New, Not More, Elisabethan |
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| Monday, 06 April 2009 | |
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Elisabethan Reinvents Eco-Fashion - We’ll take the shirt off your back
How do you improve on organic in the eco-fashion world? The answer – recycle, reinvent, repurpose what has already been produced. Elisabethan’s recycle-centric business practices keep existing materials from piling up in landfills while reducing the voracious consumption of the Earth’s raw materials to make new textiles. Virtually no new materials (ok, so the thread’s new) were created to make your favorite Go Betty Tee. It’s new, not more, and made locally in Colorado. Unless you know Paonia’s history, you’d never guess the Elisabethan studio was once an early 1900s livery stable. Nowadays it’s a hoppin’ small-town thread mill made bright on the inside by walls of recycled fabrics that serve as raw material. It is here that Elisabeth Delehaunty, designer and owner of Elisabethan, and her small team of local talent cut and paste pre-used fabrics into new, fantastic, super-wearable duds. Here’s how it’s done: bales and bags of cast off t-shirts, wool sweaters, and secondhand textiles arrive at the Elisabethan studio. The team culls and low-impact launders what Elisabethan can use, then donates what’s left to local thrift stores. They hand cut each piece from Delehaunty’s original patterns, then combine, stitch, and finish with appliqués and other accents. Phew! Fabulous, one-of-a-kind—and eco-friendly—garments are born. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that Americans threw out 23.6 billion pounds of clothing and textiles in 2006—that’s roughly 5% of all municipal solid waste generated that year. And with fast fashion—cheap, trendy clothes designed for discard—gaining speed, undoubtedly those figures will rise. Lucky for Elisabethan, about 15% of discarded fabric is salvaged, surviving as seas of colorful treasure. Organic farming operations certainly have less impact than traditional agriculture. Yet according to the Sustainable Cotton Project, organic cotton production still only represents 1% of worldwide cotton production - something we all must work to change. Furthermore, organic cotton still uses significant water and land resources. By creating new treasures from existing textile waste, Elisabethan changes the equation, going beyond organic. And this is no flash in the pan. All of Elisabethan’s wearable art is made to fit and to last. Launched long before the eco-revolution, Elisabethan’s sustainability is evident in its fabulous goods and growing group of collectors. Some people call that slow fashion. At Elisabethan, it’s second nature. |
