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Making Things We Need

Over the past half century the U.S. textile industry has been decimated. "In 1965, 95% of the clothing in a typical American's closet was made in America," writes Rebecca Burgess writes on her blog, "today less than 5% of our clothes are made here."

She decided to bring awareness and conscientiousness to the back story of our garments, and took on the challenge of creating a wardrobe has been grown and designed within 150 miles of her home in Lagunitas, Ca.

She wanted to create a working model of what bio regional clothing would look like. This video shows us her whole wardrobe, including a bikini made of hand spun wool!

Imagine having even one item that was grown from fibers and hand dyed, designed and created locally. She can tell you the names of the Alpacas who's wool is in her warmest sweater.

"Isn't it interesting that there is so much raw material, but we don't see it on the backs of any Americans?" she says.

Connecting a network of people: farmers who grow the fibers and cotton, felters, knitters, designers, spinners, natural dyers, mill owners, she ended up with an entire wardrobe of locally made clothes.

Burgess recovered some fabric from a mill no longer in operation in Richmond, CA "...vestiges of our manufacturing history that America somehow let go because the profit margins weren't big enough."

This is a truly inspiring action taken by one individual that reminds us of all the resources that we have -- and all the jobs we could be creating.

--Bibi Farber

This video was produced by Fair Companies

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