Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The Nature of Fashion’s bold and necessary lens for holistic material analysis is not fully applied to the proposed vision for increasing fiber production through the expansion of “biosynthetics” via fermentation of microorganisms, including genetically engineered microorganisms.
I don’t think I would have been as passionate about organic farming and ethical supply chains if I had grown up in Bombay or Delhi, somewhere far away. It’s because I saw all the damage happening first-hand that I’ve been so keen to bring about solutions and change.
Many businesses and industries have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wool is no exception.
Each year, the United States produces enough wool to create millions of sweaters and enough cotton to cut and sew billions of t-shirts — so, why is it so hard to fill our wardrobes with clothes that are grown and sewn close to home? And what about hemp or flax linen fabric, clothes, and goods?
High up in the southern sierra of Mexico’s state of Oaxaca, an innovative nonprofit business inspired by Mohandas Gandhi is helping Indigenous Zapotec families to weather the economic storm that COVID-19 has brought to the Mexican countryside.
Cooperative structures like the Carolina Textile District provide an inspirational example of the type of regional networks that could grow and flourish throughout the country.
The novel Coronavirus disease Covid-19 is amplifying both the ways that our cultural and economic lives are durable and resilient, and the many, many ways in which we are utterly vulnerable and precarious.
This is a moment when our local producers and workers are providing vital services, so how can we do our part to strengthen local systems within our fibershed, while sheltering in place?
We invite you to join us by engaging with practices, key learnings, and actions so that together we can rebuild an economy rooted in right livelihoods, regional manufacturing, and material production that regenerates soil health.
Right now, your dollars are a lifeline for many small businesses and workers. Who can you help stay afloat during this time? We want to share direct opportunities for those who are able to make purchases for essential needs as well as enjoyment, and we also are including resources for those already experiencing economic insecurity.
Bast fiber plants have proven their value throughout tens of thousands of years of relationship with humans. Their cultivation can be rooted in modern agroecological methods and offers a way to meet material needs with beautiful, natural textiles with a range of properties from breathability to biodegradation.
In the USA, 98 percent of all garments are now imported, compared with just five percent in 1965. Fibershed is a welcome plea for a movement to relocalize textile production, similar to that which has revived demand for local foods over the last 20 years.
Two groups on the West Coast, Chico Flax in the Sacramento Valley of California and Fibrevolution in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, are now leading the revitalization of the flax textile industry in the region. Groups in other regions of North America, such as the Cleveland Flax Project in the Rust Belt Fibershed, are also doing this work.
