Lynda Grose, a national leader in sustainable fashion, is bringing her research project “Goodwill Label Stories” to the Greenbrier Valley on Apr. 25 and 26.
Grose is a professor in sustainable fashion design and critical studies at the California College of the Arts and the co-author of the book “Fashion and Sustainability: Design for Change.”
As the lead designer of Esprit’s Ecollection, she reached out to Diane Browning, who was conducting a feasibility study on developing a wool mill in West Virginia, inquiring whether she had a source for U.S. wool, and as an aside, asked if there were knitters in the region to make them into sweaters. That launched the machine knitting training and marketing venture, Appalachian By Design.
Although there has been much progress in developing more environmentally responsible garments, gains have been offset by overproduction and especially the growth of the “fast fashion” industry, a fairly recent trend in which companies mass produce replicas of high fashion garments at low cost and encourage consumers to update their wardrobes more frequently to keep up with the latest fashions. This model creates huge amounts of waste, pollution, and unsatisfactory conditions for workers and communities around the world. For example, Chile’s Atacama Desert and Ghana’s coastline is host to a dump of discarded clothing that is visible from space.
Grose is at the forefront of efforts to curb these practices. She has also begun her own research, exploring people’s attitudes about wearing second-hand clothing. “I buy a lot of second-hand clothes, and I discovered when people complement me on a garment, I love letting them know it’s from Goodwill….I call it ‘compulsive disclosure’ she says. “I wondered if people might be willing to label their second-hand garments, so others know.”
That question sparked her to collaborate with anthropologist Sydney Martin, of Slanted Light Research, on Goodwill Label Stories. She sets up her sewing machine in the store and asks customers if they would be willing for her to sew a Goodwill label on the outside of their garment.
“It is an opportunity to interact with different people and to talk about what clothing means to them,” she says. Reactions have ranged from her first interviewee, who took great pride in supporting Goodwill and its mission, to the woman who was so afraid her friends might see her shopping there that she wished there were blinds on the windows. Grose is interested in different demographic factors such as age, income and geographic locations. She has conducted research at Goodwill stores in the Bay area and Southern California. Her West Virginia visit marks the first research in a different state. So far, the findings have been featured in exhibitions and galleries and hopefully a book.
Buying second-hand clothes is the most sustainable thing we can do to help keep materials in use for longer.”
Lewisburg area residents will have an opportunity to participate in her research on Friday, Apr. 25 at the Fairlea Red Oak Shopping Center Goodwill Store from 11 am to 3 pm. Grose and her sewing machine will also be at the Greenbrier Valley Visitor’s Center on Saturday, Apr. 26 from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Grose is the keynote speaker at the WV Sustainable Fashion Show at the Lewis Theater on Saturday, Apr. 26, starting at 5 p.m. For tickets, visit www.greenbrierdemwomen.org/events-1/west-virginia-sustainable-fashion-show.
