Dressing Well.

Posted on August 1st, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: General, Sustainability, Pop-Culture.

So I have had this small secret goal to make everything I wear have some sort of environmental story - Organic fabrics, low toxicity, made locally, or by Co-Ops somewhere for a fair price, recycled materials - you know, all that hippy crap. The challenging part has been that it has to fit into what I like to wear. I am not a big Tie Dye or Birkenstock wearer, I don’t really like the traditionally “natural” look. No offense to that stuff, but it just not my scene.

Oh yeah, I also hate to shop. There is almost nothing worse than trying stuff on in a store. It sucks; nothing ever fits right, you have to spend the whole day just to find one or two things you like, in the end it is always the most expensive thing in the store that fits the best. I mean, come on I am on a start-up budget here people, I can’t be buying expensive clothing. So generally anything I can do to reduce my time in a clothing store is great.

I have been trying to work this into my clever plan by looking for things that can be worn for more than the six minutes that fashion trends seem to last these days. This concept of the “timeless classic” is probably harder than trying to find eco-fashionable wares. It rarely exists, so in the cases where I am buying on trend I have been trying to buy only one of those things and wear it into the ground. (This is known to many of us the River’s Vest Phenomenon - sorry for the inside joke)

No industry has been more successful with the concept of “planned obsolescence” than the fashion industry. Very clever of them, the clothes don’t wear out in their plan - they just go out of fashion. This is brilliant! Basically you shame people into not being cool becuase their clothing is 3 months old. Fashion is the most second grade concept in adult life.

By the way, that Juice Bag of yours is SO last season, have you seen the new Daylight Series?

This is probably more than you ever wanted to know about the little secret plans I come up with when I have to much time on my hands (and, let me tell you, have I got a million of ‘em…). Nevertheless there is some cool stuff out there right now, and my little task has been greatly reduced. Thought I would take some time to point out some of my favorites.

Levi’s Eco
Loomstate

Edun
Mission Playground

Nau

American Apparel Sustainable Edition
Patagonia
Simple Shoes
Terra Plana

Shoes are the hardest, but I just got a pair of WornAgain sneakers from Terra Plana (big up to Riv for the gift). Love these things, I have them on right now. Recylcled rubber soles. Leather from that used to be waste product. Recycled cloth innards. Designs with some funk, how can you beat it!

As I sit blogging in a coffee shop in San Francisco (could I be more of a stereotype right now?), I am feeling right at home with my shoes. At one with the shoe universe you might say. Now hopefully they will be on trend for the next 15 years.

They will right?

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Feeling The Love

Posted on June 7th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Industry, Pop-Culture.

Recently on their blog, Thought Kitchen, our idols over at Nau gave us a little love. We consider this an honor, it being the coolest company in the world and all.

What Nau is trying to do as a company is essentially revolutionize the clothing manufacturing process. They’re taking the movement that Patagonia started and are heading to the next level. One particular piece that we love is the “Detailed Specs” section, where customers get a peek at the origins of their fabrics, their manufacturing, and a little process.

Here is how rock star Nau is: Reware was recently featured on the Today Show (Many thanks to Matt Lauer and our friend Paul Hochman, who did us right in that piece incidentally). I called my Mom to tell her we were on and she made her typical supportive noise - sweet but not overly excited. When we hit The Thought Kitchen page, she was the one calling me! And she was fired up, I think she told everyone she knows. So there you have it Nau, you beat the pants of the Today show for cool factor among the fam.

The clothing is fashion forward as well as recycled, organic, and other good stuff. Definitely check them out. After all, you need something cool to wear under your Juice Bag, we suggest the recycled polyester Riding Jacket. Sick.

Big Up to everyone over there, keep making us envious.

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The Matrix - Designing a Good Consumer Filter

Posted on May 14th, 2007 by Zach.
Categories: Sustainability, Systems of the World, Industry.

When Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) first started to grow there was inherent challenge that had to be overcome: If a company like Nike was recycling their shoes and a significant leader in waste reduction, but employed 10 year olds for 20 cents a day, were they an acceptable investment? Some people would say; “Yes, the environment is all that matters and Nike is doing a good job innovating on that level.” Others would say; “No, how can you claim to invest in a socially responsible way if you are abusing the labor force that is making the product?” To their credit Nike has made progress on their labor practices over the years, but the reality of these reactions is that both are correct and this ended up being a major barrier for SRI breaking into the mainstream.

The solution that was developed over a number of years was really quite ingenious in a free market sort of way - let the consumer decide what matters. SRI managers have created issue based filters for investing. Care about the environment? Here is a list of companies that are acceptable using that filter. Is labor your issue? There is a filter that fits. In many cases the filters have become even more nuanced allowing consumers to associate different “weights” to each issue based on their own priorities. Combine that with more traditional investing filters (Risk analysis, Diversification, Sector investing, etc.) and you have a very smart approach to the investment process.

