JULY: Making a Mindful Brand + Year 1 Review

YEAR 1!

The Mindful Designer’s Almanac is officially a year old! In the following months, I will post new entries, repost favorite previous posts, and post updated previous posts. It will be a mix of research overviews, discussions, interviews, and meditations on the natural fiber in season that month.

Everything we wear comes from the Earth and is a part of natural cycles. As always, each monthly post will reflect on a natural fiber harvested that month– musings on natural fibers that are seasonally relevant (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The harvest times that will be highlighted in future entries. Note these are examples of harvest times, dates may vary based on year, geography, farming methods, etc. 

BONUS READ: MAKING A MINDFUL BRAND

I recently launched a clothing brand called Mairin! I first had the idea for the brand a few years ago while on a trip to Peru. I was working as the director of regenerative practices for the brand Christy Dawn. I was in the Peruvian highlands between Cusco and Arequipa to meet with Alpaqueros for our traceable sweater supply chain. Alpacas are native to an extreme landscape (Figure 2). The farms we visited were at 15,000ft above sea level surrounded by glacial mountains. In these valleys, the sun is so strong that even when temperatures are below freezing, the lakes in the valley never freeze. 

Figure 2: Porfirio on his land in Peru’s Altiplano with one of his naturally black alpacas.

I grew up skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and climbing in the mountains of Montana (Figure 3).  I have a closet full of all the layers and gear for the mountains- fleeces, puffy jackets, quick-drying long underwear, shells, etc. The Peruvian highlands were one of the most extreme environments I’ve ever visited, but I didn’t wear any of my technical clothing.  I was there for work, so I wore a Christy Dawn 100% alpaca sweater with flowers embroidered on it. The outdoorsy kid inside of me felt like I was breaking some cardinal rule being in the mountains and wearing 100% natural fibers-“no cotton in the backcountry” is engrained in me. But I felt great in my sweater. 

Figure 3: Me as a baby with my family in the mountains of Montana.

Then it dawned on me,  of course, I was comfortable wearing an alpaca sweater in the environment where alpacas roam! Alpacas have spent thousands of years creating the perfect coat to protect them from the elements in this exact environment. I spent my entire career thus far working with farmers growing fiber for clothing. I was constantly talking and thinking about landscape-specific approaches to working with nature to grow clothing. On that trip to Peru, I started thinking about a landscape-specific approach to wearing clothing. 

Alpacas thrive in rugged mountain terrain at 10,000-20,000 feet. Cotton thrives at elevations closer to sea level in temperate climates. Wearing cotton makes sense for lower elevations and alpaca for higher.  I also started thinking about what benefits and services different natural fibers innately provide. Alpaca fiber responds to the outside conditions to keep the alpacas dry. One of the main purposes of cotton fiber, on the other hand, is to absorb water so the cotton seed it surrounds can thrive. Clothing made with each fiber will be inherently more suitable in certain environments and for certain purposes than others. 

At its most basic, clothing protects us from the outside environment (Figure 3). With natural fibers, we can wear clothing that has naturally evolved to thrive in specific environments. In that sense, wearing natural fibers in nature is obvious- we get to wear nature’s symbiotic relationships. 

Figure 3: Me on a surf trip in Baja wearing a Mairin wool top to keep me protected from the sun. My tops are not synthetically dyed or treated, which maintains the wool’s natural ability to absorb UV.

One of my favorite books and the inspiration behind the name Mindful Designer’s Almanac is Aldo Leopold’s Sand Country Almanac: And Sketches Here and There. Leopold introduces the Land Ethic and summarizes it as, “A land ethic changes the role of Homo Sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” We are members of nature’s community. What we wear and how we wear it should be informed by nature’s diverse landscapes and symbiotic relationships. 

My first collection is lightweight, baselayers made with 100% merino wool grown on regenerative ranches in the American West. The tops are processed in a way that preserves the wool's natural benefits. I love wearing them in Montana Rockies because the sheep roam in the Rockies and Sierras. In the collections to come, I plan on including wool from the Andes, alpaca fiber from Peru, hemp from France, and regenerative cotton from India. Follow along here!