Athens, Georgia based Community releases a Spring/Summer 2014 collection of wearable nature.

Nestled in the heart of southern Americana is a style savvy, eco chic and continuously creative fashion collective and shop called Community. Founded in Athens, Georgia in 2010 by designer and entrepreneur Sanni Baumgartner, Community offers a selection of organic and ethical fashion alongside re-designed vintage garments that contribute to the local economy and support Athens’ artists and designers. For her Spring 2014 (cleverly named) Community Service collection, Sanni took inspiration from her home environment and collaborated with local manufacturers and artists, leading the example for creating sustainable clothing in the USA.

The Community Service Spring/Summer 2014 collection features a naturalistic yet modern take on garments. Sanni based the most recent collection on prints of tree bark, lichen and moss taken from the landscape of the North Georgia mountains, translating them onto fabrics and their form on the human body.

The texture photos were then printed onto organic cotton using Spoonflower, a North Carolina based digital fabric printing company that specializes in printing on to anything from silk to wall paper. A combination of this printed fabric and re-purposed vintage materials resulted in a collection of fresh, nature inspired and very chic pieces.

All of the materials used in the collection are either organic cotton or recycled vintage, and everything was designed and hand made at Community in downtown Athens, GA.

Sanni herself states that images and prints incorporated into the collection “really ties together my love for this area, for the beauty of nature and for sustainable fashion. It’s like wearing nature, but modern and high tech at the same time.” The collection was launched on April 2014, and can be found at the flagship store or at Community’s online shop.

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Images: Community

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When Rapanui founders Rob & Mart Drake-Knight launched their clothing line in the U.K, they knew consumers were keen to eco-brand’s greenwashing and that they’d have their work cut out for them when it came to showing credibility. So they came into the arena ready for war.

Not only have the brothers become completely transparent in getting consumers the information they want (as to how their clothing got to them) but they’ve also put a clear coat on how they market it as well. How? By investing a lot of time in communication design, eco-labeling to benchmark their products’ eco impact and offering interactive traceability maps “with images, video and figures of our entire supply chain for every product from seed to shop.”

“We’re saying that brands should start educating themselves, and their consumers, about their supply chains and reduce spin marketing and reconnect the consumer’s awareness of their environmental consequence – i.e, their buying action,” says Mart Drake-Knight in a businessGreen.com article.

Rapanui claimed their own 2010 Sustainable Business Award (the youngest winners ever) this year for not only their organic fabrics but for the renewable energy powered factories they work with, and the fact that they enforce fair labor at all points of their supply chain.

As more and more sustainable brands and stores are entering the marketplace touting green clothing, confused consumers being fed gobs of “green” information are recognizinggreenwashing tactics, which devalues the cause itself.  Will brands have to be much more transparent when claiming to be eco without being laughed at?

Absolutely.

Say the brothers on their site: “I don’t think we are going to be some kind of world saving company that is the solution to the 21st century sustainability crisis, but if we can inspire people to make wider lifestyle choices in going green and to spark a change in the industry or inspire some sort of wider change in the industry, then I think we have done our job in making a significant contribution towards sustainability.”

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Jeesh. Yesterday I was flooded with friends’ and colleagues’ emails begging me to write a rebuttal to what they thought were one or two writers slamming the eco-fashion industry.

It had already gone pretty viral by the time the emails came in and only this morning did I really take note. Sometimes knee-jerk reactions can prove disastrous, even if you want to be the first to herald the crappy news and the news is simply: nobody knows what eco-fashion is. Big deal.

For those of you who care what I have to think about eco-fashion, here it is:

Eco-fashion is a veritable hell mess defined sadly and mostly by archaic industry professionals who like the game to work for them.

It’s also called self-serving eco-branding.

Greenwashing? No.
Survival? Yes.
You know who you are.

Note that I wrote “mostly.”
The people interviewed in the first article, which debuted in Financial Times, were fantastic representatives of the “mostly.”

