Sarah Jenny

Update: I will be focus on a Leg Avenue brand of hosiery.

I decided to focus on the clothing/textiles/garment industry as the research subject for the rest of the semester. It holds a certain power for me as my maternal lineage consists of tailors, seamstresses, and shoemakers. A common history for Ashkenazim who fled Eastern Europe, my great grandparents settled in the Lower East Side where my great grandmother was a garment industry worker at the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. As someone who rarely buys “new” clothing (my wardrobe has changed fairly in the past decade with the exception of my penchant for vintage dresses which are now about 50-60 year old garments), I am fascinating about the life cycle of various textiles throughout the world being manufactured at different periods of time.

The textile industry has been wrought with problems at every stage of the life cycle from the poor treatment of workers and working conditions (sweatshops, et. al.) to formaldehyde treated fabric to large companies such as H&M being publicly shamed (and rightfully so) for shredding unsold garments instead of donating them to those in need. I am interested in learning about every stage of the life cycle of this material and product.

Start doing deep dive research into your chosen product to review, focused on product origin, and share your findings on your blog. Where is this product made? What were you not able to discover?

Textiles are made from both organic (as in naturally occuring or plant based materials) and inorganic (as in synthetic) materials. Fibers that make up textiles come from materials more explicitly such as plants (hemp, cotton, linen, bamboo), animal (wool, alpaca, insects (silk), and crude oil(!). Synethic materials are made of all sorts of confusing things.

Textiles used for clothing are frequently made in Bangladesh, China, India and Sri Lanka as wages are significantly lower than for workers in the global north. Not surprisingly, globalization is the most contributing factor to the poor working conditions of garment workers.

From Wikipedia:

“Used, unwearable clothing was once used for quilts, rag, rugs, bandages, and many other household uses. It could also be recycled into paper. Now it is usually thrown away. Used but still wearable clothing can be sold at consignment shops, dress agencies, flea markets, online auction, or donated to charity.

There are many concerns about the life cycle of synthetics which come primarily from petrochemicals. Unlike natural fibers, their source is not renewable (in less than millions of years) and they are not biodegradable.”

However, specific brands work towards running sustainable and ethical business practices ranging from vertical integration to worker owned-cooperative to organic fibers and materials used in their products. Well known American Apparel is one of them (despite the highly sexualized nature of their advertisements…) and assorted manufacturers such as Justice Clothing and No Sweat Apparel.

Below are some of the studies I’ve found:

• Life cycle analysis for cotton and polyester
• Life cycle of clothing
• Playback Clothing Shows Benefits of Recycled Cotton, Bottles With Lifecycle Analysis
• EU COST Action 628: life cycle assessment (LCA) of textile products, eco-efficiency and definition of best available technology (BAT) of textile processing
• Life cycle assessment in woven textiles
• COTTON TEXTILES AND THE ENVIRONMENT: LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF A BATHROBE
• Sustainable textiles: Life cycle and environmental impact

For this assignment, I interviewed my friend Carmichael who is a 4th street co-op member & has sold local food.  She works at Angelica’s Kitchen, a vegan restaurant that buys local food whenever possible. She would not use the word locavore to describe herself even though this is the term used in our assignment. Carmichael noted that it is nearly, if not simply, impossible to be a “locavore” in New York City. One would only be able to eat locally while food is available in the region. My interview is below:

Q.) Why would you choose to eat local?

• Food tastes better & is fresher.
• it didn’t travel as far, has lower carbon footprint.
• clearer sense of where it comes from as she talks to farms and those in food production
• local food in nyc = smaller scale farms
• organic or done with consideration of the land unlike large scale farms

Q.) When did you first develop consciousness around local food?

• wanted to be a vegan cook as she was a vegan and went to the natural gourmet culinary school in nyc
• she learned about where to get whole foods, not packaged foods and then to co-ops and farmers markets
• when she started working at angelica’s, they got great produce

Q.) Tell me something something you’ve noticed about local foods?

• If you buy local beans, they cook way faster because they haven’t been sitting in a warehouse for a year
• local food tastes better. so many more local options available – local popcorn, grains, and flour. Wildhide Farm at union square and 4th street co-op.

Q.) What foods can you get locally here?

• winter: apples, root veggies, artichokes, turnips, potatoes, grains
• spring: nettles (spinach-like), fiddle-head ferns, baby greens, ramps, garlic scapes,
• summer: tomatoes, summer squash, leafy greens (broccoli, etc.)
• fall: squashes with thicker skins ex. pumpkins and butternut squash, root veggies, onions and garlic.

Q.) Can you tell me about your garden?

• moved to neighborhood to have garden
• put tons of work into a pile of trash yard into a garden. but there was no sunlight.
• also had to deal with aphids. in larva stage, they can already become pregnant. reproduce very fast and then eat the plants. very difficult to get rid of. they also got fungus on pumpkins and then cucumbers and killed them.
• kale, garlic, tomatoes, and herbs were very successful.

Q.) Is eating local affordable?

• yes when it is season.
• co-ops are good because you can get 20%  off.
• CSAs are cheaper.
• winter CSAs also exist with potatoes, spelt, and eggs.