When you think about the best end of life for clothing, we may think of recycling or upcycling those clothes. But what if we could compost them?
What if our clothes could return to the soil from where the fibers to make that clothing was grown? It might sound like only a dream, but there are actually a few brands working to make fully compostable clothing a reality.
One of the brands making significant headway in this realm is California Cloth Foundry. This small slow fashion brand believes in creating a healthy wardrobe the natural way using botanical ingredients that we could consume and avoiding all petroleum-based fibers, treatments, and dyes.
Not an easy feat in today’s fossil fuel-addicted fashion industry. So, to dive into how California Cloth Foundry is doing all of this, I sat down with founder and designer Lydia Wendt.
In this conversation, Lydia is sharing:
- What fully compostable clothing is and what elements might make natural fiber clothing no longer compostable
- What the challenges are as a brand to create compostable clothing and
- What natural dyes are and how they’re different from low impact dyes
Lydia is also going to talk about how California Cloth Foundry is going beyond doing less bad and investing in creating a positive fashion system. And Lydia is going to share some interesting reflections on her previous experiences working in big fashion and why she decided to create an entirely local and traceable supply chain for her label.
Next week’s episode will also be talking about soil to soil circularity, so make sure to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss that interview or any future conversations about conscious fashion!
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Tune in to this episode of the Conscious Style Podcast below, or on your favorite podcast app.
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Download the transcript for this episode [PDF]
About Lydia & California Cloth Foundry
Lydia Wendt is Founder and Design Director of California Cloth Foundry. Originally from New York, she trained at the Fashion Institute of Technology and worked with some of America’s top fashion designers and brands, including Tom Ford for Perry Ellis America, Calvin Klein, Bloomingdales and Jones New York.
Before founding CCF in 2014, she produced The North Face x Fibershed Backyard Project and was a member of the faculty of the Academy of Art University’s internationally recognized fashion department after completing her degree in textiles there. There she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in sustainable fashion and textile design.
From Lydia’s 25+ years of industry experience, California Cloth Foundry was born.
Her past work on 7th Avenue, then in fast fashion, a ‘race to the bottom’ of ethics, environment and quality; informs and guides California Cloth Foundry’s mission:
to positively change the industry by reformulating the supply chain in collaboration with nature, for the health of the planet and the future of her two daughters.
