Image via Rodarte

Being a fashion designer in itself is already not environmentally friendly. Designers create; the process involves materials that must come from somewhere, and production requires energy. It is difficult to achieve this balance, but a special panel held last Monday at the Hammer Museum zeroed in on the future of luxury fashion and sustainability.

Vogue’s features director Sally Singer mediated the discussion among four notable designers in the Los Angeles area: Kate Mulleavy of Rodarte, Adriano Goldschmied, Tom Binns and Christina Kim of Dosa. All four designers specialized in some form of delicate (and sometimes labor-intensive) hand-craftsmanship, only existent in higher-end labels. “Sustainable” fashion is not confined to naturally grown resources, as the focus of the conversation was on sustainable production. Dosa’s Christina Kim proved the best example of this as she uses fabric scraps from her previous collections or from other design studios she finds to create a new garment. Most notably, she employed 500 women in the Assam region of India to spin eri silk*–and paid them fairly for their labor.

Image via Dosa

It is obviously much easier to apply meticulous and hand-made techniques in the designer market due to the price point. At the designer price tag, design houses are also able to compensate their laborers properly. But not everyone is willing (or able) to shell out extra to buy an undyed cotton T-shirt for $20 when a fashionable top can be purchased for the same price. There is already a certain level of disconnect with the common consumer since the price is significantly higher.

If we can recall, how long did it take for a large percentage of society to understand the reason behind expensive organic fruits and vegetables? Goldschmied reminded us that, “… when organics were first introduced, it was the organic apple that was ugly and the other apple that was pretty. Which do you think the customer bought? There is a ‘glamour’ associated with fashion. ‘Organic’ is not associated with being glamorous, so for the consumer to be switching over completely from mass-produced goods is a far stretch…. It will take many, many years…”

And in light of the economic situation today, Singer and the designers agree that people are “buying less, but buying well”. There will also be a move away from mass-produced goods, towards products developed in an environment where the quality and production methods are tightly controlled. Especially in our current state, Singer adds that “sustainability” has a dual meaning: sustaining in the economy and sustaining the environment. Maybe if people were purchasing selectively, they would research products in the market with more precaution, and this could raise a heightened sense of awareness in how things are produced.

But as mentioned above, to be fully “eco-friendly”, from start to finish, a product cannot result in excessive wastage and cannot be mass-produced. If we were to break down the entire product development process, no fashion line is 100% “sustainable”. The fibers might be organic, but what about the dyes? And the dyeing process? Dyeing processes typically require gallons upon gallons of water. What about the packing and shipping of the goods?

Image via Tom Binns

“I won’t lie,” responded Goldschmied, when inquired if he considered an “organic” line. “But one time I was working with an organic dye to try to achieve a type of finish on my jeans, and it took too much time; the dye could not achieve the look I wanted, and in the process I also wasted 100 gallons of water. So sometimes organic isn’t really so ‘organic’ after all, is it? We just have to evaluate each situation and act accordingly.”

For Binns and Kim, they take existing items and present them into new ideas, a form of recycling. Rodarte’s Mulleavy chooses to work locally in regards to materials and labor. Mulleavy did mention that because she was based in Los Angeles, it was much easier to be concerned with the minute details and quality control.

In New York, the quickened pace seemed to encourage outsourcing, and a constant need to pump out new products, without much thought given to innovative and socially conscious manufacturing methods. When I asked the guests how they were altering their production techniques or choice of materials to be more accountable for the environment, Goldschmied provided an unexpected and insightful answer: “It is important to be aware of how everything we do affects everything else, but our responsibility as designers is to give [people] dreams.”

*eri silk is silk cultivated naturally and cruelty-free from silkworms. Silk, as we are accustomed to, is smooth and lustrous, also extracted by boiling silkworms alive after they spin their cocoons. Eri silk is wild silk, a bit rougher since the cocoons are collected after the moth leaves its home.

For more information on each individual designer, see below for their official websites:

1.    Rodarte – http://www.rodarte.net
2.    Tom Binns – http://www.tombinnsdesign.com
3.    Dosa – http://www.dosainc.com
4.    Adriano Goldschmied – http://www.agjeans.com

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