize your wardrobe is less than interesting? Writer Rowena Ritchie asks you to take a New York Fashion Week challenge in her Catwalk Considerations: ‘Why Not?‘, implementing five quick wardrobe fixes to make your closet runway worthy.

ExclusiveInterview with a leading slow fashion expert.

If late February finds you rather lackluster and beaten down, we just might have a cure for what ails you. Sasha Duerr of the Permacouture Institute recently released her new book, The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes, and it is a true cornucopia of slow fashion goodness and ‘soil to studio’ guidance. Sasha is one of the leading experts on natural plant dyes and home-brewed recipes for creating customized color palettes that also touch on eco-literacy and bio-regional awareness. Identifying non-toxic dye materials that reside in your own kitchen, garden, or urban plot goes hand in hand with all of the focus and research one might put into shopping for and preparing organic foods. This is the first book that really highlights why fashion and food are intertwined, and why we can no longer afford to view textiles and clothing as something other than the underlying fiber of our everyday lives and shared communities.

The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes: Personalize Your Craft with Organic Colors from Acorns, Blackberries, Coffee, and Other Everyday Ingredients might seem like a mouthful to some, but for artist and educator Duerr, it is vital that everyone celebrate the creative possibilities that exist in those findable organic materials that are very much a part of our long history with natural gardening and textiles. Granted, this Bay Area resident has loads of greenery and inspiration in the foothills of her community, but she will also be the first to admit that time outside in pristine nature is not the only way to re-connect with our environs and those traditions that might help us to revive plant dye knowledge.

I have always loved that Sasha does not have to hunt very far to locate indigenous plants (often called ‘weeds’) or resuscitate kitchen goods (coffee or onion skins) that magically find new life with just the right application of expertise. Her visually alluring book wisely takes the mystery out of dye alchemy so that everyone feels empowered to do the right thing, even if you opt to not try the recipes for some time. I, for one, would consider using this book as a text book in any sustainable fashion course, principally as a means to create a greater awareness about how accessible and affordable eco-fashion truly is.

An Exclusive Q & A with Sasha Duerr:

In an interview with the book’s publisher, Timber Press, Sasha explains why she initiated this project and what role it might play in our relationship with coloring fashion:

“The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes is about experimentation with organic color recipes from my own kitchen, garden, and community. Books and information on natural dyes are diverse, and dye-producing plants and color recipes differ from region to region. As my love of natural color grew, I realized that many dye recipes have been lost to particular cultures and areas of the world. Through creative re-engagement we can begin to revive these recipes and reconnect with the long history of handmade beautiful and non-toxic color sources.“

Plant-based color essentially yields a complex brew of aesthetic and environmental benefits that toxic and synthetic dyes simply do not. Plant hues are far more varied and complimentary in palette and might be compared to a naturally occurring rainbow where all of the edges overlap and intermingle in the most mesmerizing way. Chemical dyes, in addition to being extremely harmful to work with and wear, are far more limited in their range of tonality and subtlety.

Sasha elaborated on her love for plant-based color and the unique creative and environmental possibilities via her blog:

“Plant-based dyes offer colors that are unusual, varied, and vibrant. Natural dyes harmonize with each other in a way that only botanical colors can. A natural dye, a red for example, will include hints of blue and yellow, whereas a chemically produced red dye contains only a single red pigment, making the color less complex. Even mixing synthetic dyes can rarely if ever achieve the range of shades that natural dyes possess. When you work with organic botanical color sources, you are literally working with living color. The unique qualities of naturally dyed textiles can often make the color vibrate or glow. Plant-based dyes also offer an ecologically friendly alternative to synthetic dyes because they come from plants, which can be renewable non-toxic resources and biodegradable.”

As a fiber lover and on-going student of sustainable textile methods and innovation, I asked Sasha these specific questions as part of an exclusive interview for EcoSalon readers.

EcoSalon: Are the recipes and projects in your new book for the beginner or individuals who have some experience with natural plant dyes/fiber?

Sasha: I aimed to do a combination of recipes for the beginner and advanced dyer. I wanted to offer an easy and accessible way for the beginning dyer to achieve beautiful and satisfying results without a lot of effort, and at the same time offer the more experienced dyer a plethora of plants they may not actually have thought of as dye producers. I also wanted to present everyone with more socially or environmentally engaged ways of working with one’s dye practice; for instance, teaching out of your local community garden, seed saving, helpful tips for mapping your neighborhood, offering fiber and dye plant exchanges, or uncovering long lost dye recipes from your family tree and native bio-region.

