the district

The latest (and possibly largest) entry into the organics blanks field is Anaheim based Alstyle. They just start shipping last week, bringing the t-shirt behemoth’s economy of scales into organics. No word on the quality yet, although the samples are already in the mail. The shirts will be available in 7 colors, although neither of the two sales reps I spoke with for this article had any idea about whether or not environmentally friendly dyes were utilized. To me this is indicative of a greater problem of the major manufacturers entering into the organics market without a fundamental understanding of the concept. While I applaud the increased use of organic cotton, I think that it may be rather disingenuous for a manufacturer to present a product as ‘environmentally friendly’ to consumers without the knowledge to know what that really means. This is additionally problematic for consumers trying to make informed purchasing decisions by being able to differentiate between the green-washed and the “real-deal”. Ordinarily I might argue that these new blanks are a positive step-forward by introducing new customers to organic, but the difficulty comes when $3 organic blanks dyed with harsh chemicals and sewn under less than ideal labor conditions are directly competing with the smaller labels trying to make more of their supply chain “right” (and of course charging higher prices).

Readership; please weigh in.

San Mar announced yesterday the arrival of 25 new “earth-friendly” styles to their spring/summer 2008 line-up. The distribution giant, which also manufactures several of its own brands unveiled new items ranging from organic cotton T’s under their District Threads (no relation to DC) label to recycled polyester fleece and bamboo items under the Port Authority brand. Additionally, San Mar also announced some organic cotton baby-wear and polos under the Precious Cargo and Red House labels respectively. While none of these products on their own are particularly earth-shattering or revolutionary, it is always worth noting when such a major player invests this heavily in environmentally friendly styles. Even though San Mar is not necessarily a household name to consumers, the company is pretty gigantic in the imprintables industry.

Pricing is not yet available for all the products, but can be expected to be on the lower end of the eco-fashion spectrum. Interestingly, the company chose only to offer its blank t-shirts in undyed “natural” color, which is obviously more environmentally friendly, but hugely less marketable. It will be interesting to see if District Threads sticks with the one color option, or adds more next season. Also of note is the use of R-tek polyesther fleece, which boasts 40% recycled content (and 60% fresh light-sweet crude).

Look for the items this spring, the complete catalogue is due out sometime in early March.

P.S. (from the greenwash desk) The San Mar earth-friendly collection also includes some Modal items, which as far as I know, gains its only green-cred from the fact that it once originated from a plant before some heavy chemical processing.

Fair Trade Apparel by Counter Sourcing has slowly begun cropping up in university book stores across the country, demonstrating the feasibility of a t-shirt that actually takes care of its workers. As customers increase their sophistication of the apparel manufacturing process (in no small part thanks to AA’s marketing of their vertical integration), a small but significant market has emerged for clothing that is genuinely sweat-shop free, an often misused and ambiguous label.
Originally applied to farmers, and often considered problematic for manufactured goods, the concept of Fair Trade ensures that third world producers are paid a fair price for their goods sold in developed world markets. The many difficulties associated with “fair trade” manufactured goods were so daunting to Trans-fair USA (the only fair-trade certifier in the US) that they opted out of certifying apparel in a lengthy report published last summer. The major obstacle revolved around the question of whether or not it is acceptable to name a good fair-trade even if not every part of the production chain has been certified (farmer, spinning mill, knitting, cutting and sewing).

As it applied to Counter Sourcing, 17% of the company’s annual sales is returned in various forms directly to those involved in the cutting and sewing of the garment, the most labor intensive steps of manufacturing. Until recently Counter Sourcing was primarily offering only large quantities of custom printed T’s and sweatshirts to its customers, although has recently teamed up with District Cotton to help enter the blanks market.

Despite some dramatic improvements in quality and variety, most consumers still equate anything hemp with ugly and uncomfortable clothes worn more out of ideology than practicality. While hemp remains a mainstay in the dirty-hippy demographic, it rarely finds its way into more mainstream looking line-ups. The Hemp Trading Company (THTC…get it?) does however make a pretty good run at using the fiber for more than just tie-dying. The mere fact that they are one of the only (if not only) urban-eco companies make them worth noticing, as the hip-hop demographic is not especially known for their environmental activism. With the exception of some bland and rather predictable prints of their pot-leaf inspired logo, most of their line is well worth checking out. They do especially well with hip-hop inspired designs, including some collaborations with Zulu Nation and others.

Most of their current line is pretty steeply discounted right now while waiting for the Spring ‘08 line-up, but unfortunately is still priced in Pounds. The website has a much appreciated if sometimes ambiguous “ethics” page displaying their corporate ethos. We will hyper-link you there now.

Did you know it was the panda who solved the Russian hop-scotch mystery?

Alright, admittedly this has absolutely nothing to do with green-wear, but it is so fantastic I couldn’t help but post about it and it still has the phrase “organic cotton” in it.  California (something this idiotic could naturally only come form Cali) based Spun City unveiled US grown 100% organic cotton candy today.  This is almost as exciting as when I found a cotton candy machine in college, but my roommate wouldn’t let me bring it home because he was afraid it would make everything we owned sticky.

While the company itself doesn’t make any green claims about their concept (which these days is kind of shocking in and of itself), Brooklyn based Ohio Knitting Mills is now offering up some cool new-old knitwear in their Carroll Gardens boutique. (does NOS apply to clothes or just car parts?) Unearthed after several decades in storage, OKM has begun selling off items from the now long-time defunct Ohio based Ohio Knitting Mills. Apparently management over there had a bit of a pack-rat streak and had been saving samples of all of their styles for the last 6 decades or so. Most of the menswear falls into the vintage really ugly sweater category, although some of the womens’ garments do retain their fashion appeal from eras passed. It seems like since the factory closed 30 years ago, this concept can only last so long, so you’d better check it out quick.

The second title we considered for this post was: Donna Karen leaves piles of Orange crap around New York City to promote self, but we figured the picture sort of summed that up enough.

From WWD:

STATIONARY BIKES: Note to pedestrians — there will be a surplus of neon orange bicycles around New York next week. DKNY has partnered with the NYC DoT to help it promote biking as an alternative mode of transportation — well, sort of. DKNY is setting up bike stations from Thursday. But don’t expect to hop on one and peddle off to the next show. This being New York, the bikes will be chained.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, the orange bikes are a nod to the free bike programs that some cities and college campuses have around the world, where a bunch of bikes are left around in random locations for people to use at will. The idea is that because they are “free” they can’t be stolen. Granted this may not be a realistic program for NYC, why Donna Karen thought that this would promote cycling is just a tad bit absurd. Maybe if she donated the bikes to kids that needed them after the ad campaign, it might not be so dumb. Unless unless of course they are all dunked in fucking orange paint first and then broken in half. Well it did at least get her a spot in the Times, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.