Here’s how FT’s writer Vanessa Friedman quoted them as defining eco-fashion:

Frida Giannini, Gucci creative director: “Quality items that stand the test of time – it is this concept of sustainability, symbolised by a timeless handbag that you wear again and again, and can pass on, that I am always thinking of when I design.”

Oscar de la Renta, designer, brand founder: “Sustainable fashion implies a commitment to the traditional techniques, and not just the art, of making clothes. I work today in the same way that I first learnt in the ateliers of Balenciaga and Lanvin 50 years ago. We need to ensure that the next generation of seamstresses and tailors have the skills necessary to develop clothes that are not only beautiful but extremely well made.”

Anya Hindmarch, designer, brand founder, and initiator of the “I am not a plastic bag” initiative: “I would define the ideal as locally sourced materials that don’t pollute in their creation or demise (preferably recycled) and with limited transportation to achieve the completed product.”

And, lastly, designer and brand founder Dries van Noten: “Most of what we may currently refer to as sustainable fashion is a contradiction in terms. It refers to how the fabric used for a new garment has been produced … Yet, I believe, we need to consider this issue from a more macro and profound perspective. Though a cotton may be unbleached, we need to examine how it arrives to the manufacturer or to us the wearer. What was the “˜carbon imprint’ of its delivery, for example?”
Not all the same, then.”

I agree with all of these responses.

But, please understand that these designers are so far removed from their lines. They do not design their lines, their designers design the lines and their marketing professionals decide which campaign could benefit them. And the flavor of the year, for them, is light green.

They are too big to care what the hell eco-fashion is, so they invent off-the-cuff definitions to support the little they do to contribute to this new, darker green world.

(Next time, Vanessa, call me and I’ll give you a different list for interviews.)

These fashion giants – minus Ms. Hindmarch – have a lot of money and could be doing a lot more, by the way, than using “traditional” techniques. As for the others, the not “mostly’s” who live and breathe what it takes to be sustainably designing, there aren’t enough sermons in the world to dedicate to you.

They are smaller design houses, independents, creating from small studios all over the world.

They are supported by indie boutiques all over the world.

They are broke.

They are struggling to be artists, to make really beautiful clothing from organic materials. They are juggling their lines by being coffee baristas and part-time brokers.

They are not necessarily committed to, as Maria Moyer, one of my favorite new people recently said, “Picking a lane.”

What this means is that these same designers, first and foremost, need to design. If they can then use an organic fabric, cut down their carbon footprint, give percentages to the homeless, work with water-based dyes, incorporate alternative energy at their facilities, manufacture locally and make it in the U.S. well, all the better. But designers must first design.

When they focus on that, they are able to create objects of worth that transcend trends and can be used not only to satisfy our urge to adorn but to outlast so we don’t need more.
We, the consumers, also need to be more conscious of what we buy. We play a big part in this, too.

When writers proclaim prematurely that “nobody knows what eco-fashion is,” they fail to realize it’s just more fuel on our fire.

That it only makes our community stronger and more willing to design sustainably because it does matter so much for our health and for the environment.

Because this isn’t just about defining eco-fashion. This is about conscious consumption, and we Americans know nothing of it.

Therein lies our eco-fashion paradox.

Our own fashion burden to bear.

Image: CoCreatr’s

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When fashion designers go residential, their sense of color and texture don’t always feel quite at home. Especially when it comes to bedding, it can feel – well, a bit sleepy. Not so with never neutral Trina Turk, whose punchy patterns enter a room with the sock-it-to-me frivolity of Joanne Whirley – euphoric, mod, and unabashedly uncorked with personality.

In fact, the shag carpet appeal of the Laugh-In era has come alive in Palm Springs, the new Mid-Century mecca where Trina Turk Residential has opened right next door to her apparel boutique on Palm Canyon Drive. Turk and her husband, photographer Jonathan Skow, own a home in the desert. Along with retrophiles like Jonathan Adler, they are doing their part to restore the resort to its early 60s glamor of Avanti cars, Sinatra and Hope soirées, and low-slung homes.

