Wednesday, May 22, 2013

How Do You Wear Natural Fibers? A Conversation About Cotton

Typically when I think about wearing natural fibers I think about one of my favorite dresses made of tree bark that I picked up in Finland some years ago.  Recently however, I was pleasantly reminded that I wear a plant fiber with some regularity - jeans!

I attended a "conversation" about cotton at Cotton, Inc. (Madison Ave. logo above) recently which brought to light something that, while known, just was not obvious to me before.  It's a plant!  Cotton that is, not my jeans obviously…

That means, if I left cotton outside with exposure to water it would degrade just like any other plant would.  It is grown and gets harvested like any other crop. Go figure!

Now, I have always known that cotton is grown and I knew that it was spun  into a fiber.  I guess the fact that it's degradable in its purest form was a concept I had not thought of.  Have you?

Those in the cotton industry not only “get” this but there has been a marketing move towards a greater acknowledgment of it being a natural fiber.  This of course, makes sense, because it is!

Some of the fun facts I learned about cotton include that 90% of cotton comes from the northern hemisphere.  There is a distinct "cotton calendar" as well.

March - June: planting season
March - Oct.: growth season 
Aug. - Dec.: harvest

In the U.S. cotton is grown in 17 states. Included in this "cotton belt" are TN, MS, AK, LA, and TX, among others and these states alone account for 40-45% of the U.S. cotton market.  This is the equivalent of how much cotton is grown in Uzbekistan to give you a reference for U.S. cotton as compared to other countries.

70% of the world’s total cotton comes from China, India, USA and Pakistan.  Therefore, events that occur in these markets affect global cotton markets as a whole.

In terms of who is consuming cotton, the largest countries are China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, USA, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mexico and Vietnam.

Vietnam's consumption has actually increased by 88% over the last 5 years, which points to China's diminishing competitive advantage.

As for organic cotton, disappointingly it only makes up about 2% of the market and will probably stay that way (so I was told).

The reason being that unlike with food, consumers are not willing to pay the premium for a growing process that is pesticide free that results in the same pair of jeans as would result from the normal way of processing - that is one with pesticides.

What’s your position on organic cotton and other eco-friendly products?  Post below or email me at fashioncompliance@gmail.com

On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FashionCompliance 

On YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/fashioncompliance 

On Tumblr: http://fashioncompliance.tumblr.com

On Twitter @fashcompliance https://twitter.com/fashcompliance 

No comments:

Post a Comment