EcoSalon: What is one of the most commonly misunderstood plants (“weeds”) in your opinion, in relation to its amazing properties and qualities?

Sasha: We are currently working with what we call our “seasonal yellow” which, depending on what time of year the garment is dyed, uses a prevalent invasive weed in Northern California which is where I live  - such as Oaxalis or fennel (dry or wet season respectively!) to produce a super bright fluorescent hue. It’s a great way to think about color, and a useful way to use a weed that needs to be eradicated before it hits the compost pile so that a more bio-diverse natural habitat can thrive.

Another “weed” I love is nettle, as it can be a healing medicinal herb, delicious iron fortified food, and both a wonderful dye AND fiber plant. Any unsuspecting plant with which you can stack functions (i.e. use in multiple ways) is a value to both nature and culture in immeasurable ways.

EcoSalon: Are urban dwellers a part of the natural plant dye scene/movement as much as non-city dwellers?

Sasha: Absolutely. Connecting urban dwellers to natural dyes and eco-literacy through fashion and textiles is one of my ultimate loves and one of the reasons that I started the Permacouture Institute.  I visited the wonderful Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn last night for a book event, and there was an impressive turnout of local New York natural-dye enthusiasts. The Textile Arts Center is also actively working on planting a dye garden on their block and connecting students and textile artists to urban community gardens through natural color. This is something we strongly advocate through our work with the Permacouture Institute. We work closely with garden projects in Oakland and London, both very urban locations for plant dyers.

I am also very interested in bi-products and waste products of urban places that can produce dye colors…cities are excellent places to connect with florists, restaurants, herbalists and urban parks to discover what urban plant bi-products can be unique and brilliant sources of color. To quote a great permaculture saying, “If its not in production it becomes pollution.”

EcoSalon: Is there such a thing as  a natural/organic mordant?

Sasha: As far as botanical based mordants (non-metal based binders that help the dye hold to the fiber), many of the plants that I like to work with actually contain mordants in them naturally without additive—any leaves with plenty of tannins or Oaxalis fit that bill! Oak galls and acorns work well as botanical based mordants, and I am just starting to experiment with other natural methods of mordanting, such as working with protein bases like soy. The metals only ones I ever work with as mordants are alum and iron, those are the only mordants I advise using in my classes and in my book. They still need to be treated with care and used sparingly. But wow, there are so many natural dye books that should be used with extreme caution because they suggest using toxic heavy metal mordants such as chrome and tin, especially books from the 60′s’ and 70′s, which badly need environmental updating. The exciting thing is that there is a lot of experimentation being done to move into better ways of working in sync  with healthy plants for you and the environment and your textiles which have a wide range of gorgeous color and are not dependent on heavy metals. This is what excites me about moving the field of natural dyeing forward in a healthy and sustainable way.

EcoSalon: For Adie + George collections, do you think about the palette first or do you experiment with natural plant dyes that suit the season, and then build the collection around your slow fashion process discoveries?

Sasha: I am continually experimenting with seasonal color, and I’m very excited about the new plants I’ve been trying.  For Adie+George’s  AW11′ collection my obsession was working with avocado pits, which in California are an ongoing commodity and restaurant waste bi-product. I have also gotten really into what we call our “seasonal yellow”- either Oaxalis (Sourgrass) or Fennel, both bright florescent yellows made from invasive Californian weeds that dovetail each other in the wet and dry seasons in Northern California.  It’s always a combination of plants I have fallen in love with and the colors they produce worked well with fall fashion forecasting and with the designs and fibers Casey and I choose for the collection. Of course I always love seeing that the “avocado pit” palette is trendy on the runways in Denmark too, even though the plant originated very locally for us in Northern California.

As a co-founders of California-produced sustainable fashion label, Adie + George, Sasha Duerr and her design partner Casey Larkin have been able to put all of this ‘to-dye-for’ knowledge to the test, and the results have been both stunning and empowering when it comes to bringing fashion back to its roots. Adie + George’s locally-produced and plant-dyed knitwear uniquely demonstrates that fashion, beauty, and responsible production can all co-exist without compromise. Our Fashion Editor, Amy DuFault, viewed Adie + George’s Fall 2011 collection at this past weekend’s NOW Showcase in NYC, and  had this to say:

“It was truly a stand out line for me based on the fact that they’d created such lovely, feminine silhouettes and truly organic-driven color. Given the thoughtful context from which the brand is born, it stands out as a very progressive line to watch.”

To learn more about future book signings and projects related to the Permacouture Institute, you can contact them via their website or follow their blog.

