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Apparel News, July 13, 2007

Marketing Eco-Fashion Presents a Whole New Ballgame

The growing popularity of eco-friendly fashion is spawning a new wave of "eco-marketing" which has some fashion companies heading into the unfamiliar areas of environmental activism and social responsibility.

While Patagonia, REI, and other outdoor companies have tread on this turf for tears, more fashion and casual brands are just jumping into this area as a way to create awareness about their products as well as do their part to save the environment. Despite the responsibilities that may come with selling eco-fashion, most companies welcome it.

At the August 27-30 edition of the Magic Marketplace in Las Vegas, Austin, Texas-based contemporary line Rene Geneva Design will roll out its first line of ready-to-wear day-to-evening dresses made from sustainable materials. The company has been producing corsets and bridal-wear for several years.

With the debut of the line, designer Rene Geneva will also debut the "Fashionably Neutral Carbon Program," aimed at offsetting the carbon-dioxide emissions, which are a key contributor to global warming and the deterioration of the ozone layer.

Geneva's program assigns carbon values (CV) to each garment. The CV take into consideration the textile's origin and composition, manufacturing source and destination in order to determine how much of a carbon footprint was made in producing and shipping the garment.

To offset this footprint, Rene Geneva is donating funds based on the carbon values to two earth-friendly charities: Earth Pledge and Native Energy <Correction: funds are donated to Live It Green and bear the Carbon Neutral Certification>. Earth Pledge helps companies and governments reduce their impact on the environment by deploying new technologies. One of its initiatives is its "Future Fashion" program, which identifies eco fabrics and other materials. Native Energy focuses on educating consumers, businesses, and organizations about renewable energy, which relies less upon fossil fuels and carbon emissions.

Eco-responsibility has been practiced by outdoor brands and global companies, but by few in the fashion area, said Geneva. "We did lots of research and could only find one or two designers who are truly eco-centric throughout their businesses." she said. "You can have funky evening-wear and fashion items and still be eco-conscious."

At the upcoming Magic Marketplace, Geneva will show day-to-evening dresses, corsets, and bridal gowns made with sustainable fabrics. The garments are made in the United States and offshore sources using hemp from China, silk from India, and organic cotton from Latin America.

"We try and manufacture at the source." said Geneva. "Our hemps are spun in China. We work only with ethical labor groups and it gets shipped directly to the U.S. Our manufactures in Nicaragua will be using solar electric plants. We are trying to find more ways to get a zero or negative impact.""

Others, such as San Francisco-based startup Tobi (www.tobi.com), are also promoting their efforts to fight global-warming. Tobi- an e-tailer that specializes in West Coast labels including Rachel Pally, Paige Premium Denim, and James Perse- has launched an Eco-Tobe section, which sells clothing from eco-brands such as Edun and Loomstate. As part of the section, Tobi promotes Carbon-Fund.org, an organization that educations individuals and companies on how to achieve a zero-carbon footprint.

"It's about creating real change, positive change," said Tobi co-founder Catherine Chow. "The feedback has been positive. They care about issues like global warming."

Both Chow and Geneva agreed that consumers are more educated than they were five years ago regarding the environment. So marketing to this segment must be done carefully and in a way that does not portray their efforts as insincere.
"Our customers are very smart and strong independent women," said Geneva, indicating that they would not stand for any marketing gimmickry.

Selling the consumer on eco-friendly fashion requires more education, be it on labeling, sales, and other means. In the Namaste Showroom, located in the Cooper Design Space in Los Angeles, the emphasis on education is strong, but the showroom owners are well-versed. Manager Mahanna Coleman's family owns an organic cotton mill in Northern California. The founders have had a hand in developing Bono's Edun line.

All brands in the showroom- including Loomstate, Organic Men's, Ciel, and Perfectly Imperfect are made from organic and natural fabrics and are supported through eco-conscious business practices.

The showroom has a station set up with educational brochures and literature on organic cotton, environmental causes and the organic lifestyle in general, said Coleman.
-- Robert McAllister

Apparel News, September 7, 2007


Strong buying busts economy’s blues at MAGIC

Headlines on tumbling stocks and a wave of home foreclosures in August provoked a sense of caution among retailers, but many said that they still placed large orders for Holiday 2007 and Spring 2008 fashions at the MAGIC Marketplace, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center Aug 27–30.

Veteran Los Angeles retailer Fred Levine said that he felt comfortable in submitting large orders despite clouds gathering over the economy. “I don’t see widespread panic like I did during the recession of the early 1990s,” said Levine, who co-owns the more than 22 M.Fredric boutiques in Southern California.

