A couple years ago, outdoor footwear and apparel company Merrell unveiled a jacket at the Outdoor Retailer show that it called NADA, short for “Not Any Dye Applied.” Being part of a company that’s concerned about water scarcity and pollution, we were impressed by Merrell’s effort to save water and reduce pollution with its dye-less jacket (we even wrote about it here). At this summer’s Outdoor Retailer, we were fortunate enough to spend time at Merrell’s two-level booth.

At first, we couldn’t find the new NADA jackets, and we were worried the company had phased out the concept. But a Merrell representative quickly reassured us. Instead of keeping the NADA jacket a unique offering, Merrell is now using un-dyed materials in its synthetic garments wherever they would have normally used white. That includes the white parts of multi-colored shirts, the Merrell representative told us. Sales of NADA products are growing, if only because it’s now integrated wherever there appears to be “white” synthetic material. And because Merrell is skipping the dye on all the material that would normally be dyed white, the company is ratcheting up the environmental savings at a time when water scarcity is a hot topic.

“I would love it if the whole industry used un-dyed materials for white products,” said Bill Inman, Merrell’s apparel business director.

Merrell has found a cost-effective way to achieve environmental savings with NADA. Even though the company’s typical customer is not as environmentally conscious as a buyer who gravitates toward brands such as Patagonia, Merrell is still searching for ways it can reduce its eco-footprint.

“We’re all in the business because we love the outdoors. The challenge in front of us is how to run a business, and do right by the environment,” Inman told us.

Beyond expanding NADA, Merrell is focused on luring more people outdoors. Recently, the company announced a partnership with the National Park Foundation that it hopes will inspire people to lead more active, outdoor lives. For spring 2011, Merrell designed organic cotton T-shirts that pay homage to the parks. The multi-colored tees are designed to be reminiscent of the old National Park postage stamps from the 1930s–though we’re sure no one reading this remembers putting one of those on an envelope.

While Merrell might not have the most robust environmental initiatives in the industry, its focus on the water that’s wasted and polluted while dyeing synthetic material “white” should stimulate an industry-wide conversation about link between water scarcity and apparel. Whether intentional or not, Merrell is bringing light to the environmental damage caused by dyeing clothing, and that’s an approach not many companies have taken. As we’re fond of saying, we need water for living, not for dyeing.

Earlier this month the Outdoor Retailer show was held in Salt Lake City, Utah. We were there checking out the latest in outdoor gear and talking with companies about their sustainability initiatives. We’ve broken up the content into several posts, and will be sharing it with you all week. First up, Patagonia.

One of the top names in environmentally-conscious outdoor gear, Patagonia unveiled a new hiking boot that it designed for Backpacker Magazine’s Zero Impact Challenge. Companies who take on the challenge commit to coming up with and marketing the highest quality product possible while using processes and materials that minimize the environmental impact. The magazine then rates the results. Patagonia showed off its contest entry at Outdoor Retailer this year–the P26 (P for Patagonia, 26 for the number of bones in a person’s foot).

“The P26 is an environmentally conscious premium hiker that marries the ride of a trail runner and the durability of a hiker,” Mike Bruno of Patagonia said at the show.

Patagonia’s participation in the Zero Impact Challenge helped the company push the boundaries of what’s possible when creating new low-impact products. However, the low-impact philosophy isn’t limited to Patagonia products developed for contests.

For spring 2011, 90 percent of the Patagonia’s apparel products will be recyclable (not to be confused with recycled) through the company’s Common Threads program. Launched in 2005, Common Threads is a clothing reclamation initiative the company hopes will keep clothing out of landfills. Consumers can take their used or unwanted Patagonia clothes to company stores or mail them back to Patagonia’s service center. Since the program began, the company has collected 26 tons of clothing, with 12 tons recycled so far. The Common Threads program is growing, and Patagonia hopes to one day reclaim 100 percent of the garments it makes.

Patagonia also has embraced Bluesign, a standards program for textile companies that want certification that specific products meet environmental and safety standards. The spring 2011 line is 20 percent Bluesign-certified, and according to a Patagonia representative, the products incorporate as much recycled polyester as possible.

One interesting aspect of the company’s approach to sustainability is something it calls the Footprint Chronicles, a publication that highlights both the good and the bad aspects of production. Patagonia has shown a consistent commitment to reducing its environmental impact, and that dedication is reinforced with the new P26 hiking boot and the company’s spring 2011 line of apparel. We’ll check back with Patagonia during January’s Outdoor Retailer show to see what other changes are in store.

Here are a few more of Patagonia’s spring 2011 products:

If you were wearing or selling dresses in the 1980s and 90s, chances are they were one of Pat Argenti’s designs.  After taking some time off to work on other projects, Pat, along with his sons and daughter, is ready to take on the fashion industry once again with a fresh dress collection of beautiful prints and stunning silhouettes all at a tremendous value.

In the 1980s, Argenti developed the “magical price points” concept.  He sold high-quality silk dresses at competitive price points initially rather than waiting for a sale, giving the value to the consumer up front.  As a result, he grew his company’s revenues from zero to $20 million in just two years and then into a $110 million dollar icon of the fashion industry.

