REVIEW OF ECO CHIC

The last review was not that positive, scathing might have been the word, and I am afraid this one is not going to be laudatory. However, Matilda Lee does go a lot further than the hapless Tamsin Blanchard - she has an index and cites her sources, which gives this some credibility.

Ms. Lee works at the Ecologist, which is a much more serious publication than the Independent, where Blanchard toiled away watching catwalks and size zero models. The former publication is very well researched, and went to the trouble to seek me out last year to give me a half page colour advert for the hemp eco bag - free! They were not just a bunch of mercenaries, but genuinely committed eco-journalists. At one time, they even printed part of an issue on John Hanson's Treefree hemp paper.

Their ethos does not seem to have rubbed off on Ms. Lee however. Nor, I take it, has she taken on board any of what I had to say when I had a conversation with her about hemp - she basically snubbed her nose at it and seemed offended - many Americans working in the eco movement do not really want any competition for US based businesses, so they serve as gatekeepers; Lee is from the Homeland, which does not even allow its citizens to grow hemp at all.

Mention of hemp in her book is limited, not surprising when Katherine Hamnett writes the foreword. Hamnett was exposed to hemp but decided to promote environmentally destructive cotton instead, now raising organic cotton which depletes the water in third world countries, even more so than non-organic cotton. Discussion of hemp is limited to pp. 122, 125-7, 186 & 210. All of this does start with a positive note, as Lee states that a UK hemp industry would decrease the transport of fabric to the UK. This statement, however, demands more information supplied, as the move to initiate a UK hemp textile industry is not an easy one. Further discussion of the UK hemp industry on pp. 125-127 fails to mention the use of hemp seed in the statistics, and then we are led to believe that BioRegional is in a project with Hemcore to cultivate hemp for fabric on 1,214 hectares - which would be, by Lee's previous data, 60+% of the total UK harvest. There is also the statement that there is no mill in the UK with experience with spinning, knitting or weaving hemp - again - Lee needs to do more checking. Huddersfield is mentioned as a place for a future BioRegional project, but could well have been given space for the very beautiful hemp fabrics being created there by Katie Knill, who for some reason was not at all consulted in this book. Get your facts right! Going back to BioRegional, they did indeed run field trials, twice in the last 10 years, but each trial involved 10 acres or so, and neither has produced much fibre. Let me here shed some light on this - I came along to view the second field trial, and saw that they really were not getting this together - so I asked if they had read any books about retting and production of fibre. They then just shrugged their shoulders, and I suspect that the reading list I gave them has been thrown away. They are far from cultivating 1,214 acres of anything, and far from producing fibre, though their efforts did not go completely in vain, they produced research reports, one of which was written up in the Journal of Industrial Hemp. Lee does not appear to have read any of this. Sadly, what happens is that misinformation gets repeated and repeated, and I will no doubt be hearing more and more of this airy fairy tale, repeated with great authority as people take Lee and some clap happy fashion editors as gospel.

I do like Lee's choice of words on occasion, she does succeed in making me laugh, as when she asserts: "...there is an issue of contaminating the spinning mills with hemp fibres."

The last mention of hemp is on p. 210, where she starts off by mentioning the Anya Hindmarch bag, along with the Onya bag - which she perhaps fails to realise is plastic. No mention of the eco hemp bag that her magazine so graciously promoted for me - she did not have far to go to find out about this one!

Another aspect of her book that is poorly researched is the resouce guide, she omits such vendors as The Hemp Shop, Sativa, Minawear, GeoMio. Omission of The Hemp Shop in particular shows a callous lack of regard for the history of the eco movement - it has been around the longest of any existing hemp shops in the UK and the proprietor, Bobby Pugh, not only was a founder of the hemp movement here but was also a hemp farmer; it was he who manufactured the hemp eco bags that the Ecologist promoted gratis as a real gesture of their stance on the environment. But I guess Lee was out of the office that month.

