R29 | Why You Should Care About Clothing Consciousness
Here is a great Refinery 29 article on sustainability in the fashion industry, including insightful quotes by friends of Loomstate, as well as Scott Macklinlay-Hahn, our co-founder! Customers are more and more aware and interested in learning about how their clothing is made, where the raw materials are grown, who sews it and what the environmental and social impact of their purchase is. Customers are challenging fashion brands today to create products in a more conscientious and transparent manner, and we think it's a good thing. Please, challenge us to create products that you can feel even better in and about!
"Confused by all the chatter that surrounds “ethical,” “sustainable” and “conscious” fashion? You’re not alone. That’s mostly because really, truly, these words pretty much mean nothing. Without an industry-wide governing organization to hand out certifications — which the fashion industry just happens to lack — designers (and wary consumers) are pretty much on their own to define these words and implement those meanings.
You can think of these terms as parallel to “natural” in the food world — a marketing word with little true meaning. “‘Sustainability’ is sort of a conscious checklist for designers to go through in their minds and decide what they feel is important to them when manufacturing and developing their collection,” says Tara St James, founder of the NYC-based clothing line Study. And, because of the lack of set standards, this process is mostly out of necessity. She cites TED’s Ten, a checklist of 10 goals — think using design to minimize waste and encourage less consumption — as a good tool for sustainably minded designers. There’s also the Higg Index. Developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, it’s a tool intended to measure the “environmental and social performance” of apparel and footwear...
At Loomstate, the brand founded by Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay-Hahn, it’s using organic cotton. And at Everlane, it’s employing “radical transparency,” which founder Michael Preysman succinctly describes as “know your costs and know your factories.”
Loomstate is about sussing out the right raw materials for its wares, but it goes deeper than that. Mackinlay-Hahn — who is a co-chair of the new CFDA Sustainability Committee — explains that the impact of conventional cotton on soil fertility and human health convinced the brand to pursue this path. He’s also concerned, overall, with the bigger picture, having his processes be restorative and regenerative — adding value to the market and having positive interactions with partners and the supply chain." READ ON >
You can think of these terms as parallel to “natural” in the food world — a marketing word with little true meaning. “‘Sustainability’ is sort of a conscious checklist for designers to go through in their minds and decide what they feel is important to them when manufacturing and developing their collection,” says Tara St James, founder of the NYC-based clothing line Study. And, because of the lack of set standards, this process is mostly out of necessity. She cites TED’s Ten, a checklist of 10 goals — think using design to minimize waste and encourage less consumption — as a good tool for sustainably minded designers. There’s also the Higg Index. Developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, it’s a tool intended to measure the “environmental and social performance” of apparel and footwear...
At Loomstate, the brand founded by Rogan Gregory and Scott Mackinlay-Hahn, it’s using organic cotton. And at Everlane, it’s employing “radical transparency,” which founder Michael Preysman succinctly describes as “know your costs and know your factories.”
Loomstate is about sussing out the right raw materials for its wares, but it goes deeper than that. Mackinlay-Hahn — who is a co-chair of the new CFDA Sustainability Committee — explains that the impact of conventional cotton on soil fertility and human health convinced the brand to pursue this path. He’s also concerned, overall, with the bigger picture, having his processes be restorative and regenerative — adding value to the market and having positive interactions with partners and the supply chain." READ ON >
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