the district

The nation’s largest apparel trade show has introduced an ‘eco’ component to this August’s show with Ecollection.  The Ecollection will be one of many themed sections of Magic, which as the name implies will feature environmentally responsible labels in special recycled booths, with ‘green’ signage.  In addition to showcasing the green-labels , the show will house Lounge 22 for attendees, which will feature bammboo furniture and Cradle to Cradle certified textiles. To top off the new show, in typical Magic fashion (non pun intended) Ecollection will host its own seminar series with some very prominent speakers addressing topics of sustainability in the apparel industry such as representatives from Patagonia, and less obviously Nike’s corporate responsibility office. As usual, Magic will take place Aug 25-27 in Las Vegas.

Check out these new reversible organic totes from Toronto based Flip, featuring 3 cool prints of airplanes, guitars, and best of all lowrider bicycles. The bags are all made locally in Canada with low-impact dyes and non-toxic inks (I would hope-so). Prints on one side, blank on the other. If you don’t already have more tote bags than you could ever possibly need go get one at www.fliptoronto.ca (online store coming soon).

Eco-fashion designer Rogan Gregory looking sexy/creepy for the camera
Now maybe I am just a sucker for a good marketing department, but I have always had inexplicably warmer feelings towards Target than most other big box stores that have replaced small town retailers. The stores’ well-managed implementation of organic fibers might serve to explain these positive feelings vis-a-vis Wal Mart. With their usual flair, Target teamed up with well known designer Rogan Gregory (of Rogan and Loomstate amongst others) to bring in an affordable line of apparel with a heavy dose of organic and other natural fibers included, which will debut on May 18. With the exception of a curmudgeons, the Target move has generally garnered a ridiculous amount of positive press. In contrast, Wal Mart’s entry into the organic apparel market was generally dogged by a mix of criticism and question marks, despite the fact that one purchasing decision instantly turned the retailer into the world’s biggest organic seller. Not only was their the question of the brand’s usual dodgy labor reputation, Wal Mart single-handedly disrupted the entire international organic cotton market, in effect sending a big “fuck you” to vendors that had been in the business for years.

While to many observers the end result may look a lot alike; more organic cotton on store shelves, the two retail giants difference in strategy lead to very different outcomes. In essence it appears as though when entering the green market retailers must first get the green elite’s stamp of legitimacy, or risk a storm of controversy and negative-to-mediocre press coverage. Wal Mart’s typical graceful-as-a-bulldozer tactic in the end won it few friends, while Target’s effort to co-opt a respected figure in eco-fashion has really paid off. Even if Wal Mart had the best of intentions, this example proves that a little nod-of-respect to insider knowledge can lead to great improvements in credibility with consumers. The green movement can be a fickle one, retailers should now by now that just a self-proclaimed improvement is not necessarily enough to win the respect and dollars of conscientious consumers.

Alternative Apparel today earns a dubious achievement award in the Shameless Greenwashing category today for their new “Eco-fill-in-the-blank” line.  In general, despite being stupid-expensive, I am generally a moderately enthusiastic fan of Alternative because of their solid use of organic cotton, progressive styling, and the fact that they are not American Apparel. These latest additions to the “Alternative Earth” collection really strike me as more than a bit nefarious.  The contents of most of the Eco-Heathers are 38% cotton (6.25% organic cotton), 50% poly (6.25% recycled), 12% rayon.  Running those numbers through the bullshit calculator they look more like this: 13% genuinely environmentally progressive materials, 43.75% made from PETROLEUM, 31.25% conventional cotton (make your own judgement), and 12% heavily processed cellulose.  Granted this is only my highly subjective opinion, but to me those numbers do not equate to an eco-friendly garment.  Sure it’s commendable to use 13% less objectionable material, but it still seems to fall way short of the “part of the solution” threshold.

Nike, no newcomer to getting attention for their corporate responsibility (and sometimes awing lack of), has announced its first foray into “recycled” footwear with the Nike Trash Talk.  Now while the shoe isn’t technically recycled, its made from manufacturing waste, I believe this to be more of a semantics issue than anything else.  With manufacturers in all sectors now looking for innovative ways to utilize what was previously waste, the world could really do with a catchy word to cover these products.  Maybe reclaimed? I don’t care, I’m here to talk about shoes. The Trash Talk, which was released last month in limited quantities in NY and NoLa will be released on April 22 at select House of Hoops stores in the Phoenix Suns color schemes.  While in this reviewers opinion, the shoes are fugly with a capital F, thats really my opinion on most basketball shoes, so decide for yourself.  Discussing the new kicks Nike footwear designer Kasey Jarvis said: “ We were really looking for a ‘here and now’ solution to footwear waste, and creating a performance product using waste materials felt like a very innovative solution. Using Nike’s Considered design ethos we were able to create a shoe that stands up to the stringent on-court performance requirements but is also more environmentally friendly.” For $100 you can go get your own. Read more on the Nike website.

Apparently it’s footwear week here at the District, and so today I bring you Simple. I once had a pair of bright red Simples that I bought on a beach in the middle-of-nowhere Australia for $10. They may have been my favorite shoes ever, but thats not what I am going to write about today. Instead, it’s ecoSneakers. And while trying to squeeze the word ‘eco’ into every environmentally friendly product offering is more than a little cliche, thats about the only thing I don’t like about this website. In list format here is what I do like:

1. Ingredients. They tell you how they make the stuff and whats in it.

2. Make your own shoe kit. Kind of reminds me of the anarchist kids I used to live with in Boston that ate out of dumpsters just to prove that they could, but the shoes are still pretty damn cool. One might even say, they still get mad DIY street-cred.

3. Slip-ons that aren’t Vans:

4. The use of the word “vulcanized”.

5. Stylish Vegan footwear options for my friend Ben so he can throw out his white hemp booties.

Thinks I don’t like:

1. No new Red Shoes.

More picts when i get back to the office tomorrow.

Organic was the magic word this year at ISS East, the trade-show for the screen-printing world. Despite the triumphant let down of the “Green Pavilion”, which was actually more like the “green bookcase”, there were quite a new green offerings. First of all, everyone sells organic t-shirts now, so I am not even going to list them all. The word on the street however, is that the demand (at the production level) has finally outrun the supply and there is a serious yarn shortage in the works right now. While every manufacture I spoke with admitted the yarn shortage, none seemed to be willing to say that their supply-chains would be affected, only everyone else’s. Apparently, when Wal-mart and Target decide they want to start buying up something, it starts to get scarce. Unfortunately, this really puts the hurt on the smallest of producers (with the least buying power) who are actually the most progressive.
Despite everyone jumping into the game, the gap between those who believe in and understand the product versus those who just know their customers want it is vast. As one unnamed sales-rep put it, “At this point if you start getting picky about the dyes and origin, you will get nothing. Its too competitive, just be happy you are able to get something stamped organic and don’t worry about the rest.”

Some show highlights (for me anyway) were getting a free barney-the-dinosaur colored organic T from a unibrowed American Apparel model, getting to watch the giant embroidery machines stitch eagles in front of flags, and learning how to say “phthalate” and why they are bad. Continental’s new reduced carbon t-shirts from Turkey were also quite impressive and feature by far the most informative and complete literature I have ever seen from an apparel manufacturer. Lastly, while it may have been short I was totally stoked to meet my screen-printers face to face.

By the way, if anyone knows how to turn this Greyhound voucher I got on the bus down into $20 please let me know, I am still down ten bucks from the nickel slots.

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.