On the way are two more books in this genre, including one with the same main title as Lee's, and the way things are going, I do not expect to be writing ecstatic praise. The trouble with the eco movement is that there is no end of celebrities and self promoting fools, but those who do the research are often ignored, and this may have something to do with the budget of the cotton industry. The eco movement is much like an army where none of the recruits want to do basic training, but are eager to shoot off weapons in all directions. I recommend that Lee go back to boot camp and take agriculture 101 and science 101 before she writes a book on textiles.

REVIEW OF GREEN IS THE NEW BLACK

This is one of many books published recently which purport to tell us the truth about eco-fashion. The author, Tamsin Blanchard, was fashion editor of the Independent, and with that much information I might have guessed how shallow this thing would be. There are lots of cutesy touches to the layout, but that does not make for substance; the style does not intone much depth either.

The book dwells on cotton, without so much as a single mention of the water needs of cotton, or the fact that organic cotton needs yet more water, thus destroying the livelihoods of more farmers worldwide - or at least in areas that Ms. Blanchard does not reside or visit. She lives in the UK, where cotton has never been farmed, and travels to Paris, NY and other fashion hotspots. No cotton plantations there either, just lots of mad fashionistas destroying the planet with their excess.

So is this book some form of atonement? From the remarks in the introduction, and the foreword by Lily Cole, it does seem that way. If so, it only adds the sins of omission to the sins of comission. The multitude of happy-clappy words here do not go far towards helping the environmental movement at all. And, as some might say is an unforgivable sin, there is no index, and do not expect any source notes. The resource guides serve to promote the businesses of certain parties, such as those who advertise in the Independent or the Telegraph (where the author now works). Katherine Hamnett is praised to high heaven, whilst others are ignored. Again, this might have to do with how much money they spent on papers and their high-flying reviewers.

Hemp is not totally ignored, however, there is mention of it on pp. 16,42,115,155,213,220 & 221. Generally, there is a negative tone towards hemp, which makes it strange that on p. 155 she claims it is her favourite fabric. Is there an editor in the house? She does at least mention The Hemp Shop, but then completely omits this venue in the resource guide - neither does she mention The Hemp Trading Company, Minawear, Sativa, or many other hemp businesses. Enamore, Equa, Patagonia and Howies are given some space, but all of these deal in cotton/silk and other fibres as well.

While Blanchard rather dismisses hemp as a designer fabric, she makes some concession to it as a tough option for luggage, but not much mention of it as bag material, despite the fact that there is a bag war on in London, and that hemp bags have made news upstaging the Anya Hindmach bag - there was even a piece in the Independent in April 2007 about what a disgrace the Anya bag was, but I guess Blanchard does not bother to read what is going on around her.

Ethical silk is mentioned, but again, ignorance is shown here, as she completely omits mention of ethical silk makers other than herself - and does not explain how her farming methods are in any way ethical when she uses artificial mulberry leaves to start with, and then allows the moths to hatch here in the UK where she claims there is not the proper food for them. But the subsequent starvation of the larvae is of no more concern to her than the starvation of the people whose land has been used for cotton, organic or otherwise.

Sad, but not unlike so many other Jane-come-latelies to the eco movement. These new recruits need to go to boot camp and learn some basic facts before they write a book.

DRESS CODE

The Big Green Gathering this year was better than ever, and lots of us were wearing outfits made from hemp, bamboo, and other natural fibres. After my talk a botanist told me about his interest in nettles, ouch!, but yes, they too can produce fine threads. Someone else there makes living silk, having gone to India to train silkworms to make threads without being killed.

I was able to wear all green, with a tie-dye from Minawear, trousers from Braintree UK, a shirt from THTC and a backpack from Sativa. The Hemp Shop's 100% organic eco bag, as featured in the Ecologist and Positive News, was also in hand.

Hemp and other fibres such as jute and ramie are gaining ground, though sadly, most people still wear mass produced cotton which is killing people in India, China, Uzbekistan, Egypt, the US, etc. A new website dedicated to information on all of these has just started in London and is well worth taking a look at - http://www.hempandnaturalfibres.ning.com/

We love to publish images of anyone's sartorial choiced in natural fibres, send in any to me at cotingas@hotmail.com and we will gladly publish them on the site, with a link to the manufacturer if you wish.