A story by Barbara Moss on president of the Weavers Guild, Amber Ostaszewski. This article is also featured in the August 2, 2024, issue of The Ripple.
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Sustainability in clothing manufacture and buying habits is often referred to as “slow fashion.” Indiscriminately discarding and replacing worn or outdated garments are fast-fashion actions and are inconsistent with conservation principles. Slow fashion counters the profit-driven motives of clothing producers who abuse their workforce, use raw materials and processes that cause environmental harm, and create garments and accessories with a short lifespan.
The global economy’s impact on clothing
The extent of present-day globalization is a large impediment to sustainability in the fashion industry as well as the making of other products. Think about this: Cotton may be grown in our country but then shipped to China for processing, transported to another country where the fabric is woven, and then sent to a different location where it is sewn into t-shirts. Carbon builds up from the consumption of petroleum fuel. Factory workers’ health and well-being are often casualties.
Knowing that the cotton you buy may be sustainably grown—without polluting chemicals or wasteful water use—is not enough. Companies are often guilty of “greenwashing” or intentionally misleading the consumer about their sources of raw materials and their manufacturing methods. It is almost impossible to determine the “true cost” of any consumer product, except those we make ourselves from our own homegrown or reliably sourced materials.
Local slow-fashion advocacy
Slow fashion is an ethic for many members of the Weavers Guild of Greater Cincinnati, which has a special-interest group that meets to work on, and exchange ideas about, hand stitchery. One of their chief emphases is creatively mending a piece of clothing rather than throwing it away and purchasing something new. Making repairs to our wardrobes is one way to reduce the negative effects of the production of clothes across the globe.
In her role as president of the Weavers Guild, Amber Ostaszewski is knowledgeable about fiber arts. One way in which Amber uses her visibility and personal expertise about textiles and techniques to make them is to encourage guild members and the community at large to limit their negative impact on the environment. She is one of the crew that maintains the guild’s dye- and fiber-plant garden and has developed a course in which students go through all the steps to create indigo-dyed linen, from growing the flax, to “rotting” the harvested plant and extracting the fibers, to spinning and dyeing the yarn. In July, she gave a workshop on indigo dyeing during Cincinnati Art Museum’s 2024 Summer Teacher Institute and, in preparation for the class, helped the staff grow indigo plants on the museum property.
Amber is herself an accomplished spinner. In some of her precious spare time away from her day-job as audience engagement director for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, she teaches others to spin. A goal of hers is to learn even more about the techniques of processing yarn, so it was serendipitous when she came across the book Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy.
The Fibershed movement
Fibershed is a relatively new movement whose overarching objective is to “develop regional fiber systems that build soil and protect the health of our biosphere.” Californian Rebecca Burgess founded the non-profit after she challenged herself to make her clothing by sourcing all materials and labor locally and discovered gaps in the soil-to-soil supply chain. Ideally, Fibershed asserts, a garment begins its life as raw fiber from an organically-farmed plant or herbivorous stock animal. The fabric is “sustainably” produced without harmful dye chemicals or water contamination and in a factory that treats its workers fairly. After decades of wear, the garment—constructed in an atelier or other setting with adherence to this same philosophy—can be composted and its remaining nutrients returned to the soil.
Our regional Fibershed affiliate
Mother Fibershed in California, as it is now called, has many affiliates world-wide. Named as a nod to our region’s industrial past, Rust Belt Fibershed covers the area within a 250-mile radius of Cleveland and therefore includes Cincinnati on its southern boundary.
The organization’s title is an intentional adaptation of the concept of a watershed. Pollutants to our water resources—which for Ohio are the Great Lakes and Mississippi River drainage basin—include micro-plastics and dyes shed from textiles during laundering as well as runoff of eroded topsoil, manure, and herbicides, not to mention additional contaminants that come directly from clothes manufacturing.
What does Fibershed do? As one example, the non-profit has developed its Climate BeneficialTM verification program to provide technical and financial support to farmers and ranchers for the implementation of “carbon farming practices,” a new expression that means improvement of the soil ecosystem by maximizing drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere.
An affiliate organization having regional impact, Rust Belt Fibershed is in conversation with the executive team of the Cleveland-based craft-store chain Joann about how they source their goods. “Imagine,” Amber says, “a section in the store for ‘local yarn.’”
It’s important to understand the brands we buy as well. Reformation, a sustainable clothing producer, is now selling a line of women’s apparel made from Climate BeneficialTM Cotton grown in California. Eileen Fisher, a women’s wear company, has community dyeing parties where customers can bring their stained clothing and dip it in indigo. Outdoor-gear purveyor Patagonia sells lots of polyester, but the company invites its clientele to send in their used garments for resale through its Worn Wear e-shop. As a hopeful aside, Amber notes that there is ongoing research to make polyester fibers compostable.
More about local influence
Amber’s investigation of sustainable fiber production led her to get involved with RustBelt Fibershed projects, and she was eventually invited to be a board member. As a representative of the organization, she gave a talk at Green Umbrella’s 11th Annual Midwest Sustainability Summit in May 2024.
One of RBF’s initiatives is the “One Year, One Outfit” challenge. (Read about the requirements on their website.) Taking the concept of slow fashion to the extreme, Amber made four wearables, one for each season, using her own backyard cotton crop (cotton being notoriously difficult to get to maturity in our climate), a single Shetland-sheep fleece, flax that she processed from plant to cloth, natural dyes, and indigo. She spun yarn and wove it into yardage (cotton, wool, and linen). She dyed the fibers from plant matter that she personally harvested (marigold and cosmos flowers, pokeberries, and walnuts). She felted and knitted wool. She hand-embroidered embellishments.
Here's Amber (second image on the right) with her outfit in Wavepool Gallery’s OYOO exhibition in 2023. Note the Easter hat from dried daffodil leaves with a cotton band and wool pompoms (spring); the indigo-blue linen shift (summer); the wool overdress (autumn); and the felted purse (winter).
How we can practice slow fashion
Amber has advice. Start, she says—and this is no surprise—by repairing your clothing rather than throwing it away. If you don’t have the necessary skills, she suggests hiring a local artisan to do the mending or reweaving. If you need a new garment, perhaps a suit for work, go to a thrift shop; have your purchase cleaned and tailored. When buying new, scrutinize the labels. Try to purchase natural fibers: cotton, linen, wool, cashmere, alpaca, angora, or mohair. Be alert to the fact that even cotton could be suspect, depending upon how it is processed. Convince yourself that clothing does not equate to status. Are you a better person because you have a new Kate Spade bag?
Here are a few more tips: When you must buy new, choose the best quality you can afford. (If an item of clothing is cheap, it may also be cheaply made.) Have a party with friends to exchange wearables and to discuss altering and embellishing techniques. If you want to hide stains or change the color of a t-shirt, use Kool-AidTM to dye it in your microwave. Repurpose an old wool sweater into a felt purse. Donate regularly to Goodwill or other charities. Go to the mall only for exercise walking. Avoid online surfing for clothes for mere entertainment or distraction. Create your own trends.
Being an influencer by how you dress
As the public face of the Weavers Guild and a CSO employee, Amber has many opportunities to make the following statement with her appearance: It is possible to be stylish while practicing sustainability and being conservative and informed in one’s clothing choices. Demonstrating exceptional skill and creativity to make a garment from the ground up has given her another level of influence.
Environmental activism can be an outcome of what we wear!
