2 Sustainable Businesses Offering Environmentally Responsible Fabrics in Strathcona
Everything we purchase has an environmental impact. The growing popularity of fast fashion over the last couple of decades has led to a cheaper price point but has also been a contributor to the negative impact on the environment.
Making environmentally responsible choices with our clothing is a great way to show your love for fashion but also the planet. Having a high standard for the social and environmental impact of our clothing is a great step we can take as individuals to help create a cleaner, greener and more fair planet.
We spoke with Strathcona businesses Blackbird Fabrics and Our Social Fabric about why having a positive, sustainable impact is an important part of their businesses. Read more below.
Blackbird Fabrics
Blackbird Fabrics is a Strathcona business that provides high-quality fabrics and supplies for sewists, by sewists. They offer a range of apparel fabrics that feel at home in any modern wardrobe including natural fibers, deadstock fabrics, and custom print lines, with an emphasis on fabrics that are environmentally and socially responsible wherever possible.
How does your business make a difference to the environment?
By providing home sewists with the fabrics & tools they need to make their own garments, we aim to steer people away from fast fashion and towards a slower and more sustainable way of engaging with the fashion industry.
The growth of our business has allowed us to take on a number of custom projects where we are able to ensure that we are working with suppliers that meet our social and environmental standards. We also work with a number of deadstock suppliers where we source leftover rolls and offcuts from fashion brands and textile mills, breathing new life into existing fabrics rather than purchasing all of our fabrics brand new.
Within our warehouse, we strive to produce as little waste as possible, repurposing and recycling our scraps wherever possible. We do this by selling our remnants and flawed cuts at reduced prices, creating bundles out of our scraps, and recycling any leftover fabric pieces with a local textile recycling company, Fabcycle.
Why is social and environmental impact important to your business and/or in your industry?
Having seen the negative effects that have resulted from the rise of fast fashion, such as overconsumption, inhumane labour practices, and devastating effects on the environment, we believe that it’s important to commit ourselves to use our platform and our purchasing power responsibly.
Likewise, as a team made up of home-sewists who have a personal investment in the slow-fashion movement, we believe that it’s important that our practices as a business reflect these shared values.
What do you find inspiring about the slow-fashion movement and community?
It’s incredibly inspiring to see the wealth of knowledge that has been made available to regular consumers by way of the slow-fashion community. In an industry like the fashion industry where many of the details around production have traditionally been behind closed doors, it’s so encouraging to see people pushing their favourite brands for more transparency and asking industry-level questions surrounding their practices.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Alongside Earth Day, this week is also Fashion Revolution week, an annual global campaign dedicated to mobilizing consumers, brands, and policymakers to advocate for a safer, more transparent, and less exploitative fashion industry. We’ll be participating by sharing articles and information over on our Resource page and Instagram, we also encourage you to check out the numerous resources provided by Fashion Revolution if you are interested in learning more.
Our Social Fabric
Our Social Fabric is a non-profit fabric store selling donated deadstock fabric and fibre arts supplies online and in person. They keep ‘waste’ fabric out of landfills by getting it into the hands of the fibre arts and slow-fashion community. They believe in a future where no useable fabric ends up in Canadian landfills.
How does your business make a difference to the environment?
Our Social Fabric is a non-profit selling donated deadstock fabric and fibre-arts supplies online and in-person. We keep ‘waste’ fabric out of landfill by taking donations of fabric and selling it to the fibre-arts and slow-fashion community. In 2021, we kept more than 20 tons of textiles and sewing-related materials out of landfills. Over the last five years, we have diverted a staggering 85.5 tons!
Our fabric, notions and supplies are priced at up to 75 per cent less than regular retail prices. We sell to the public through weekly in-person sales at our store on Venables Street and ship across Canada through their online store.
Our shelves, virtual and real, are crammed with unique high-quality fabrics that shoppers won’t find anywhere else.
We help to make sewing more affordable, approachable and more sustainable for our creative community.
Why is social and environmental impact important to your business and/or in your industry?
Our Social Fabric exists to reduce the environmental impacts of ‘waste’ fabric caused by overproduction and overconsumption and to provide more sustainable shopping options to those in our creative community who are enjoying the practice of making their own clothes as opposed to consuming fast fashion.
We were founded in 2009 by a set decorator and a fashion designer who were both alarmed at the large volumes of fabric ‘waste’ being generated by the movie industry in Vancouver and took action to save it from going to landfills.
We still receive donations from the movie industry, but now count clothing manufacturers, designers, wholesalers, estates and home sewers amongst our donors.
As an organization, we believe that fabric waste can not only be avoided, but channelled to create positive change in our community. As a non-profit our pricing structure is designed so that we make just enough to keep the business running.
Joanna Wyatt, chair of Our Social Fabric, explains further, “Being part of a wider community is really important to us. Any surplus funds we have are channelled back into sewing-related educational opportunities and organizations as well as key community causes. For example, we offer three annual scholarships to Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s school of fashion design. And in 2021, when first the fires and then the floods were raging in British Columbia, we donated part of our sales or made an in-kind donation to support the rebuilding efforts.
What do you find inspiring about the slow-fashion movement and community?
All our volunteers and employees are sewists and fabric lovers. We swap pattern ideas and love showing off our latest makes and share sewing tips. We are firmly part of the slow-fashion movement and community!
When we spend time selecting fabrics and patterns and then sewing them up into wearable garments we are making conscious and deliberate choices about what pieces we add to our wardrobes. When you invest time and learn new skills to produce a garment you have respect for it that can be lost when you purchase fast fashion items.
But best of all, when you sew the garment is uniquely yours. You can proudly wear something you made and know there is little to no chance that anyone else will be wearing the same outfit as you anywhere in the world! Don’t like the colours or trends in stores? Not a problem, make it how you want. It’s so liberating to know that the only limitation is your imagination.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Our online store can be found at www.oursocialfabric.ca or visit us at 270-1275 Venables St during one of our in person sales. We’re open every Thursday 3pm-7pm and one Sunday a month, 10am-1pm. Check our website for the latest sale schedule. Our staff and volunteers are always on hand to answer questions and help you make fabric selections. We also sell sewing machines for anyone wanting to get started.