It's that time of year again, and summer trade shows are soon to be in full swing! Trade shows are here to support you in your sourcing needs and help you navigate the upcoming seasons trends to build your brand. They are a fantastic way of finding place to source factory and material options. Here's what you can expect this summer:

Sourcing fabric is a huge hurdle and if you are trying to source sustainable fabric, it's even harder. We often recommend inquiring with your garment factory to source fabric because they often can be a huge asset to making this process quick and easy, here's why.

Single use plastics are damaging our planet in a big way.  Some brands are finding ways to combat this by using more sustainable fabrics. Recycled Polyester which you may also know as rPet, eConyl, and Repreve is a way to give plastics a second use. The fabric like normal polyester is very diverse and can look and feel many different ways.  Brands like Patagonia and Reformation have been using recycled polyester for years.  But is it a good sustainable option? Let's see how it's made and why you could consider using it.

Sustainable sourcing has exploded in popularity over the last ten years. We have a living planet that needs to be protected and sustainable sourcing is how brands can play their part. When it comes to sustainable sourcing for fashion brands there are a lot of options to consider beyond just having sustainable fabric. Here's a few, to get your wheels spinning.

When sourcing for sustainable fabrics you cannot forget the label. The difficult part of this is how did you source sustainable labels for your pieces. This is a daunting task, that is why THR3EFOLD is here to help. 

Sustainable fabric is just the tip of the sustainable fashion iceberg. There's also thread, zippers, notions, dyeing, packaging, and shipping to name a few. The difficult task when implementing sustainability into your fashion brand is WHERE DO YOU START? There are so many areas to consider that it often feels overwhelming especially when you consider that the whole planet is at stake. 

We answer this question from square one which is, making anything will have an impact on the earth and therefore inextricably be unsustainable. However, because we deeply believe you cannot abate the human desire to create we would rather find the most sustainable route to do so and steer creators toward that greener pasture. So here we are, how do we find sustainable packaging that can ship our products safely yet disintegrate reliably?  Let's dig in.

It has become a sad joke in the fashion industry, that if you want to see what colors are trending for the season, just look at the color of the river next to your garment factories. As fashion is finally working to make changes to be more ethical and sustainable, the textile dyeing process is one of the biggest areas with cause for concern. The standard dyeing process requires tons of water, energy, and chemicals. In response, the Chinese government has been cracking down and "in the summer of 2017, tens of thousands of China’s factories were forced to close and undergo environmental inspections." ​(Melody M. Bomgardner) In fact, "60% of China’s denim-dyeing chemical capacity has been shuttered, equal to roughly 30% of global capacity." Dalton Cheng says, Cheng heads a digital textile printing facility which offers a great alternative to reducing chemical and water waste, but we were curious what natural dyeing options there might be. We are introducing the alternative options to dye textile in the sustainable ways which focusing on the way to reduce use of chemicals.

"According to the Ocean Conservancy, in less than 10 years, scientists predict there will be 250 million metric tons in the ocean and by 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish"  (Independent). You may hear about our global plastic epidemic on a daily basis, but do you actually know what you can do about it beyond carrying around metal straw? Sustainable business can feel a lot more overwhelming since the consumer side of the conversation is more common, but that doesn't mean that sustainable business solutions don't exist. To make it easy, we've put together a sustainable fashion brand checklist for you to be plastic free in 2020.