Ethical-apparel movement: fair trade, natural fabrics

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Nutritionist Karen Ialapi thinks modern American life has moved too far from the earth.

She frowns at the mention of processed foods. She praises the European fondness for vegetables served fresh from produce markets every day and boasts of her own heritage, "a great Italian family filled with great cooks." A former corporate health consultant, she is building a consulting business and working part time at a Whole Foods organic market.

So when she wandered into the Kansas City organic clothing boutique It's Only Natural three years ago, she was intrigued. She touched the soft fabrics and heard about cotton produced without chemicals. It was a turning point.

She has been transitioning her closet into organic clothing a little at a time since. A purple T-shirt here and a red dress there.

"You have to experience the clothes," she says. "They feel so good."

Ialapi is one of an emerging breed of consumers who are making purchasing decisions based on ethical issues beyond the aesthetics and value of the clothes. As much as they want to look good, they like the feeling they are doing good with consumer dollars. "Just take one step," Ialapi urges.

They appreciate clothing produced with minimal damage to the environment. That includes materials such as organic cotton, hemp, the wood compost fabric Tencel, soy, corn fiber and bamboo. Recycled goods from the likes of soda pop tops and bike chains are a quirky part of the mix.

At the same time, more people are considering conditions under which clothing is made. Were the workers treated well and paid fairly for their labor?

These fair-trade subjects are becoming part of the larger conversation on ethical consumerism, says Rebecca Calahan Klein, president of Organic Exchange, a national clearinghouse and resource center in Berkeley, Calif. For Ialapi and some other consumers, the two issues are tied together.

The idea is part of an ethics movement that is gathering momentum. Danny Seo, a style editor with Organic Style magazine, calls it "LO-HAS, Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability."

People are buying hybrid cars. They're talking about healthy food. They do yoga and seek a mental balance. And they're concerned with the environment, he says.

"It's the question of your footprints. How much are you going to leave behind on the planet?" he says.

Courtney Fuchs is trying to further the movement in the Kansas City area. The former lawyer, 44, opened the organic apparel store It's Only Natural more than three years ago. She became interested after her daughter was born 13 years ago.

"I wanted to do what was best for my family, and I started looking at the side issues."

She was shocked when she learned that cotton production uses 25 percent of the agricultural chemicals and 3 percent of the cropland globally.

World's Window has a selection of ethical clothing, offering both organic and fair-trade clothing. Earth Creations, for example, uses organic cotton, hemp and blends, all colored with clay dyes.

These stores appeal to consumers such as Shari Blaine of south Kansas City. She says she is leading a more thoughtful lifestyle these days, paying close attention to how her clothing is produced and under what conditions. She buys organic cosmetics. And she has been so anxious about commercial dyes in clothing, she experimented with making her own fruit and vegetable dyes.

Like Ialapi, she discovered organic clothing three years ago. It was an easy leap from another passion, organic gardening, she says, which she started when she was first married 33 years ago. "You have to try to make the best choices you can," she says.

Cotton production is at the center of the organic apparel debate because it requires a large percentage of chemicals and pesticides. Yet organic farming can be costly in most countries.

The transition is difficult. Crops have to be rotated. The land is left unplanted while the soil is conditioned.

And organic farming remains a small part of the cotton industry. Out of 40 million farmers around the world, about 25,000 are organic farmers, says Klein of Organic Exchange. Less than two-tenths of 1 percent of the world's cotton is grown organically.

It is a "niche market, although it has a certain level of resonance," says Ira Livingston, senior vice president for consumer marketing with Cotton Inc., an industry trade group dedicated to cotton promotion. Organic cotton is a $50 million industry, he says, compared with the $266 billion cotton market.

Demand for organic cotton, however, is on the rise, increasing 300 percent the past three years, Klein says. And the number of U.S. brands that offer organic cotton has gone from less than 100 in 2002 to more than 250 currently.

The Organic Trade Association told Newsweek magazine that organic-fiber products jumped 22.7 percent in 2003, with women's clothing at the front.