The Wonderful World of Vogue Fabrics

The popularity of going green and organic is becoming more and more part of everyday life. Living our lives in a healthier way and protecting the environment have become very PC and mainstream. I am now seeing more and more constructions of fabrics pushing that way as well. Many new types are being produced to be more environmentally friendly. Thus, eco friendly or organic are now offered by many of our vendors and mills. I’d like to explain what I have come to understand about this new segment of fabrics. The two types of collections I’ve seen are being promoted as organic or at least eco friendly. Organic textiles are grown in controlled settings with no pesticides, herbicides, or other chemicals. Only natural fertilizers are used and the soil and water are monitored for contaminates. If a fiber is certified organic its growing conditions have been monitored and certified by an agency from one of the several organic trade associations worldwide. A fabric can be called organic as l...

We have always tried to stay above the fold when it comes to fashion fabrics. I choose fabrics for their feel, style, content, price, and look. When one of our suppliers came out with a new knit solid made from Bamboo, I jumped on it. It turned out to be a great fabric and very well received both in our stores, online, and boutique designers liked it as well. This past April, I ran across a lot of bamboo knits from a designer that was going out of business. I bought the fabric and put it in the retail stores at 50% off the normal retail price. Basically at a distrubutors cost. As we were processing this lot, I told my assistant that the knit felt like rayon not bamboo. The content tags all said 100% bamboo, and I even called the designers supplier to verify. It all checked out and I confidently sold the fabric as bamboo. Yesterday I received an email from one of our suppliers about their bamboo. Here is an excerpt; "There are two basic types of fibers produced from the Bamboo tree...