At The Top...
Thank You 2019 / Visions of 2020
Our last BRIEF before the new year and it's a good one: Lots of sustainability, craft, and design items — including our new report from Dutch Design Week — plus discounts and a giveaway!
A heartfelt THANK YOU to all our clients, readers, and customers! Based on the growing numbers of you we saw in 2019, it seems that, yes, people really are interested in thoughtful, ethical design as the new normal.✊🏼This year, we published in-depth interviews and trend reports, produced our first IRL event in Los Angeles, unveiled our advisory services website, and just launched a free community forum.
Time to recharge! We're wishing you all a warm and happy holiday season and looking forward to sharing the new year with you.
New on THE KINDCRAFT
Dutch Design Week 2019
NEW: Contributor Fiona Coleman's report from Dutch Design Week is filled with inspiration... check it out!
GIVEAWAY! Join THE KINDCRAFT Community and Win!
Our brand new forum, THE KINDCRAFT Community, is the place to ask questions, trade business tips, help others learn, share interesting projects, and make quality connections with people around the world who, like you, love design, craft, and sustainability.
Anyone who takes 10 seconds to sign up for the new forum in December will be entered in our drawing for a pair of beautiful Brass Crescent Earrings (Regular price is $60), shipped anywhere in the world. (Do you live in Zanzibar? We will ship your prize to Zanzibar!) Click here to join the conversation!
Events — North America
Taking a Thread for a Walk at MoMA
"This exhibition takes a thread for a walk among ancient textile traditions, early-20th-century design reform movements, and industrial materials and production methods." (New York City, Through April 2020)
Events — Asia + Australia
Aranya Natural’s Natural Dye Event in India
Aranya Natural celebrates it's 25th year with a conference/workshop in stunning Munnar, India that's basically a who's who of the natural dye community (seriously—check out this list of speakers and workshop leaders). The event runs Feb 22-25th, 2020 but you'll want to reserve your slot now.
Product Spotlight
HOLIDAY SALE! Good Things for Kind People.
Our shop is having a BIG SALE — including the Looped Together collection, made in collaboration with New York fiber artist Toni Brogan. (Free US shipping on orders over $100 and, yes, we ship worldwide!) 📦 HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone! 🎄
Style
Zadie Smith On Her Markedly Different Style In London Versus New York
The difference between women's fashion in London and New York as described by legendary writer Zadie Smith.
Anna Wintour urges shoppers to not treat clothes as ‘instantly disposable’
“I think for all of us it means an attention more on craft, on creativity, and less on the idea of clothes that are instantly disposable, things that you will throw away just after one reading,”
How Fashion Is Finally Working To Tackle Climate Change
Upcycling, recycling, offsetting, traceability… Tamsin Blanchard examines the world of sustainable style for British Vogue.
Earth Mother: How Stella McCartney Became Fashion’s Conscience
Stella McCartney makes the cover of Vogue's January 2020 issue and, in the accompanying feature interview, talks about her decades-long mission do away with animal cruelty in the fashion industry: “My regime, my culture, has been different from day one.”
Recommended Documentary
Netflix's 'Broken' uncovers the hidden lives of Ikea, Juul, and more
"As influential as purchasing power can be, it’s not, of course, the only answer to issues of public health and sustainability—and Netflix’s new docuseries Broken aims to uncover the tangled mess beneath some of the world’s most lucrative industries in four episodes."
Hasan Minhaj on Fast Fashion
In this introduction to the problems with fast fashion, Minhaj explains how our desire to look “fresh to death” is actually killing the planet and, in all likelihood, becomes the first human to utter the sentence "I want to be a sexy carrot but I don't want to destroy the environment." 🏆
Culture
Anti-Excess Consumerism
Millennials and Gen Z-ers are craving an antidote to excess consumer culture amidst product fatigue and environmental concerns.
Marie Kondo Wants to Sell You Nice Things. What’s Wrong With That?
Tidying guru Marie Kondo opened an online store and, predictably, the internet practically tripped over itself in an escalating series of hot takes about her (supposed) hypocrisy. To me, it's easy to see the path from "purge everything except that which sparks joy" to "buy fewer, better things", but at least some of the reaction is to the products themselves (clearly, a "$75 Tuning Fork & Rose Quartz Crystal" isn't for everyone...)
