If you’re moving to an old house, you’re probably thinking about replacing some of that home’s old fixtures. After all, the inexpensive cabinets that looked nice in 1975 probably look less than great now. But if you’re thinking about replacing the house’s windows, you may want to reconsider…

Research those old windows

Shannon Kyles, an instructor and Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario, headed a study that discovered old windows, when properly restored, are as energy efficient as new windows.

The study examined two pairs of windows. One set had new windows and the other had restored 200-year-old windows. Researchers performed an air infiltration test that showed there’s no specific difference between new and restored old windows.

But let’s be practical

Obviously, not every old window is great or properly restored. And some new windows are amazing. But others are total trash. So, how can you tell the difference?

Old window breakdown

Older windows — pre-1900 — were often made of sturdy woods, Pablo Solomon, eco-artist and designer, explains.

“Depending on your climate, woods like cypress, mesquite, and cedar are very weather resistant. Older coastal homes also used mahogany and teak, which are not only weather resistant, but hold up to salty sea breeze,” he says.

Kyles saysthat these old-growth woods are strong because they’ve had to struggle to live. Because of this, they’re hearty and the rings between the wood are very close together. “This makes the wood more or less impervious to water,” she says.

“I have photos from Switzerland of wooden windows from the 13th century. In Britain, it is not unusual to have windows made in the 15th, 16th century — they last forever. There is a lintel on the Folks Electric building in Dundas from 1790 that has been exposed for 230 years, unpainted. It is fine. New wood needs to be kept inside because it is… OK — garbage.”

Solomon adds that modern industrial style homes, such as homes introduced in the early-to-mid 1900s, typically are constructed with industrial-grade windows made from iron and aluminum.

And Jett Hovell, a handyman for Fantastic Handyman, says that older windows, in general, were made by people who considered construction a craft. “Before [World War II], window making was basically considered a craft.”

However, older windows are far from perfect. For example, they are typically single paned. Older windows also are harder to maintain — they often require a lot of upkeep and are susceptible to rot and crumbling glazing — and they are less able to reduce noise, and aren’t as easy to reinstall. Solomon also notes that fixing older windows can be very expensive.

New window breakdown

Although most modern windows are double or triple pane, some modern-day windows just don’t hold up. “As mass-produced homes and [their] windows and doors became standard, cost-cutting led to poor-grade materials,” Solomon says.

In general, this change came after World War II. “The demand was more [and] people came up with different systems to make the process faster,” Hovell explains.

However, modern, new, durable windows are reasonably priced because of plastic improvements and the availability of newer building composites, Solomon adds.

Although classic, old wood windows demand a bit more time and attention from the homeowner in order to look good, vinyl windows are easy to look after. “Slap them in place and you have nice, pretty windows for your home,” Hovell says.

But do your research

Dedicated to living in a home with restored windows, or live in a home that requires you to keep its original windows? You can make older windows look and perform better.

First: Don’t forget that, in general, older wooden windows require more maintenance. Re-glaze them every couple of years so they maintain a nice appearance, Hovell says.

And make certain your home’s older windows are “top-notch”.

You’re on the right track if your home’s windows are made from those previously mentioned “good” woods. Also: Hire a window restorer who knows what they are doing. This person must understand that historical, wood windows are subject to swelling, shrinking, rot, waste energy, and leaks.

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Unifi continues to drive recycled textile innovation with the launch of the REPREVE® Textile Takeback Program.

Unifi reports that “millions of pounds of textile manufacturing scraps end up in landfills every year,” which is why they’ve collaborated to create the REPREVE Textile Takeback Program. The program will give fabrics a second chance by recycling them back into REPREVE recycled fibers. Polartec will also partner with Unifi to launch this innovative new program.

REPREVE is no stranger to the sustainable style scene with brands like hand bag designer Julie Apple, lifestyle brand RESTORE CLOTHING as well as textile innovator Polartec® being forward thinkers that have incorporated the performance yarns. While many in the fashion industry keep leaning towards traditional eco fabrics made from bamboo and organic cotton, future predictions for a need to consume water, land and other precious natural resources begin with a more logical approach which comes with recycling.

“The industry continues to focus on ways to reduce textile fabric waste throughout the supply chain, however as a bi-product of manufacturing, waste is still created,” said Roger Berrier, president and COO for Unifi. “The Textile Takeback Program provides the industry with a responsible and sustainable outlet for this waste, while expanding the growth and reach of the REPREVE brand.”

Polartec (formerly Malden Mills Industries), already introduced Repreve 100 – a 100% PCR yarn, made from recycled plastic bottles. With this new recycled fabric waste fiber, Polartec’s commitment to eco-engineering, reducing waste and depending more on recycling for raw materials has made them an industry leader based in the U.S.