The vendors at the Convention Center seemed to agree that buyer traffic was slow, yet business was not bad. “There seems to be less feet on the floor,” said Andrew Kringstein, managing partner of San Francisco–based street wear label Exact Science. “But I saw a lot of good, quality appointments.”

More than 120,000 attendees were estimated to have shopped at MAGIC, according to trade-show spokesperson Ernae Mothershed, who said the number was consistent with the attendance at the February 2007 show. This season, 4,500 exhibitors showed at MAGIC and its sister trade events—Project Global Trade Show and Pooltradeshow—Mothershed said.

If the pace of the show did not seem frenetic, the fashion world’s top retailers still came to browse Holiday 2007 and Spring 2008 fashions. Wal-Mart, Dillard’s, Saks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, JC Penney and Target were some of the major retailers to walk the event, according to Mothershed.

Various exhibitors said that they met with buyers from specialty stores such as Fred Segal, Metropark, Anchor Blue, Demo, Up Against The Wall, Kitson and Urban Outfitters.

MAGIC noted that 27 percent more vendors offered dresses compared to last season. Specialty retailers forecast spring dresses will evoke a simplicity of style.

“Our customers are not going to buy clothes with skulls and tattoos,” said Alfredo Izaguirre, buyer for influential men’s store LASC in West Hollywood, Calif. “They don’t want their clothes to look like stuff from Macy’s.”

Laura Abeyta, owner of Venice Beach boutique (H)armonie, predicted a colorful Spring. “You can’t get away from silvers and golds,” she said. “Jeans will be in all sorts of colors: fuchsias, cobalt blues and yellows. I don’t think that I’ve seen so many colored jeans since the 1980s.”

T-shirts also will be cast in a more colorful light. Natalie Grof, a co-founder of T-shirt label Junk Food, said that jewel-tone T-shirts will be popular for Spring 2008, and plain white T-shirts will also increase in popularity. Mike Chodler, co-owner of Vernon, Calif.–based juniors T-shirt label Realitee Clothing, said that T-shirt lengths were getting shorter, just as the rises in jeans seemed to be getting higher.

The most popular women’s denim silhouettes were wide-legged jeans at misses label designer Tummy Tuck Jeans, said Ron Perilman, the vice-president of sales. “You’d expect juniors to wear wide legs, but the misses customer is wearing wide legs too,” Perilman said.

Men’s suits with peak lapels were one of the most popular items at Jack Victor, a leading menswear label based in Montreal, said Patrick Chan, the company’s national accounts representative.

Humor was an important ingredient in street wear styles, according to many vendors. A key element for many T-shirts was dressing up a label’s logo in the font or design of another well-known product, said Jonas Bevacqua, a founder of Lakeforest, Calif.–based LRG. This satire could go a step farther. For example, the Ralph Lauren Polo icon of a man riding a horse inspired LRG to make shirts of a man riding a giraffe.

The MAGIC Marketplace expanded its street wear selections into two floors of vendors. It included the “Progressive Street wear Marketplace,” where some of the most popular street wear brands, including Obey and The Hundreds, exhibited their lines. But because the section was located behind the raucous hip-hop/urban–themed section of street wear, some Progressive Street wear vendors said their clients had a hard time finding the section.

“People are coming to see us, but they have to walk through a lot of traffic to see us,” said Luis Pulido Jr., founder of Los Angeles–based Grn Apple Tree. He estimated that business increased 25 percent from the previous August MAGIC but said it could have been higher if access had been easier.

Eco-chic was another theme of the recent MAGIC Marketplace. The Berkeley, Calif.–based Organic Trade Association helped produce well-attended seminars on eco-minded fashions. More mainstream boutiques expressed interest in offering ecologically friendly fashions, reported René Geneva, the owner of Austin, Texas–based eco-fashion label Rene Geneva Designs.
--Andrew Asch

Austin Monthly, April 2007

Nice Day for a Green Wedding
A Marriage of Love & Eco-Consciousness

Your dress selection presents a great opportunity to make an eco-friendly choice. If you choose not to revamp Mom's, try wearing a gown made from a sustainable fabric. Faernyn's Grove (www.mycorset.com) here in town makes custom "green" bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses. The moderately priced dresses ($1000 to $1900) can be made in a variety of fabrics, from hemp silk (which is 100-percent biodegradable) to Tencel (made from wood pulp). "We don't believe it would propagate more responsible decision-making if we priced ourselves out of the average bride's budget," says Rene Geneva
--Excerpt by J. Segelke