Why do I try to work exclusively with organic cotton? I’m so glad you asked. Cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world. It accounts for 25% of the world’s insecticide, 7 of the top 15 of which are considered known carcinogens. Because it is not food, its production is not regulated under the same restrictions that our edibles are…which are pretty loose in their own right. According to the World Health Organization there are 20,000 cotton pesticide related deaths a year. (If you are interested in reading more about it Harmony Fabrics has great information on their site.)

Do I have a closet full of organics…nope. I park my sweet little fanny in jeans from Banana Republic most days. Why? Availability. Reliability. I can go to the store…try them on…and then order the same size and style for years to come. Most of the time, stores offer organics in only baby clothes and the occasional adult tee shirt. No jeans. Now…you might ask…organicneedle…why don’t you make your own jeans? Frankly…I don’t have those kind of skills. Denim is a beast to work with for the sewer and the machine. I did find a few companies that make organic jeans on line …at about $200+ a pair. That price just isn’t practical for the average buyer. Not to mention…who is ordering expensive jeans without knowing if her butt is going to look adorable or like the side of a bus? Not the kind of online gambling I’m into.

Here’s the deal. Having spent some time now dabbling in the world of organic fabric distributors, I have realized that in order to bring the price down to something reasonable…you need to buy in mass, extreme mass. Plus, the labor on jeans is too much for hand sewing or even small business equipment sewing…you need factories. In order to guarantee production of fabric you need to have a big backer. To have control over coloring, texture, etc….again, you need to have major buying power. We need the Gap people. Yep…the Gap. My plan….to get Gap Inc. (Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic) to make organic jeans. We need a company that creates in such mass that they can provide something affordable. We need a company that actually makes fashionable jeans that people want to wear. (A lot of Mom jeans in the small organic market. Pssssss….jeans aren’t suppose to cover your ribs.) Old Navy & Gap currently have a very limited line of organic baby clothes…so they are open to the idea… at least open to the idea of capitalizing on the power of the word organic. If we could just push them in the direction of organic denim we could prevent 100,000s of pounds of pesticides being sprayed each year. It is my guess that they are testing out the market to see if people are willing to pay those extra organic dollars. I for one would be glad to pay and extra 10 or 20 if it would mean a massive reduction of chemicals dumped into the world. Would you?

So here is my little letter:

Dear Gap Representative:

I am thrilled to see your stores starting to carry organic cotton baby clothes. I am wondering if there are plans to create an organic denim jeans line for kids and adults. I’m sure you are already aware of all of the problems currently associated with conventionally grown cotton. A company with as wide a scope as yours could have a tremendous impact in reducing the millions of pounds of chemicals sprayed each year in the production of cotton. There are many of us who would welcome and support an organic line in your stores.

Thank you for your time,

[Fill in your own name here. Or make one up. They’ll never know. Moooohahahahah. Smedley Von Nicklebottom has a nice ring to it.]

All mail seems to be filtered through their customer service department. How far it goes is a mystery. I’ll keep everyone posted if I get a response. If you join in…keep me posted.

custserv@gap.com

custserv@oldnavy.com

custserv@bananarepublic.com

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 11:49 am and is filed under organicneedle, projects, random rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.