Last Friday, AFINGO Fashion held another forum at the FIT in New York for the fashion community. One of the panels discussed sustainability and philanthropy: incorporating eco-friendly and socially-responsible initiatives into the fashion business. Among the panelist were Jeffery Costello and Robert Tagliapietra (AirDye® technology users with their upscale ready-to-wear Costello Tagliapietra line), fashion consultant Julie Gilhart, and model and activist Summer Rayne Oakes.

Treehugger’s Emma Grady covered the panel and found the consensus was that consumers are already overwhelmed with too many eco-friendly claims. We agreed with the panel on so many points, but wanted to call special attention to a Julie Gilhart (in the center of the photo above) made: being sustainable also has to be profitable and that there’s ”not enough philanthropy in the world to change the world.”

This is a point that, perhaps, not enough companies realize is achievable: you can leave a smaller footprint on the planet and make more money at the same time. With technologies such as AirDye and process improvements like the ones laid out by the NRDC’s Clean by Design, brands can create fashionable garments that are green and improve the bottom line.

After all, if you can’t create a sustainable bottom line, you can hardly create a business that creates sustainable products.

photo credit: Emma Grady @ www.emmagrady.com

Just wanted to pass along a quick update about Summer Rayne Oakes’ Source4Style.com site which has been in private beta. Just last week, the B2B marketplace for sourcing sustainable textile materials is open to all members of the industry as an open beta.

With this new exchange, even independent designers or small to medium sized sourcing teams will have access to over 1000 materials and tools. The goal is to make more sustainable options available to designers who wouldn’t ordinarily have the time or the access to these sources.

“This is truly an exciting time for us,” Oakes wrote on the Source4Style blog. “Our early market research revealed that designers have difficulty accessing information on sustainable materials and spend more time researching than designing, so a site like Source4Style is incredibly valuable in order to move sustainable design forward.”

We’re happy to finally see Source4Style open up to the public. Providing designers a convenient platform from which to source materials could really speed up fashion’s transition to a more sustainable industry.

In this video Summer Rayne Oakes explains what Source4Style is all about…

We’re curious to see how well the site works and would love for you to post your thoughts in our comments below.

What if there was an industry-only online marketplace where designers could find, compare, and purchase sustainable textiles from global suppliers? Would that marketplace change the way a designer does business? Model and entrepreneur Summer Rayne Oakes, along with co-founders Benita Singh and Adam Schwartz, are attempting to build such a destination. The group hopes Source4Style will become the preferred resource for designers who wish to obtain environmentally suitable fabric.

Designers can easily spend more time and effort securing specialty fabrics than they spend designing products. Oakes and her team found through their own market research that designers spend up to 85 percent of their time trying to source the right fabric.

“If we can enable designers to design again by giving them the tools and information at their fingertips, then we’re doing what we set out to do. We’re making sustainable design possible,” Oakes told the online site Ecouterre.

Access to Source4Style is currently by invitation only, but the website will be opened to the public in the fall. Designers will be able to select from more than 1,000 fabrics, sorted into categories such as organic cottons, polyester, wool, hemp, reclaimed textiles etc. According to GreenTalk.com, the website has a zoom feature so visitors can view material up close, as well as an option to order samples and/or yardage. The site also lists lead-time requirements, order minimums and maximums, flammability, pilling, weight, and weave.

“By allowing designers to source swatches and yardage at the click of a button, Source4Style will make sustainable design the norm. We basically give brands no other reason to source another way,” co-founder Singh told Textile World.

Although Source4Style is trying to attract many different textile suppliers, the listed fabrics must have a verifiable certification. Only a handful of suppliers that have a “social mission” but cannot afford to go through certification will be granted an exemption. The website has a four-page questionnaire that suppliers are encouraged to fill out so potential buyers can have a thorough understanding of the fabric and its origins. And according to Oakes, they have “boots on the ground” visiting suppliers to verify that fabrics are produced in the way companies describe.

If Source4Style can build and execute on its model, we believe it will be a powerful tool for designers–especially smaller, independent designers. Suppliers will need to lower their minimums to help facilitate this, but that is certainly possible. We are in favor of any resource that allows designers to design, be it an online marketplace that brings together suppliers and designers like Source4Style, or a dyeing technology that speeds up time to market. What’s important is that designers are able to do what they do best: create sustainable, stylish fashion.