The first and last miles are something of the Olsen twins of the logistics world. On a good day, you can tell them apart. The first mile describes the trek a product takes from its manufacturer to the distributor or fulfillment center, while the last refers to its final schlep to the customer’s doorstep. You…
Author: jasmin
Despite Animal-Welfare Concerns, Down’s Popularity Still Up
Ecoalf is calling foul on fowl. As part of its commitment to “people, animals and planet, the Madrid-based brand is swapping out the goose down in its puffer jackets, coats, and vests with a synthetic alternative. Its goal? To become “100 percent feather-free” by 2020, according to Javier Goyeneche, its founder and president. To that…
Why The Asian-American Food Movement Complicates What We Think About Authenticity
Like most Americans, Mackenzie Fegan grew up eating her weight in Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. But there was a twist, courtesy of her mother, who moved from China as a child. “She would stir an egg into it with chopsticks and make a sort of egg drop soup mashup,” recalls the Brooklyn-based food writer, whose…
‘The Girl Who Named Pluto’ Stars in New Picture Book
Eleven-year-old Venetia Burney was eating breakfast at her home in Oxford, England, on the morning of March 14, 1930, when her grandfather delivered some exciting news. Clyde Tombaugh, an eagle-eyed assistant at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, had discovered visual proof of a long-theorized “trans-Neptunian object” on the edge of the solar system. The…
Promising or Problematic? Agri-Waste Fibers Emerge as an Eco-Alternative
Waste not, want not. More than a maxim for picky children, the phrase has become a kind of raison d’être for a new breed of textile manufacturer that is spinning agricultural castoffs into business gold. Certainly the strategy has its environmental appeal. Millions of tons of fibrous crop residues are chucked after every harvest, according…
The Bizarre Cult of Meghan Markle Pregnancy Truthers
Meghan Markle isn’t pregnant and never has been. The ever-expanding bump? Bogus. The visibly popped navel? Phony. The rapturous glow? Fabricated. The beatific belly cradling? A complete con job. #WakeUpSheeple Thus spaketh the conspiracy theorists, who riddle Twitter and Instagram with hashtags like #Megxit, #DuchessofDeception, #charlatanduchess, and the helpfully descriptive #meghanmarkleisnotpregnant. They claim that Meghan…
What Will It Take to Scale Up US Hemp Production?
Federal legislation of hemp may have finally made its long-awaited arrival in the United States, but obstacles still abound before the hippie-approved agricultural crop lives up to its hype. Blame a little something called states’ rights—the same ones advocated by famed farmer (and president) Thomas Jefferson. Individual states still have decide how they want to…
Does the Ethical Fashion Community Have a Diversity Problem?
Son de Flor, a line of cotton, wool and linen dresses from Lithuania, traffics in the kind of twee, Baltic fairy-tale aesthetic that has become an Instagram genre unto itself. The brand is especially beloved by women who espouse the virtues of organic fabrics and slow lifestyles. In one of Son de Flor’s Instagram posts,…
Should the Denim Industry Rely on Mother Nature to Take Care of Its Waste Problem?
The apparel industry has a waste problem of epic proportions. Every year, Americans alone chuck 32 billion pounds of textiles in the trash with the same casual ease as they would a banana peel or an empty juice box, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That works out to a mountainous 381,500 truckloads’ worth,…
Hemp or Hype?
Industrial hemp is in the spotlight again, and for good reason. The new Farm Bill that the Senate passed 87-13 in December now legalizes the commercial production of hemp, freeing it from the shackles of the Controlled Substance Act and severely curtailing the number of restrictions that have prevented farmers from raising it as a…
The Resale Market Will be Bigger Than Even Fast Fashion
Traditional retailers might want to brace themselves: Not only has the apparel-resale market grown 21 times faster than its retail counterpart over the past three years, but it’s also poised to more than double in value from $24 billion today to $51 billion in 2023, according to a new report from a leading secondhand e-tailer….
How Levi’s and Outerknown Reclaimed Hemp from the Hippies
Rare is the San Francisco party where Paul Dillinger, head of global product innovation at Levi Strauss, isn’t accosted by “some hippie” extolling the wonders of industrial hemp and demanding to know why the denim giant isn’t doing more with it. “The answer is always, ‘Well, just look at yourself hippie,’” Dillinger told Rivet with…