“This fabric has historically been down cycled into batting or simply sent to the landfill. We can now use this waste stream to create new, first-quality performance Polartec fabrics. Polartec has pioneered the recycled fabric category and we continue our commitment to reducing our overall footprint.”

Polartec says by end of 2011, over 40% of their total production will utilize REPREVE 100 recycled yarns and they expect that number to grow in 2012.

Image: KirkOls

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I work with many sustainable designers and one of the more common questions I’m asked is usually about who another designer uses for manufacturing or dyeing. I will never forget the loss of a U.S based non-toxic dyeing facility that one of the designers below regularly used – and eventually had to close its doors.

Another designer had asked me to ask her (as if we were in high school) where she did her dyeing and I suggested, “She’s really nice and will tell you. Just ask her.”

That designer never did and so the business went under.

I wonder how many more stories are out there where designers were too nervous to ask about production and so stayed mum.

Mom always told me, the dumbest question was the one that never got asked.

I caught up with six top sustainable designers to ask them a simple question: Do you think the more sustainable designers share their sources, the stronger their field will become?

Here’s what they had to say.

Nicole Bridger, I think it’s great for us eco designers to work together and help each other out. We are stronger as a collective for sure. The only thing to be careful of is that we don’t all end up using the same fabrics and colors, the different lines can end up looking the same. So for that reason it is important to keep your individual aesthetic. But I think its possible for us to work together and be mindful not to have the same fabrics.

Celeste Lilore, RESTORE Barriers for entry become points of “cooperation” when sourcing is shared. It takes a village and building community will help move sustainable fashion to mainstream.

Davora Lindner, Prairie Underground Most designers in this category share a short list of resources. Sourcing unique sustainable textiles is more about buying power than availability. Purchasing greater quantities increases your options and makes the price per yard less expensive. The ability to source overseas expands your options a good deal, but again these are custom production orders with high minimum yardage.  We focus on textile categories in our small collection to ensure that we can move forward with new fabrications in a manner that is realistic for production.

Alice Wu, Feral Childe Yes, if designers collaborate on sustainable sourcing, the field will be stronger. Currently the variety of sustainable fabrics available to independent and emerging designers is fairly limited since not only is there not that much variety in color and fabrication, it can be difficult to meet a 1,000 yard opening order minimum that some suppliers demand. If suppliers see that sustainable designers have staying power in the marketplace it may encourage them to lower their minimums and offer greater product variety. There is a golden opportunity out there for a U.S-based independent sustainable fabric sales rep to connect the dots – someone who’s got the relationships both with designers and suppliers who can help us pool together our needs for new fabric production orders as well as find takers for production overrun fabric.

Tara St. James, Study NY My short answer is yes. Absolutely. To elaborate, I am a huge proponent of open source material and transparency in manufacturing. Luckily most sustainable designers seem to agree with me and are very forthcoming with their resources and ready to share their contacts. It allows independent designers to share resources without the burden of production minimums, while affording them lower costs and share shipping. If only the rest of the fashion industry were to adopt the same philosophy, it would allow for not only larger exposure for sustainable textile vendors, but more demand on traditional manufacturers to implement sustainable practices.

Gretchen Jones Yes and No. Collaborations are all about the partners. Is each artist bringing to the table some new perspective and referential material?  Can the collaboration maintain each others individual voices, while supporting the complimentary elements?

To me, as a designer whom struggles with the connection to sustainability and ethical business practices vs. my high fashion, yet independent aesthetics. I believe the success of a collaboration would and will only be successful [and heighten the eco movement] by walking the tight rope between style and morals. I want to diversify, I want to diffuse. I know my strengths, and am very aware of my weaknesses. Collaborations are about building each other up. I think, when done thoughtfully and with intention to elevate, collaborations can certainly lead to progression for sustainability.

I personally believe the only way we will make a change, is to create and manufacturer competitive, forward and quality goods.  The sustainable design community must produce with the focus on ‘fashion first,’ after all, we are a part of the fashion industry, we will always be able to do so ethically, the challenge is in creating at the high caliber design of those competing with out their environmental in mind. We change minds through changing perspectives. Collaborations could and will, create opportunity to express with support, deliver with quality and produce competitively. In turn – we change minds and grow our community through shared experience and story – not just a dress.

Image by Pheezy

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I’m on day 14 of writing about all our designers for EcoSalon Shops! and I am no less inspired to write.

Today we feature RESTORE CLOTHING which is a label I cannot possibly say enough about. It will be way too much of a love fest for you to bear.

