Colorado retailer, designer promoting sustainability in fashion
The fashion industry has a staggering impact on the environment. It's linear "take-make-dispose" model leads to excessive waste, pollution, and resource depletion. About 92 million tons of textile waste are created every year, and about 85-percent of that ends up in landfills. Sustainable fashion focuses on environmentally and socially responsible practices from beginning to end. It's a shift from the traditional fast fashion practices which emphasize low cost and rapid production.
"It's hard to avoid fast fashion, but there are labels and brands that do it a little better," said Kayte Green, founder of Recovering Hipster Goods, a curated clothing and home goods resale store.
Green has a passion for fashion. She's been a vintage enthusiast for as long as she can remember. Now, she hunts thrift stores, estate sales, and secondhand markets looking for the trends that translate to now, and she stocks her store with them.
"Really, the highlight of my day is watching someone find something that sparked that joy and that creativity and spoke to them," Green explained.
Fashion is not the only thing that speaks to Green. She is equally passionate about conscious consumption and upcycling. She prizes quality over quantity.
"What I love about this store is I find unique pieces that can be a staple," she said.
Michael Sullivan creates those staple fashion pieces. He's a fashion designer, and he started his company, Haus, with the goal of creating clothing that is unique, gender affirming, and long lasting.
"We really focus on creating clothing for all bodies, all people, all the time," he told CBS News Colorado. "We typically use more dead stock fabrics, more eco-conscious fabrics. Things that can be replaced. We typically don't make over 50 of one look, so we really do small batch production."
Sullivan has a side business upcycling clothing too.
"We usually get clients who have a dress they haven't worn in 20-years, and they want to do something new to it, so we just bring it back to life," Sullivan explained.
Everything that Sullivan and Green are doing is at the heart of sustainable fashion, making the clothing industry more environmentally and socially responsible. To that end, Sullivan and Green teamed up to create a lecture series called "Wear the Resistance." In addition to exploring the different avenues of sustainability, Sullivan is hosting workshops to teach the skills that can repair, repurpose, and recycle the clothing that you already own.
"Just kind of cultivating ways to take care of the clothing you have," Sullivan said.
"Rather than just getting lured in by that sale or micro-trend that's happening, you know, take a step back and ask, 'Do I need that?'" Green said.
"Wear the Resistance: Elevate Your Senses: Fiber Identification Workshop and Lecture" is coming up on August 17, 2025. Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design will be presenting.