12 April 2010

Organic Clothing

                   Okay. We understand that organic food is made without harsh pesticides and chemicals. We understand that organic cleaning products are used without harsh chemicals that can trigger asthma. But what does organic clothing mean?
                   We all know that organic clothing is better for the environment and better for guilt free shopping. But seriously? How are we helping the environment. After doing some research on google, I came across a great website called fashionandearth.com, that helped me immensely to find this answer.
                   First off, the clothing is made of organic materials, such as recycled fibers and natural fibers. Just like the foods and cleaning products, the fibers that make our clothing are made with no pesticides. Who knew that many of our regular clothing are made with pesticides! When made, they also use less carbon, energy, and pollution. That is a definite plus. The crops that the textiles are made from also take less energy and water to grow. Renewable resources also are organic. Examples of renewable resources are bamboo and wood. One may ask, how do these make good clothing! Trust me, personally having some bamboo made clothing items, and it is very comfortable and cute.
                    Regular cotton requires a whole lot of water. It requires so much water that water shortages have been caused in many areas of the globe. Normal cotton consumes %24 of global insecticides, and 11% of the world's pesticides.(Not good) Because of this amount used, serious collateral damage in the environment is now a common thing. You know your delicious sushi, little blue jays, and cute turtles? They are affected by this. So are many other birds and ocean animals. The horrible pesticides can get into them. Very sad. The rivers of our world are also getting bad pesticides in them too. This can affect our drinking water if done recklessly. That is what happened in Pakistan and India. In india, most of their brands of Cola and bottled drinking water were containing pesticides. This kills approximately 67 million birds each year. It also has affected our national bird, the bald eagle. If you think you can just wash these harmful pesticides away, think again. It takes a long time to go away. After a study in 1992 about health affects and pesticides, their were connections between it and brain cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, leukemia, birth defects, fecundability, fetal death, intrauterine growth retardation.
                   Polyester is also another thing that regular clothing is made out of. Guess what's used to produce polyester? Oil. Non renewable resource. Takes an EXTREMELY long time to make again. Just like styrofoam, polyester is not biodegradable and end up in land fills for a long time. Around 12 billion pounds of this stuff ends up in land-fills every year! Your shirt that you are wearing today may still exist when your great great grandchild just got married. Yeah. I think you get the point. Polyester also takes up so much energy! Overall, although cute and comfy, it is a weapon against our environment.
                   Since the demand for cotton and polyester are growing more and more, we need to find a solution do quench the demand and to save our environment. Such solutions are already made..and great! They are organic cotton, organic wool, hemp, tencel, silk, bamboo and many more. When getting bamboo made products however, you have to make sure they are panda friendly. This means that you aren't taking the food out of Panda's mouths. What decision will you make? I hope you made the smarter choice. I know I will.
                  Great organic collections and clothing companies are 

  1. H&M The Garden Collection( really inexpensive)
  2. katherine Hamnett
  3. Kuyichi
  4. Lela designs
  5. Linda Loudermilk
  6. Living Planet
  7. Terra Plana
  8. Syka Textiles
  9. Susan Harris design
  10. Simple
  11. Angel Cove
  12. 3tree apparel inc.
  13. alchemy goods
  14. emerican apparel
  15. ueno style
  16. cotton ginny
  17. ecosandals
  18. hemp and company
  19. HER design handbags
  20. Stella McCartney





21 comments:

  1. I love the idea of organic clothing, but let's face it, a lot of people are on a tight budget, and when cute and affordable are compared to cute and earth friendly, most people sadly put their wallet before our planet.

    Thanks for the comment BTW! :)

    bookishspazz.blogspot.com

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  2. I LOVE LOVE LOVE all things organic!!

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  3. i love organic stuff but they're usually so expensive and most styles are very basic :(
    i do love Nikicio (indonesian designer http://webstore.nikicio.com) they use moslty organic materials for the pieces..and the price is affordable too :D

    MICHELLE || Glisters and Blisters

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  4. nice post & great ideas on fashion :) !!



    doseofsugarxoxo.blogspot.com

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  5. Wow, thanks for the insight on this issue. I really hope more affordable organic brands pop up in the future like the H&M garden collection.

    S
    http://notjustmedical.wordpress.com

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  6. What an amazing and insightful post, love it.

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  7. I own some clothes made out of recycled plastic bottles. They are as soft as anything! I hope more brands catch onto this organic-ness :)

    http://toruu-tania.blogspot.com/

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  8. Thanks a lot for exposing all this information that was very useful.


    xoxo
    B* a la Moda

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  9. Great post - I've started to be way more interested lately in organic and eco-friendly clothing. One line you might be interested in is Organic by John Patrick. You can check out the collections on Style.com, he has some really lovely pieces

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  10. Interesting, I had no idea about any of this. It's really cool that we can do organic and still be fashionable and hip, great post!

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  11. I didn't think the organic clothing movement would catch on... But it does, which is great. I definitely prefer natural materials - not only for their feel, but also for their quality.

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  12. i love the h&m garden collection, and yes, do feel less guilty !

    RACH.

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  13. haha i used to work at cotton ginny. i love that you put it on the list...but its not the most fashion forward company. grandmas shop there. and i struggled with what to wear to work. lol

    Walk of Fashion

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  14. I'm fan of organic clothing too!

    www.myfloorisred.blogspot.com

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  15. What a great post! There's a lot of great info here!

    I'm following!

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  16. Love the idea, H&M's Garden collection is really great!

    http://voguishblog.blogspot.com/
    x

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  17. Great post! I love that organic clothing is starting to get more fashionable.

    And thx so much for stopping by my blog. Glad I found yours. I'm a new follower :)

    Dawn

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  18. I agree. Absolutely. Stella should be up there.

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  19. hey! Ur blog is awesome! Thanks for commenting on mine! I am following urs now and hope you will follow mine! :)
    xx
    http://tunicsandtamarindchutney.blogspot.com/

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  20. this was interesting to read! i really love the new H&M collection but too bad it's so expensive!

    thanks for visiting my blog :) xx

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  21. great post! i love organic anything. i really think people need to be more aware of it, and the positive contributions it can make to our society. :)

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