Images courtesy of Sasha Duerr/Permacouture Institute, Tristan Davison, and EcoSalon’s Fashion Editor, Amy DuFault.

Why investment dressing costs far less than fast fashion.

The term “Slow Fashion” combines many aspects of sustainability. From an industry perspective, it can refer to slowing down the production cycle, giving more attention to detail and craftsmanship in each garment, manufacturing locally, or supporting fair wages. From a consumer’s angle, it means slowing down our consumption habits, buying fewer garments that are classic, of quality, and will last us for years.

As a frequent public speaker on the topic of sustainable fashion, I find that the concept of slow fashion resonates really well with the audiences I speak to. My guess is because it’s the one area where consumers feel they can make the most impact simply by shifting their consumption habits.

Those habits are hard to break.

Like fast food, we are victims of fast fashion in North America. We feel constant pressure from the media to buy the latest trends that change with each season: From short hems to long, pointy toe to round, skinny to wide leg, we yearn to stay current. Because most of us simply cannot afford to buy quality-made garments to keep up with these fluctuating trends, we resort to shopping at the “convenient” fast fashion outlets and the big box retailer that trend-hunts runways to bring you the latest fashions in a matter of weeks.

As consumers, we are a sale-driven culture used to the quality of disposable products. We think after we wear a piece of clothing purchased at such a dramatically low cost, it’s acceptable for it to fall apart, for buttons to drop off, threads to come undone, or for them to lose shape. After all, who cares,  it only cost us $10!

The problem with this mentality is that it fuels excessive over-consumption, which comes with a hidden price tag on the environment. According to sustainable super star Kate Fletcher, who coined the term Slow Fashion, laundering our garments has a greater impact than the growing, processing and producing of the fabric, as well as its disposal. So it makes sense then that the more garments we consume, the greater the cumulative negative impact.

This is a serious problem and one that cannot change overnight. However the with our ecological clock ticking, we have to make a change sooner than later, and perhaps when it comes to fashion, we need to adopt a more European mindset. We need to invest in our wardrobe and buy quality made pieces that are timeless, and can be worn for years without falling apart.

Cost-per-wear or investment dressing is a relatively new term. But it is a very powerful tool with potential to change the way we shop. Let’s use a button down shirt as an example. On the higher end, you might spend $150 on such a top (particularly if made from organic cotton).

• First, divide the cost of the shirt by the number of garments in your wardrobe that can be worn with it. For example it can be paired with 3 pairs of jeans and 2 pairs of pants, so $150/5 = $30. The $150 shirt has now been reduced to a cost of $30;
• Next, divide the new cost of $30 by the number of times the shirt will be worn per year (say 4x per month for 12 months ie: $30/48 = 62.5 cents). The $150 shirt has now been further reduced to a cost 62.5 cents;
• The last step is to divide the new cost of 62.5 cents by the number of years the shirt will be worn – and if it was quality made and off trend it should last at least 5 years. So $.625/5 = 12.5 cents.

The final result is a $150 shirt reduced to a cost of 12.5 cents per wear over a 5 year period. Compare this to a cheaper option that falls apart in 6 months or is no longer in fashion and thereby rendered unwearable by the fashion gods. Your cost per wear can be up to 10 times more than an investment piece.

All this talk of slow fashion forced me to reflect on my own wardrobe. I was curious to know how many pieces I still wear that I have owned for 5+ years. I was surprised to see that about 40% of my wardrobe is of that vintage. I was then inspired to poll other eco fashion experts to see if they own, and still wear, items purchased from 5+ years ago. Not surprisingly, here is what I found:

Above (right): Anna Griffin, Publisher and Editor in Chief, Coco Eco Magazine pictured with astrologer Susan Miller

“I was at the Susan Miller Event at the W Hollywood Residences and wore my most treasured piece, a vintage Ozbek which always stops traffic and is absolutely stunning.”

Jasmin Malik Chua, Managing Editor Ecouterre

“I bought this sweet gingham dress from Benetton shortly after 9/11, after a harrowing 11 days away from my Ground Zero apartment.  It was a splurge for a graduate student living on a shoestring, but it’s held up magnificently over the past 10 years. Weddings, brunches, picnics, you name it. I even wore it when I was five months pregnant, so you can’t say I haven’t made the most of it!”

Emma Grady, Fashion Correspondent for Discovery’s TreeHugger, Lifestyle Correspondent for The Daily Green and Founder of PastFashionFuture

“This is a London Fog trench coat that I found at a consignment shop in Newport, Rhode Island when I was still in high school, which was more than five years ago. I have only had to mend the belt and sew on a couple of the buttons since then and it is still in fine shape and still very much a wardrobe staple of mine.”

