Wholly Jo's Ethically Made Wedding Dresses
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK on 03.20.06
As TreeHugger helps to push sustainability gradually into the mainstream, we are seeing new niche markets opening up as off-shoots of big industries. One in particular that we’ve noticed recently is the growing trend for ethical weddings. The business of the traditional white wedding is a huge money making industry! Slowly, however, we are seeing shades of green creeping in, although not without a struggle. One woman, Katie Fewings, featured on TH Blog Love last week, found it so difficult to organise her wedding according to her ethical principals that she has now set-up a website to help others. Previously we have written about the event organiser Organic Weddings and GreenKarat Wedding Rings. Today it’s the turn of the star of the show, the wedding dress. Wholly-Jo’s is an ethical wedding dressmaker, based in London, who wants the process of dressmaking to be as happy as the day on which you wear it.
For something so special and individual TreeHugger thinks it's good to know where your dress came from, how is was made and what is it made of. Wholly Jo's make gowns from organic, fair trade and cruelty-free products. They use Peace Silks (vegetarian), and organic cotton and hemp fabrics and also take opportunities to recycle old dresses. All the dresses are made by Joanne Mackin in the U.K. via: Observer ::Wholly Jo's
Hi,
Another option for organic cotton, hemp/silk, and 100% silk wedding dresses is from Olivia Luca. On our web site you can use our fun interactive tool to design your own dress and choose the fabric.
We are dedicated to finding as many sustainable options for fabrics as possible that work with our designs and add them to the site as they become available.
Our business practices come from a sustainable point of view. All of our shipments in and out are offset with the purchase of Green Tags. We strongly encourage alternative modes to transportation and alternative energy. We donate all of our fabric scraps to a local non-profit low-income artists guild who reuses them to make additional items. These among other everyday things like the three R's help us towards our goals of being a sustainable business.
All of our garments are sewn in Portland, Oregon in our own bright and cheery studio, no long hours bent over sewing machines overseas!
The real problem currently is the limited choice of responsible fabric options. While there are lots of knits out there, there are few woven fabrics that are easily available to small companies and applicable to wedding and party dresses. We are in hot pursuit of them and will be adding them as them to our options as they become available.
You can also check out Portvert.com for additional sustainable wedding ideas and resources, and Harmony Art for fabrics, she has links to other fabric options on her site.
Cheers,
Terri Spaeth-Merrick
Olivia Luca
www.olivialuca.com
Portland, Oregon
Most organic fabrics come only in unbleached shades, some are planning to offer a natural dyeing service.
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