ORGANIC SELVAGE DENIM AND CLOTHING...

[pisces8113]

I have recently made the decision to try and wear only organic, fair trade, and/or eco friendly clothing and thought it would be nice if their was a place where like minded individuals could discuss fashion and brands that belong to this category. i have read that something like 50% of the worlds chemicals which are hazardous to you and our environment are used to produce cotton fabrics. also pretty much any sythetic fabric is going to be made of or treated with harmful substances that will be absorbed through the skin slowly but surely when worn. one way we can all take better care of ourselves and keep the earth clean is being concious of what we are wearing and how it is made!

anyway i need some assitance with finding some jeans. im looking for some raw selvage jeans made from organic materials. must be selvage, must be organic, must be raw and im interested in a regular, strait, or classic fit. preferably not much pocket detail like nudies. so i have seen the nudies average joes selvage- i also have found denim lab and strong hold but i dont live near their stores and i cant find a place to buy their's online(i emailed them both just prior this post and am waiting for their responses). does anyone know of any brands that make such a jean that i can buy online or in the bay area california area? thanks in advance!

 

[bosatlbwi]

Naked and famous has an organic indigo model iirc.

 

[pisces8113]

thanks for the reply. those naked and famous seem interesting but i prefer a more tradition looking jean-indigo with orange type contrast stitching. anyone have any know of any other organic selvage denim? i just found some from samurai but $825 is a little more than im looking to spend!

 

[originalhype]

h&m have organic jeans. most are selvage.

On to your eco philosophy. I agree BUT. remember, with all jeans. they still have to go through the process od dyes, dyes may be natural or not but there will still be chemicals use. The process of make jeans is not as easy as many people thing. Depending on the wash or color, chemicals will be used even if its blended with natural dyes.

A lot of colors can't be made by natural dyes, that is why chemicals are still used.

E.I. bamboo fabrics on jeans, to even get bamboo fibers, it still needs to be extracted using chemicals.

Although with eco jeans, the use of chemicals are not as high.

 

[Nosu3]



A lot of colors can't be made by natural dyes, that is why chemicals are still used.

artificial chemical dyes are used for lower cost and efficiency. most colors can be made from natural dyes, they just need to be blended.

 

[pisces8113]

i might have to stop by an H&M store and see what they got. and i agree about dyes having chemicals in them. i wonder how close the "natural indigo" used by some brands is to being all natural. i believe the bambo fabric/fibers you are talking about is called bamboo viscose. i bought a few shirts made from the fabric mixed with organic cotton and it is the most amazingly soft and comfortable shirt! then i did a little more research on how viscose is processed and they do use a boat load of chemicals and sometimes this leads to the fabric having to be labled as rayon- so i dont plan on buying anymore clothing containing viscose fabric. i also read that there are ways to process bamboo into fabric without so much chemicals but it is far too labor intensive which would mean less profit. it sucks that money usually always comes first in the world.

 

[ghostdog123]

http://www.thievesboutique.com/shop/men - yes.

 

[Timbaland]

For the clothing part, Alternative Apparel has an Earth line. Their stuff is made with organic cotton and recycled fibers.

 

[pisces8113]

so i finally found some selvage denim made with organic cotton that fit me just right. if anyone else is looking for the same(classic fit)you might want to check out the "hector" model by the brand fifth requisite. the organic cotton is grown in japan and all their jeans are made in japan as well so you can be confident in the quality. they didnt have my size on the website but they let me purchase them through email/paypal. their customer service was very helpful with supplying any measurments i needed for multiple sizes. i also picked up a nice organic selvage denim tie- both the jeans($255) and tie($45) seem to be priced pretty low compared to similar organic products on the market if anyone wants to check it out.

 

[whodini]



so i finally found some selvage denim made with organic cotton that fit me just right.  if anyone else is looking for the same(classic fit)you might want to check out the "hector" model by the brand fifth requisite.  the organic cotton is grown in japan and all their jeans are made in japan as well so you can be confident in the quality.  they didnt have my size on the website but they let me purchase them through email/paypal.  their customer service was very helpful with supplying any measurments i needed for multiple sizes.   i also picked up a nice organic selvage denim tie- both the jeans($255) and tie($45) seem to be priced pretty low compared to similar organic products on the market if anyone wants to check it out.     

Reading your first comment I thought you might have just been a little misled or misinformed. After reading the rest, I have no doubt you don't know what you're talking about. I put that bit in bold to remind you that while you may drive an Italian car, there's a distinct difference between a Fiat and a Ferrari. We may focus on Japanese brands in general but please don't continue to assume that all that has a Japanese label is gold; we don't.

But how the **** is Japanese organic cotton "eco friendly" when you're buying jeans that are milled and produced several thousands of miles from you? Do the jeans drift across the sea on solar powered boats made from recycled Priuses?

Someone brought up the caustic chemicals that manufactures use in making jeans and it went right over your head. A majority of brands use synthetic indigo because, as someone else pointed out, it's cheaper. The jeans you advertised fall into that category. To get natural indigo, you'd typically have to pay a LOT more because so few houses still produce denim that way.

The organic "movement" within fashion is mostly smoke and mirrors by marketing teams. They want you to buy into the warm and fuzzies of saving Mother Earth by talking all about cotton when it's really to distract you from every other process that's almost exactly the same as their non-organic pieces.

You might want to dig a little deeper with your research next time instead of taking fashion tips off of Coldplay's blog.

 

[grapejuice]

hi,

i joined just to reply to this thread as i've been hunting for high quality organic jeans myself.

as someone who prints large volumes of tshirts regularly i can tell you that organic cotton is widely available and just as cheap as conventional cotton when buying in bulk. knowing this makes it all the more disappointing to be in a shop full of jeans priced £150-300 as I was today and finding only one style of organic jeans available amongst dozens of high-end manufacturers. the shop owner himself was equally perplexed as to why there weren't more high quality organic and fair trade jeans.



Quote:

The answer is simple; the production of cotton requires a great deal of agricultural inputs which are harmful to the environment. Organic cotton uses farming methods which do not require these inputs, substituting ones which are more ecologically benign. It's true that all products are shipped from their point of origin to you so nothing is going to have ZERO environmental cost, but choosing an organic version of the same product can REDUCE the ecological cost greatly. It is certainly worth doing.

Here's quick breakdown of the GOOD and BAD of cotton farming:

http://www.peopletree.co.uk/content/32/organic-cotton-fibre

Thanks everyone for your thoughts in this thread... hopefully other people will see it.

FWIW I just bought these although I'm not sure how they rank with the denim afficianados on this forum

http://www.asos.com/Nudie/Nudie-Tig...pge=0&pgesize=20&sort=-1&clr=Recycleddrypower

R!

 

[whodini]



The answer is simple

If you think it is, then you're doing the same disservice to yourself as is the OP unless you wear bales of unprocessed cotton tied to your legs and call them jeans.

I like how you quote me yet somehow completely ignore the sentence, let alone paragraphs, that immediately follows it.

Your argument is a lot like saying that you're "eco-friendly" because your shoelaces come from fallen palm fronds that you braided together, while purposely ignoring the bit about using those laces on shoes you wear at your day job plowing down trees in the rainforest to make way for oil drilling. One simply doesn't cancel the other out.

 

[Hyphener]

I have some of those organic Nudies in a Slim Jim. I haven't worn them much, but the denim is nice. It's somewhat thin, and not selvege, but I think it will fade well on me. I don't care how others may rank them, the point of raw denim is to show personality.