Every so often I get reminded by people just how much water and chemicals it takes to make a t-shirt, I’m pretty sure that they’re just jealous because my t-shirt collection is so awesome, but they are making a good point about how I’m destroying the planet by having tees in my closet that only get worn every few months.

I know I’m being flippant in the above paragraph, but seriously,
Continental Clothing are attempting to do their part in the global war on climate change with their new Earth Positive range. Over the past couple of years Continental have been trying to make the company more environmentally friendly, they’ve managed to reduce the carbon emissions of the entire production and shipping process for a basic white tee (size large) by a massive 89% to just 671 grams. It should be noted that this isn’t done by carbon offsetting, they’ve physically reduced the amount of gases that are being emitted from production, in part by only using green energy suppliers that use wind and solar power, using biodegradable packaging, no airfreighting, . This particular tee is also 100% organic (are you surprised?), as certified by the Soil Association, and produced under the Global Organic Textile Standard from Indian Cotton.

These steps have led to the Carbon Trust (a UK governmental organisation) asking for Continental Clothing to serve as a case study for the clothing industry so that others can benefit from their research and development, so they’ve clearly done some impressive work here improving their products.

Its quite hard to review a t-shirt like this, because even though you know it is much better for the environment, it still just feels like a normal (albeit high-quality) t-shirt. Obivously, that’s a good thing, if a t-shirt sucks, people probably wouldn’t buy it just because it wasn’t bad for the environment, so creating something that is either better than the original, or of equal quality whilst resulting in about a tenth of the emissions is a great step for them to make. I had noticed Continental Clothing becoming popular with more and more brands (including perennial HYA supporter Turtlehead) over the past few months, and I would imagine that a tee like this would be popular with people that usually look towards American Apparel when they’re picking a stock tee to print their tees on.I can’t find any information about pricing in the literature, or on the websites, but I would imagine that it would be pretty comparable to most similar offerings from other organic and ethical producers.

You can see the whole range (more than just t-shirts) at the dedicated Earth Positive Online site, and there’s also some info on the range and everything else CC at the main Continental Clothing site.

Yes, I managed to take extra pictures of a blank shirt.

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Tags » continental clothing • eco • Environmental • green • review • Reviews • T-shirts

Fear not gentle readers, HYA has not turned into Hide Your Ass (now there’s an idea!), but I promised these guys that I’d write something about them even if I don’t have the first clue about the world of premium jeanswear. I met two of the people behind Trousers London at the pre-party before the main event at Margin and they they were great, very concerned about the two friends I took to the party who ‘over-extended’ themselves on delicious free cocktails from the bar. In short, being nice to me will get you a feature on HYA.
Trousers London was officially launched at Margin, though the brand was born in 2007 with the intention of creating a jeanswear label that stood out from other high-end offerings. Here’s how they describe themselves:

Trousers is an experimental, ambitious, future-focused jeans label inspired by London.

From unique designs and shapes, to small but important details, Trousers stands alone among the clones of the daily jeans parade. Trousers makes jeans for the genuine modern day gentlemen, for the man who loves the thrill of the new and is always at the forefront of the avant-garde.

We at Trousers believe in ecologically friendly materials and we care that our products are not born of exploitation. Our range is crafted with patience and skill in small batches, in our Italian factory using organic premium denim.

Like I said, I know basically nothing about the premium jeans market. I do know that their jeans looked cool, and they’re making all the right noises in terms of not wanting to destroy the planet which is refreshing to hear, and I think that it would be pretty hard for you to disagree that these are fairly unique designs, you certainly won’t find anything like them on the high street. So, I do give their range a thumbs up, but unfortunately my thumbs are of little value in this instance.

At the moment it isn’t actually possible to buy these jeans. Those who are interested in the limited edition garments (just 600 pairs in the first production run) will be available to register their interest in May when the Trousers web store opens, with the jeans getting to them in June or July. If you’re a bricks and mortar kind of person, the jeans will be available in a select few retails stores around the UK and Europe around August/September.

Trousers London

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Tags » Environmental • jeans • london • margin • margin2008 • trousers london