What’s Argenti’s secret this time? He believes it’s AirDye® technology.

Just about a month ago, Pat, along with his sons Justin and Alex, came to the AirDye studio in New York City.  They brought with them some samples of Italian silk artwork and a slew of ideas for new designs.

After the first meeting with AirDye staff, Pat Argenti said:

I’ve been in this crazy business for the past thirty years and had some wonderful experiences, but none like yesterday…Developing products with this new print concept is right up there with my best work; all because of AirDye and your great team of people.  We are so excited, ideas are flowing and we have a wonderful feeling about your company.

Within just ten days, the AirDye team created 15 print designs along with coordinating AirDye Solids and contrast color fabric. The team then translated these into 200 AirDye sample sets, produced and shipped to Argenti to create their Spring/Summer 2011 dress collection.  From this, Argenti selected 130 combinations to design, cut, and sew into finished sample dresses to take to market.

This entire process was completed in less than 6 weeks.

Had Argenti gone the usual route, it would easily have taken three to four months! By shortening the time to market, Argenti’s able to offer buyers more choices and gain a significant competitive advantage with a truly unique product.

The sample dresses are back from the manufacturer and Argenti held their first photo shoot earlier this month.  Here are a few sneak peeks at the upcoming collection.

Fashion industry buyers can take a look at Argenti’s newest creations at one of the following shows.  If you’re interested in setting up an appointment to see the collection for yourself, contact Argenti at (212) 221-6969 or via email at justin@argentiinc.com.

In today’s hotly competitive apparel market, businesses covet anything that gives them an edge or boosts revenue and profit. In their quest for sustainability, some companies have found a winner in textile waste.

On Earth Day, apparel manufacturer American Apparel announced a new use for its fabric waste–a collection the company calls “Creative Reuse.” The line includes accessories (headbands, bow-ties, and scrunchies), bras, and underwear.

Clothesmakers inevitably end up with excess fabric–the scraps typically fall to the floor during cutting and get discarded.

“We design pattern cuts to produce the least waste possible, but there’s always a bit left over,” an American Apparel spokeswoman told Ecouterre. “We draw inspiration from these pattern gaps, and they’ve been used to create our accessory styles.”

While American Apparel is building a new product category based on repurposed fabric, another company, LooptWorks, has developed an entire business model around excess fabric.

The company’s concept is to use only pre-consumer excess fabric to produce garments–a process they call upcycling. Looptworks estimates that factories produce 60,000 pounds of useable waste each week. The company takes the fabric scraps and creates limited edition items like hoodies, hats, t-shirts, pants, and computer covers such as the one to the right. The upcycling strategy creates garments from what already exists and reduces demand for new fabric.

“We have a unique process to create unique products,” says Gary Peck, co-founder of Looptworks. “From concept to your closet, we can assure you that no new materials were used to create our clothing and that each item is as individual as the person who wears it.”

American Apparel and LooptWorks have developed different approaches to using leftover fabric–or what’s known as “fabric liability” in the apparel industry. However, it is interesting that these approaches were developed relatively recently. While fabric waste has been around since the beginning of apparel manufacturing, it took the right business climate and a corporate focus on sustainability to turn that waste into revenue.

Textile pollution is getting some mainstream attention. CNN recently posted an article on its website about the pollution problems in China’s Pearl River delta. While the communist nation’s pollution woes have been highlighted in the media before, CNN’s piece goes a step further, specifically demonstrating how textile and denim dyeing is a major cause of the Pearl’s pollution.

In the town of Xintang, textile and denim dyeing is a big business. According to the Chinese government, Xintang produces 200 million pairs of jeans or roughly half of the jeans sold in the U.S. annually.

Denim starts as white cotton thread which is boiled in giant vats of indigo-blue dye before being woven into fabric. The water used in the dyeing process needs to be drained, but instead of treating and recycling all of  it (which is expensive), the wastewater flows through pipes into the Pearl River. The pollution is so bad that local residents and satellite images alike reveal that the river water is black in areas adjacent to denim factories.

“The number one problem (China) face(s) is water pollution,” Deborah Seligsohn of the World Resources Institute told CNN. “The textile industry is one of China’s larger industries and one that uses a lot of water, so it’s traditionally had a lot of wastewater problems.”

In several posts (here and here) on this blog, we have discussed the pervasive nature of China’s textile pollution and shown photos of the cancerous effects on local residents. The Chinese government knows this is a problem; we know it’s a problem; and if you follow this blog, you know it’s a problem. Now readers of CNN.com know it too, and that’s an indication that the issue is gaining wider recognition among the public.

Companies that source goods from offending dye-houses should recognize the potential for textile pollution to become a public relations nightmare. We believe water pollution will be the new sweatshop issue for the industry–garnering mainstream media attention, and eventually, spurring change.

Top executives whose companies rely on those dye-houses may assume they would be shielded from blame and bad PR if a controversy erupts over water pollution–after all, they might argue that they are merely customers, and don’t own the dye-houses. We suggest they talk to Nike about how that defense worked a few years ago.