Turk’s vivid peacock and floral prints fit in the scene like a worn-in golf glove. The best part is that she locates old pieces – mostly vintage patio furniture – that she restores and upholsters in her own florals and geometrics, infusing old goodies with contemporary spark. It’s oh so greener than throwing them out to pasture.

I spoke with the highly successful designer about her vision for home:

Luanne: Why residential?

Trina: We always did color and prints in our apparel line and it seemed like a logical progression. Most of the prints we do are graphic and bold so they lend themselves to larger expanses of fabric. Over the years, we used my prints in my old home and realized the apparel fabrications are not appropriate for upholstery use (laughs). What we wanted was to find someone who could do true indoor-outdoor fabrics that could withstand the sun, getting wet, kids and dogs. That’s how we paired up with F. Schumacher. We did nine patterns and eight of them are ones we have use in the past on apparel.

Luanne: The Schumacher fabrics are stunning but not organic. Have you thought about going in that direction?

Trina: As a brand, we have credibility in the arena of printed fabrics. Anything that can be done makes sense for us. I don’t see us every doing eco furniture and hard items, but with textiles, we could cross over.

Gallery of featured Trina Turk products

Pisces Print

Peacock Print

Super Paradise Print

Luanne: I realize it can be challenging. Many of those toxic chemicals are what coat the fabric to make it last.

Trina: The textile industry is a very polluting industry, so at this point, it is really about making baby steps in the right direction. With our customers, the sad thing is if a jean is organic or non-organic, they will buy the one that makes them look better, the one most flattering to them. If the less flattering one is organic, their organic concerns are overruled by what they look good in. As the textile industry continues to develop fabrications that are eco-friendly and also fashionable – that whole thing will move forward and there won’t be a difference.

Luanne: How do you scout for the furniture in your collection?

Trina: All the furniture in our own home is vintage. We opened a residential store here figuring that in Palm Springs, it’s easy to find vintage patio furniture. Stylistically, it’s more interesting to me than new patio furniture. It’s easy to find vintage Brown Jordan but most of it has webbing, making it hard to upholster. We have located upholstered pieces not by famous designers, except for one set by Bob Alexander, who you might know if you are a decorator or collector. We get a lot of metal pieces and have them painted with a shiny enamel paint finish that is very durable and comes in great colors. It looks like new once the upholstery is on the cushions and should endure outdoors.

Luanne: The desert sun can be grueling. I remember when I was growing up and we owned a home in P.S. We’d store the cushions indoors.

Trina: That’s what got this whole thing going..this idea of we want fabric by the pool but the 100% cotton canvas in the apparel line really fades. The P.S. sun is so strong it fades in one day. The Schumacher fabrics go through a wear test equivalent to sitting up and down 15,000 times (we both laugh). They really test it out that way!

Luanne: They could have just had my kids come over. They’re hyper-active. Who is your decor clientele – who’s interested in procuring the vintage pieces you’re refurbishing?

Trina: Mostly, there are the people who live here who have bought and restored Mid-Century homes. Then, there are the architectural tourists who come to look at the homes. This time of year, there is a new crop every weekend because of all the local events. The Palm Springs Modernism Show just happened.

Luanne: Were you involved? Did it get around that you have the new home store?

Trina: Yes, we did a thing called the Trina Turk Guide to Palm Springs, an extended postcard listing all of the Mid-century shops.

Luanne: It seems you are branching out beyond Palm Springs, opening a new store in Burlingame, Calif. and other cities.

Trina: In Burlingame, we will sell mostly apparel but also carry some items from our home collection, pillows and home accessory items like scented candles. We see a lot of possibilities for things we can do in that area. The prints could be applied to wallpaper, rugs, many different things.

Photos: courtesy John Ellis

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