By Sophie Kidd
In a society dominated by fast fashion, it’s hard to look at a piece of clothing and imagine who—or what—is on the other end of the shears, the mills, and the sewing machines. Until recently, it seemed unlikely that there would never be a time where I could put faces to each step of the process.
Enter Fibershed.
This non-profit organization is working around the world to revitalize regional textile systems while fighting climate change. And these ecological and economic transformations aren’t hard to picture.
Fibershed’s self-proclaimed “Soil to Soil” approach connects the dots between all aspects of clothing manufacturing. Plants and animals provide fiber and dyes, which are then woven into fabric, then sent to a designer. Excess fibers are composted and applied to pasture and farmland, thus providing more nutrients for the plants and animals.
Since the organization began operations in Northern California in 2016, they’ve accomplished some impressive feats, including:
An estimated 45,000 tons of carbon drawdown through carbon farming practices
$1 million in investment capital used for regional manufacturing
45 Fibershed Affiliate communities globally
Luckily for us, we get to be part of the Chesapeake Fibershed, which includes DC and Baltimore as well as portions of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
The affiliate community was started about three years ago after Marian Bruno, Gretchen Frederick, and Martha Polkey learned about what Fibershed was doing in California.
“The Fibershed out there in California is defined as a radius from a certain point,” Bruno said. “But on the East Coast, we're closer together, partly because of how our resources are organized. So, instead of having some artificial circle, we decided to follow the lay of the land. And that's when we decided on the using the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.”
Bruno says that right now, the Chesapeake Fibershed has a solid number of fiber producers with a variety of different types of wool. However, the area lacks processors. This makes it difficult to create the product from start to finish locally.
“A lot of our national local mills, most of which have been on the East Coast, have ceased operations because of competition from China,” she said. “So, these factories are sitting there and not doing anything. And it's going to take a really special effort to get them going again.”
Another problem the Chesapeake Fibershed has to tackle is raising awareness for their cause.
“You've probably heard a lot about the pollution the clothing industry causes. In this part of the country, there are so many small producers, but we live in a society that's not very attuned to buying local when it comes to clothing or fiber goods,” Bruno explained. “They think about it in terms of vegetables, but not so much for fiber. So another part of our mission is to really educate people on the benefits of local fiber.”
To help educate people, Bruno says they have started including cards on locally made products that explain where each step of the process took place.
“So, when a consumer picks up that product, they say, ‘Oh, Fibershed… what's that?’ and then the card shows them how so much of this product actually was produced quite close to where they're standing.”
The Chesapeake Fibershed is still relatively new, but they’re already making waves and redefining what it means to shop local.