Johanna Bjork, Founder & Editor of Goodlifer

“I’m wearing an olive green miniskirt that I bought over ten years ago. It’s been in and out of rotation in my closet, but the basic color and cut makes it a timeless piece .”

Kate Black, Founder & Editor, Magnifeco

“I bought those boots before I even knew what ‘sustainable’ fashion was, but I wanted a pair of boots with longevity, that offered both a style and brand that would see me through the years. And they only get better with age! Being a North American living in Japan, I can’t buy jeans here in my size. This means I have to ‘borrow’ from my partner’s closet. This pair, which he bought in 2006, reside permanently on my side of the closet”.

Rachel Lincoln Sarnoff, Founder/Editor of Ecostiletto

“I bought this cotton shirt and jeans before I knew what sustainable fashion was! Even though I was eating and cleaning organic, I never thought about the implications of cotton production–that this outfit alone probably required about a pound of pesticides to produce. The empire waist has seen me through two pregnancies–my kids are 12, 9 and 4 so I’ll let you guess which ones. And the jeans are soft as butter. So I guess my non-sustainable fashion purchase turned out to be sustainable after all!”

To explore this a little deeper, there are some great organizations helping raise awareness with consumers around slow fashion, such as Make Do and Mend, which, according to Maureen Dickson, co-founder of of Slow Fashion Forward “Advocates consumers make do with what they have rather than buying new to combat over-consumption. The creative one-off Six Items or Less Experiment and The Uniform Project challenge consumers to minimize consumption by simplifying their wardrobe.”

Image: Zitona

Take a look at your wardrobe. Do you own any pieces that are more than five years old and still wearable? Why do you think that is?

Amsterdam International Fashion Week (AIFW) and the Dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) launched the Green Fashion Competition this past week for the International Year of Biodiversity. The competition, which consisted of eight designers hailing from all over the world and picked from over 180 participants included sustainable sweetheart and New York City mover and shaker Eliza Starbuck. Starbuck, who you might know from the famed Uniform Project and You Bright Young Things, was there to promote biodiversity with her own NYC spin.

While the Green Fashion Competition is a challenge for seasoned entrepreneurs in the fashion industry like Starbuck, each participant was asked to provide a vision of what the future of fashion could look like while sustaining biodiversity.

EcoSalon was fortunate enough to catch Starbuck and have her answer some questions before the competition finale yesterday and a quick follow up after. Starbuck, although disappointed with her third place win, says she feels very good about the overall experience.

“The competition was fiercely steep but I think we’d all agree that the first prize winner deserved to win. The second prize however might be questioned. Granted they were a shoe company, but I thought sending the models down the runway naked was taking eco fashion a bit far!”

So as a designer, how does she intend to promote biodiversity?

Starbuck says via email from Amsterdam: “I promote bio-diversity by promoting diversity in style and slow fashion practices. That may seem like a stretch, but just imagine a world where everyone’s style is individualized! All things made local, upcycled, recycled, custom, and one offs would be ideal for supporting biodiversity because it would support slow fashion. So to support that vision I produce multifunctional clothes that encourage my customers to play with their personal style and to buy less. I also produce locally, in New York City, and I use materials made of renewable materials, recycled accessories, or materials salvaged from the local fashion industry run off. I also managed to use all of the scraps in the garment’s under structures, making these zero wastage looks.”

While her now well worn black frock has become a wardrobe staple with Bright Young Things everywhere, Starbuck says for this competition she’s presenting some new looks that represent BYT’s “heirloom” fashion.

“This capsule is a bit dressier for the “Lady of the 21st Century”. The trick will be that the two runway looks I’m presenting are actually the same three items in different colors, but all of the items will be styled so drastically different that to the average viewer it will appear as six items. Of course I’ll be wearing my infamous LBD as my travel item of choice,” says Starbuck.

While the immediate prediction for Starbuck’s fashion will most certainly always include her LBD, she says the future is all about diversity.

“I think the mass produced look of the second half of the 20th Century is going to fade away like a boring memory. People are going to start coveting items that customize and differentiate their own style from others, which means a lot more people will be DIYing and searching out one of a kind items. Sure it sounds like an idealized dream now but with today’s resource limitations, social media info sharing, and the economic downturn, it could quickly become a reality,” says Starbuck.

Eliza Starbuck dress images courtesy of Team Peter Stiger

Top Image, Eliza Starbuck walking the Amsterdam Green Fashion runway, from Closet Pique