This has been incredibly successful, and we have watched SRI fund management grow to exponentially as a result.

I bring this up because Reware is struggling with similar issues as a company. We like to think that we are part of a shift in product creation. We try to integrate concepts that matter in the world - local production, low toxicity, recycled material science, a little environmentalism, minimal packaging, and so on. Basically with every product, we would want a narrative that falls within our vision of next gen product design. This is what we believe is good for the world, and we know this is where the money is. We are after all in in this thing both to change the world and make money, pro-market force peeps that we are.

The annoying thing about being what’s next, is that the systems of the world are conspiring against you pretty much at every turn. As a small company we don’t have the resources to force our vendors to adjust to our needs. And this is a hard thing, something that I am sure Patagonia struggled with in the early days, that Nau is going through, and Arbor Sports has had to deal with. Everyone trying to adjust the status quo in product design runs into these systems like a brick wall.

A tangible example:

Right now we make three lines of solar bag. Our favorite is the ES line. With three styles (Daypack, Messenger, and Backpack) and three or four colors, we sew these bags in Texas. The quality is second to none and that is always an important factor. Plus the best part of this line is the fact that all the fabrics are made from recycled soda bottles. It is a bag that fits all of our goals - Production in the US, recylced fabrics, solar on the front to charge to gizmos - pretty great right?

Thank you, I will accept your humanitarian award, but please hold the applause.

A down side to this fabric is that it is not currently in wide distribution. What this means is that there is a limited supply in the marketplace, production keeps shifting from one factory to another, and the low toxicity dyes and process pieces don’t always work quite right. The company we work with to sew the bags struggles because they too are doing something that has never really been done and these barriers screw up production. This is a problem because often we cannot rely of a steady stream of bags. We then cannot offer these bags to larger clients because we worry we will not be able to supply them. I feel my ulcer flaring up just writing about it.

So problem #1: Production of the environmental fabrics is amazing, cool to be a part of, but sometimes unreliable.

The answer for us has been to use a more traditional system of sewing with a great company in North Carolina. Still in the U.S., but made for the most part from traditional Denier or Ballistic nylon. Still with the solar. So we have lost the recycled fabric piece with this style (we are experimenting with some organic fabrics), but gained reliability of production. This gives us the ability to sell more widely and have more faith that we can deliver. Plus making in the US we have a 4 week turn around for the most part, meaning that our response to the market is fast. Really fast. Speed and reliability comes at a price though and it is a steep one. The bag we sew in NC we could probably make in China for a 1/5 the price. That is a huge price discrepancy and effects the end cost to the consumer as well as our bottom line.

Problem #2: North Carolina is expensive

Anyone who manufactures overseas will tell you that product development is a headache - especially if you are a small company. The reality is, China is just far away and that leads to complications. No offense to Mr. Friedman, whose picture of the flat world is a good one, but in my experience it not so much seamless as navigating the seams themselves. You basically need a person on-site that you know and can communicate effectively with. Or you need to go yourself, and often. But there are huge benefits - the low costs are the primary one. This may seem cold because we all like to think that we would pay more for our stuff. The reality is that we will not. We have an idea about what things will cost and as consumers, we will not deviate from that. This is why China is booming, and industries like sewing are disappearing for the US. It just is what it is, and there is no avoiding it.

Problem #3: Overseas production is complicated for small companies. It has long lead times per order. We have to worry about labor conditions, and environmental usage.

So there is no silver bullet here that solves all of our problems. This is and will become reoccurring theme of the fundamental industrial shift we are going through as a country, as a world. There is no single solution in Energy, in Waste, in Water Conservation - in a every area it will take a basket approach to solve problems.

So our dilemma has been this - How do you quantify the narrative of your products? Is a future bag made in China of recycled fabrics better, or worse than a Denier Nylon bag made in the States? Is the fact that production is inconsistent for astounding products better than average products that are reliably produced?

What do consumers value most in their so-called “green” products?

For a while I have been agonizing over this, and in the end the SRI model that I love so much is a good starting point. We are attempting to create a matrix to products that allow the consumer to weight what is important to them. We will have products from overseas, we will have products made in the states. We will have expensive “Boutique” or “Limited Edition” uber green bags. We will have more traditional fabrics with solar on them.

In the end we will leave it all up to the consumer to work out what is most important. Hopefully we will grow to a level that we can dictate our needs to producers and get everything we want in one product. - and really what is more greenie-capitalist America than that?

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