Welcome to our blog.
I’m Leigh Anne, one of the founding partners of O Ecotextiles and I have to come clean: I wasn’t particularly green when I started this, and certainly no expert in fabrics. But that’s a long story, and maybe all you want to know is how this company got started.
Four years ago, when I couldn’t find beautiful, safe, natural fiber fabrics to cover my sofa, I realized someone somewhere should be doing this. So I teamed up with my MBA, business-savvy sister and we decided to make fabrics we would love to own in ways that won’t hurt the planet – fabrics that are soft and beautiful and free of synthetic chemical residues.
It’s been a real eye opening experience. And I’ve become a green crusader.
When we started out in 2002, people thought we were more than a bit crazy. We were told that nobody gave a “rat’s ass” about whether a fabric was “green” or not; nobody ever asked for a green fabric, or whether it was made of organic material…nada. The only thing that mattered was whether the fabric worked in a design scheme.
But the more we found out, the greater our conviction that people would come to care. The problems created by the industry were too ubiquitous, the health dangers too urgent. It just didn’t seem to us that this problem would simply go away.
During our journey we’ve made mistakes. But we regrouped each time because we found others (mills, dye houses, fiber brokers, spinners) who share our conviction that we can offer something better. They would always show us a way around obstacles. And now we’re poised to begin selling our first collection of fabrics – our hard won, lovingly grown collection.
We want to share all the information we learned. There’s a lot of misinformation and greenwashing and out there. We’d like this blog to be an online connection point where we all work together to find answers.
I’ll get into that in my next submission.
