Yesterday, we had the chance to interview Rebecca Burgess, the face of The Fibershed Project. She has committed to wearing clothes made only from materials sourced within a 150-mile radius of her home in California, and as her year of wearing local wraps up, we asked her a few questions about sustainable design and personal challenges.

{r} You are also an educator and textile artist. As designers wanting to make the best decisions for people and planet, what advice would you give us about entering the industry, compromise, and sustainability?

I highly recommend the mantra, ‘make do with what appears to be little.’

Start from the inside out. What do you really want to create  in this world? What do you ideally want to offer as a service or good to your fellow human? What is the systemic impact of your product?

When I reflect on the word ‘ideal’–  it reminds me how this project began… it was an ideal scenario… and the question existed… but can the ideal work?

Your ideal becomes your goal, and you move towards it. You take leaps, and risks, and sometimes you work with self-imposed limitation to get there. Ideal doesn’t land in your lap, you make it happen.

Now that I am closer than ever to my ideal scenario, I’m better informed about how I would want this to be scaled to become available to others in my community. Keeping with the ideals, the clothing would be a product of a human-scale, and deeply ecologically thoughtful processes.

The current caliber of ‘sustainable’ textile production is summed up by the owner of one particularly famous environmentally friendly clothing company (that I’ll remain nameless), who says, ‘The cost of manufacturing is inherently going to damage the earth, that’s why all business needs to have a pay-back plan to the planet.’

What that person is saying and accepting as truth is that we as humans are going to continue to have a material culture that does damage. The problem with that scenario is that we live on a finite planet, and damaging manufacturers cannot continue to expand on a finite planet. This clothing company is not inherently sustainable, nor is it doing anything to create a vibrant and thriving planet; ultimately all the money put towards conservation, and protection of the environment is at best, (in a historical snapshot), neutralizing the effects of an ever- growing manufacturing process that will eventually exceed all attempts at neutralizing.

I think the next wave of textile production will be looking at how to manufacture regeneratively. How to make the process a living, ecological model. Can you eliminate the concept of waste? If you can close your loops, and balance your carbon, then your system is as harmonious as the process of breathing. And, it will last the generations, and not simply be a blip on the screen towards ecological collapse.

{r} And the question everyone wants to know: When the year ends, what’s next for you and Fibershed?

The next wave for Fibershed is to expand out of my wardrobe, and begin to look closely at how we can create a bioregional supply chain that does no harm. We are celebrating the Fibershed as a whole, and bringing attention to our plans for the first ever, solar-powered, farm-based cotton and wool mill. We’re throwing a party on May 1st, and you’re all invited!

We are inviting people from everywhere — because we see a Fibershed as a replicable module. This isn’t just about our bioregion, its about the potential that exists in all regions!

As the personal challenge ends, I forsee Fibershed having a for-profit and non-profit wing. The for-profit wing will be a host of bio-regional fiber growers and processors working together to create the best possible garments. The non-profit wing will be working on R&D (research and development), and grant-writing to secure the funds to help develop innovative manufacturing systems — everything from rotational grazing regimes, so that farmers can get help to improve their soils, and sequester carbon, to developing closed-loop water systems in our fermentation indigo dye house.

It is all completely exciting, and the best part is, it’s already happening!

A huge thanks to Rebecca for sharing her expertise with us. Her story makes us re-think the boundaries of a seemingly-oxymoron, “sustainable fashion.” We encourage everyone to check out Fibershed and spread the word!