The fashion industry has been responsible for a significant amount of waste and environmental damage on a global scale. Over 92 million tons of waste are produced every year in this industry alone, according to a BBC report. Luckily, businesses have been finding ways to create simple solutions right here in Eugene.
Trillium Clothing Store, located on Donald Street in South Eugene, has been making efforts to promote sustainability in the clothing industry by using organic and other eco-friendly materials. The store also promotes the concept of recycling over replacing and handcrafting various pieces themselves, which takes less energy to make than mass-produced apparel products. Trillium Clothing Store takes to heart this exact mission when it comes to their goals as a business and while creating their original clothing pieces.
“We are three individual people that share the store here,” Karen Cross, one of the founding members of Trillium said. Each of the three co-owners have their own original clothing line that they create and produce for the store and the space is split up with each of them taking an area within the store. These individual clothing lines include Trust Hemp, Watermelon Kidz and Circle Creations.
Before they took their business to the brick and mortar storefront that it has occupied for nine years, Trillium Clothing Store’s inception can be traced back to the late-90s where they began as individual stalls at Eugene’s Saturday Market.
“We had been doing the Saturday Market for about 10 or 15 years,” Cross said. “It was a lot of work and we loved it, but it felt really good to get under a roof and not have to set up over and over, and have a year-round place to sell our clothing.”
Combining all three lines into one store allowed for more selection, split responsibilities and a more fun work environment.
All three clothing lines share a common approach to their handmade pieces, working with organic fibers and other sustainable materials which provide an environmentally-friendly alternative to apparel design and construction. The use of natural materials that their clothing utilizes is a dominant factor in what makes their specific products more sustainable.
“The fabric itself, compared to store-bought or department store materials, is hemp and organic cotton. It’s soft, washable, biodegradable and just has a more sustainable beginning of its life from the way it was farmed,” Cross said. “Cotton versus organic cotton has a world of difference; regular cotton uses all kinds of synthetics and pesticides from how it’s farmed.”
Another essential component of their production process is their frequent application of used scraps and recycled material when constructing new pieces of clothing. They put a large emphasis on reducing as much material waste as possible, so preserving and reusing all the fabric they can allows them to do so. This process results in a much more hands-on approach to the way a piece of clothing will come together.
“I’m about using every little bit that I possibly can and making it super efficient,” Cross said.
“My sower will lay out the patterns on a big piece of fabric, make a marker and then layer up the fabric so we can cut multiples at a time,” said Loralee Zeigler, another member of the Trillium team, in describing her personal handmade process. “After the pieces are cut, we sew them up in a group, and dye the garments in small batches of hand mixed custom colors.”
Similarly, Cross uses her own recycling method for constructing something new. “Let’s say I make a hoodie and I have scraps leftover from those yards of fabric,” Cross said. “I keep my scraps, and then I lay the fabric out, pin it and sew it together to make a larger piece of fabric, and I’ll make a hoodie out of that.”
This recycling approach remains at the forefront of all aspects of their business. They even provide mending and hemming services for customers who bring in ripped or damaged clothing, even if it didn’t come from their store, all with the intent to reduce the consumers’ need to buy more and keep used clothing in rotation.
Trillium Clothing has ambitions for the future of their business and sustainability as a whole. “My hopes are to keep the Trillium collective going as a hub for natural fiber clothing and a resource for the community to find locally-made and long-lasting clothing,” Zeigler said. “I would love to see more locally-made and U.S.A.-made clothing from fibers which are not grown and processed with herbicides and pesticides. It’s just better for the planet and better for everyone.”
Trillium Clothing Store is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 12 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. and by appointment all other days.
