Hemp jacket heralds sustainable style
THE BioRegional Development Group, a UK-based environmental organisation that works on projects to bring local sustainability into mainstream business and industry, has carried out a practical trial resulting in the production of the first machine-processed, pure-hemp fabric grown in the United Kingdom for a century.
Top UK designer, Katharine Hamnett, well-known for her strong commitment to environmental issues, was very impressed with the fabric and offered to design and make a garment from it. The result: this neat and attractive lightweight summer jacket.
Currently, the bulk of the UK’s demand for textiles is met by cotton and synthetics — both of which have environmental problems associated with them.
Most cotton production, for example, is highly intensive and heavily dependent on inputs of pesticides, fertilisers and water.
BioRegional, based in southern England, maintain that traditional UK fibre crops, such as flax and hemp, have a lot to offer as home-grown alternatives to imports of cotton and the use of synthetic fibres. They can be grown with few chemicals and the fabrics produced are durable and have the ability to “breathe”.
Hemp, especially, is easy to produce organically, growing so fast that it smothers weeds whilst robustly shrugging off pests. In the past, hemp was an important crop in many countries and was used to produce textiles, paper and oil. Although the hemp textile industry has now almost completely disappeared in the western world, it never ceased in France. (Levi Strauss made his first jeans from hempden cloth imported from Nimes in France, hence the name “denim”, which comes from “Serge de Nimes”).
BioRegional claims that it could be possible to revive hemp textile production in the southern part of the UK and produce high-quality hemp yarn and fabrics at a similar cost to linen. The group believes a revival of hemp cultivation, as locally-grown, low-input textile fabric crop and not as a commodity for international trade, would be an important contribution to establishing a sustainable future.