Streetwear Has a Sustainability Problem
“I think there’s always been a tendency to look to the big players for solutions but also to blame them for their sheer scale and therefore their impact,” says Eva Kruse, CEO and president of Global Fashion Agenda, whose flagship event Copenhagen Fashion Summit is a pioneer in promoting sustainable practices in fashion. “But there’s a big challenge ahead with small and medium-sized companies who find it difficult to start. It’s actually within that segment of our industry where most companies are lagging behind.”
Greta Thunberg is TIME's 2019 Person of the Year
“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,”
Design
Architecture's Come-to-Carbon Moment
How can we do the most with the least? How can we be efficient and elegant with design so we’re not wasting material, construction, time, or budget?’”
The Top 5 Destinations for Design Lovers to Visit in December
We're so happy to see our other home, Chaing Mai, Thailand, on this Architectural Digest list for design lovers. (Heads Up: Lauren will be back in Northern Thailand next month, so ping her (@Lauren) on our new community website if you'd like to meet up!
Kind of Blue: Pantone Color of the Year 2019
Pantone announced its Color of the Year is Classic Blue... to mixed reactions. Dezeen calls it a "misstep" while others approve (FastCo / NYT).
Personally, we think its a safe, commercial choice for 2020 — but you know we prefer Mother Nature's blues in the form of natural indigo. Some examples of naturally-dyed blue done right: Hamish Bowles's Vogue feature about designer Zac Posen discovering the work of our friends at Living Blue while making Iman's gown for the CARE Impact Awards. Check out this lovely feature on Japan's BUAISOU by UK agency Courier Media. And read more about Living Blue and BUAISOU on thekindcraft.com.
Sustainable Airline Amenity Kits Are The New Must-Have. Here Are Some Standouts
The carbon consequences from air travel are real and well-known, but they're not the only way the industry pollutes. Justin recently attended an aviation convention in Los Angeles and talked with a designer for a large manufacturer of these kits. She reported that, within her company, there was a push to make kits from recyclable materials and to fill them with items that aren't tossed in the trash after a single use.
Mulberry has made its 'first ever 100% sustainable leather bag'
"Through our Mulberry Green responsibility commitments, we are continuing our innovative approach towards design and manufacturing in a conscientious way, ensuring we will provide truly luxury, truly responsible products for our customers."
Traditional Arts
Two Looks at Traditional Arts Tours.
The Hindu's Subha Rao looks at weaving holidays from an Indian perspective while, for the NY Times, Charu Suri also looks this growing segment of the tour industry — and includes a nice mention of our friend Geetika Agrawal's company, VAWAA.
Sustainability + Labor
A Relatively Painless Guide to Cutting Plastic Out of Your Life
Reducing plastic pollution is still on everyone's mind — this guide by Elizabeth Segran goes though your house, room by room, to suggest ways to reduce or eliminate unneeded plastics. One room not covered — the laundry room, where microfiber filters can help keep the tiniest plastic particles from contaminating the ocean.
Can Secondhand Shopping Dent Fast Fashion’s Environmental Damage?
Americans chucked more than 21 billion pounds of clothing and other textiles into landfills in 2015, according to the latest available estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, a steep increase from 12.5 billion pounds in 2000 and 4.6 billion pounds in 1980. The industry is (slowly) starting to respond, studying things like a ban on the destruction of unsold fashion goods.
Virtue and Vanity at Reformation
Jia Tolentino (author of "Trick Mirror", one of our fave books in 2019) turns her eye on “sustainable fashion” with this look at Reformation. The result — as it usually is with her — is less about one specific example or finding a definitive conclusion. Instead, she uses her own experiences as a lens to map out complex, sometimes contradictory terrain. The always-enjoyable Tolentino spends a good amount of time in this piece looking at the inherent futility of trying to consume your way into a greener world.
Fig Leaf for Fashion (PDF download)
The takeaway of this new report is that "social auditing" fails to protect workers. While many brands use these programs as a sort of reputational laundry, we think — and hope — the long term trend of supply chain accountability will improve worker conditions. The stakes are real: Until auditing of working conditions improves, tragedies like this recent factory fire in Delhi will continue to occur.
Wrapping Up / Looking Ahead
Let's Stay Connected in 2020!
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