Designers Celeste and Anthony Lilore make up the label and have carved themselves a niche in the fashion industry to not only share their vision of social responsibility, but to produce what they consider “timeless, well constructed, essential garment collections.”

As New York City garment industry veterans, the duo designs some of the most comfortable yoga and lifestyle apparel on the market – from yoga pants, tanks and hoodies – all pieces fit like a charm.

Me and Laura Jones of the Sustainability Across America Tour on Cape Cod in our RESTORE pants!

The two are also heavily entrenched in the industry when it comes to sustainability – whether it’s New York City’s Garment District, organic farming, or empowering and connecting environmentally conscious businesses – they are very involved in the susty scene.

Anthony Lilore

Anthony was also instrumental recently in giving me a tour of the New York Garment District as part of the Dumbing Down American Design series. Walking around with Anthony is like being with the godfather – he knows everyone!

I could go on. They are the bomb and you will have the wonderful opportunity of meeting them and purchasing their clothing at EcoSalon Shops! on June 4th.

You won’t be able to miss them. They’re the cheery couple that never stop smiling.

Celeste Lilore and fellow EcoSalon Shops! designer Nina Valenti of NatureVsFuture

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In part two of Dumbing Down American Design, we talk with Anthony Lilore, co-designer for sustainable design label RESTORE and a board member for New York City’s Save The Garment Center. We revisit the driving question: Has our quest for convenience and rock bottom prices forever altered fashion and is American design becoming a thing of the past?

Let’s talk carbon footprints, supporting American eco-designers who want to keep things in the U.S. and seasoned industry professionals whose techniques we simply can’t afford to lose.

Lilore spoke with us from a designer’s perspective but also more personally, as an individual working to preserve the Garment Center, New York City’s industrial fashion glory and a cultural icon that could become more than a historical footnote.

“Pull the garment work out of China, they’ll collapse, pull it from India, collapse, pull it from Mexico, them too. See a pattern here?” Lilore says, adding that the garment industry in the 1960’s was the largest single employer in NYC except for the government.

“Garments and garment work and workers are economic engines,” says Lilore. “Fashion is the fuel.”

The decline of the Garment Center is being encouraged by local real estate owners. Without enough workers in the Garment Center, the zoning will have to be changed, meaning higher rents from new tenants, not in the industry. Preservation of the District, located in what many consider the soul of Manhattan’s mid-town, means little in the face of the almighty dollar.

“In the 60’s, everything in the U.S. was made or passed through the Garment Center, there were unions and really, hundreds of thousands of people working in the Garment Center,” says Lilore.

The designers are as much to blame for the decline.

To satisfy their own financially flush version of the American dream, designers got greedy and realized that manufacturing overseas was increasingly cheaper.

“At first, it wasn’t a big deal, maybe somebody would lose a job, maybe two but over the past 30 years, that greed has caused only 3-5 percent of American manufacturing to be happening in New York City,” says Lilore.

In the meantime, with less actual manufacturing occurring in the Garment District, NYC landlords continue working to re-zone and to ghettoize the area by putting Garment professionals in one building and charging more to force them out. So far, this effort has been met with a fight. Groups like Save the Garment Center, the CFDA and the Design Trust for Public Space are now spearheading a conscious campaign against the city landlords to show why the Garment Center is an integral part of New York City’s economy, cultural identity and sense of place.

If this doesn’t work, existing pattern and sample makers, trim and design houses will be forced to pay more, which in this already tight design economy, makes it virtually impossible to survive. Add to this equation Americans’ addiction to deals and a disconnect from the true costs involved in the clothes they wear and the result is the perfect formula for extinction.

Still, we haven’t completely lost our edge, and there are encouraging signs for American design.

“It’s an interesting thing that China is actually making it easier to compete lately because the carrot of [Western-style] democracy has been placed before them,” says Lilore. “They like the American lifestyle where we do make more money so they’re putting their prices higher. This makes them less attractive to designers trying to make more for less.”

For those rare designers willing to invest in American design and manufacture, Lilore says they now have to sit back and quietly ask themselves, “Why the hell do I want to do this?”

“When I go talk to young designers now, I tell them, the idea of being a designer has to be as important to you as breathing. If you’re not prepared to be poor, if you’re not prepared to be a nobody, if you’re not prepared to make a difference then don’t f*cking do it.”

For Lilore, being an American designer is worth the exhaustion, financial strain and production headaches.

“I deal with all this and still want to do it all in the Garment Center because I want to keep design in this country,” Lilore says. “New York City is the fashion capital of the U.S., if not the world, and as a brand it is on par with Coca-Cola. By not protecting the brand, by not saving the Garment District, we are not saving the fuel that runs one of the economic engines of the fashion capital of the world.”

Video and image: Design Trust For Public Space

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