PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — The Earthtec models on the runway
at Portland Fashion Week this month in Oregon were dressed much like
those who walked for other designers, in chic and sexy styles made from
high-quality fabric.
But their clothing started out unlike any others: as plastic bottles.
Now
the creator of Portsmouth-based Earthtec, Dennis Randall, is reaping
the dividends of the work that’s gone into a company that started 15
years ago in a basement with $600 and two sewing machines.
The
city of Portland is trying to woo Earthtec to build a manufacturing
plant in Oregon, which passed the nation’s first bottle recycling bill.
National Geographic has contracted the company to produce a line of
apparel, a spokeswoman for the 123-year-old eco-organization confirmed.
And Randall is partnering with Portland area designer and "Project
Runway" winner Seth Aaron Henderson for a sustainable clothing line that
will be sold by a yet-unnamed national retail chain.
The latter
deal, Randall said, will expose more consumers to apparel that is not
only fashionable and good for the planet, but affordable.
"Nine
out 10 people still don’t know you can take a water bottle and make
clothing out it," said Randall. "We’re giving this product a second
life. Otherwise it’ll end up in a landfill for a couple of thousand
years."
Randall, 45, a Minnesota native who summered in New
Hampshire with his grandparents as boy, is passionate about fashion
design, the outdoors and ecology. He has worked for years to create
fashionable clothing from organic and recycled materials but struggled
to be able to price it for mass consumption and to have maximum impact
on the environment.
Randall started his clothing line in 1991 in
York, Maine. He was making high-quality women’s wear from organic
fibers. At the time, recycling plastic bottles into fabric was "an
imperfect science," he said.
"It was a nightmare in the knitting process and there were a lot of contaminants," Randall
said.
The
plastic water bottles are shredded to fine flakes and contaminants such
as paper or off-colored plastic from bottle rings are removed, Randall
explained. The flakes are heated to 500 degrees, then rapidly cooled and
put through a colander-like spinner that pushes out fine fibers, which
are then woven into fabric that’s a variation of polyester.
He
began selling the clothes out of a closet-sized kiosk in the trendy
tourist town and the line’s popularity grew. Soon he was producing a
line of silk and linen pants for the upscale catalog company Garnet
Hill.
In 2002, he decided to move most of his manufacturing to
China to be able to price his product competitively. Though the decision
would help him succeed, he said he executed it with regret.
His
decision was "regrettable, but understandable," said Sarah Brown,
executive director of Green Alliance, which promotes a network of 95
green-minded businesses in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.
"I
would rather have him play with the big boys and get the message out
about this recycled clothing than have those jackets be so pricey no one
can touch them," Brown said. "He’s making his green line available to
everybody."
And now, he says, retailers are "starting to get it."
At
the Earthtec store Randall opened this month in downtown Portsmouth,
the highest-priced item was a winter coat for $179.95 made from a
material comparable to Gortex. Fleece jackets he likens to North Face’s
are $49.95 and made of 50 percent organic cotton and 50 percent fabric
from recycled bottles. T-shirts bearing the Earthtec name and frog logo
and the slogan "Inspiring Trash Talk" are $20.
Children’s
fleece-like vests priced at $48 are some of the few products made in New
England from fibers converted at a Hampton, N.H., recycling plant and
woven into fabric at a Canton, Mass. plant. Randall and his wife,
Victoria, have produced a line of children’s books featuring a cow and a
frog to teach children about renewable energy and recycling.
His
showing in Portland has helped cement the company’s reputation. The
collaboration there began to take shape this summer, when Portland Mayor
Sam Adams asked fashion week producer Prasenjit Tito Chowdury to come
up with a way to make the city and the event an even bigger player in
the industry.
Chowdury had been trying to find a way to help
Henderson hit the mass market, a dilemma Chowdury called "the Catch-22"
of the sustainable fashion movement. Many designers, Chowdury said, were
failing to make a living by selling high-quality clothing made from
organic materials.
So at a brainstorming session for this year’s
fashion week, the manufacturing marriage of Henderson and Earthtec,
which had found a way to mass-produce affordable casual wear, was born.
"We showed the model of how to solve the problem," Chowdury said.
Randall
presented his own line at the show, and Henderson’s line, modeled by
women in translucent plastic masks, was made entirely of recycled
fabrics provided by Earthtec.
"Tito said afterwards that we
weren’t the biggest collection at the show, but we were the most
important," Randall said. "This is where the industry is headed."
Lynn
Frank, a former director of Oregon’s Department of Energy who founded a
consulting firm 25 years ago, is acting as liaison between Randall and
the city of Portland and a statewide economic development agency. He
said Oregon’s first-in-the-nation bottle deposit bill
that brings in 20
million pounds of plastic bottles a year is a powerful lure for
Earthtec.
"This is about putting Oregon’s historic bottle bill on
our backs," Frank said during a recent visit to Randall’s Portsmouth
store. "The reception for Dennis and what he is achieving has been
amazing."
Portland is working with Randall to locate a
manufacturing plant there, economic development Director Peter Parisot
said, and officials expect Earthtec to open a retail store downtown
within months.
Fashion week put Randall on their radar, he said.
"Their
company and technology are really terrific," he said. "The way they
process their thread is really phenomenal. We’d love to get them to
Portland."
Even the mayor is partial to Earthtec’s Big Sage track jacket, his staff confirmed.
But
Randall said he loves New Hampshire and does not want to leave, and he
isn’t going anywhere if New Hampshire economic development officials
have their way.
"I will tie Dennis Randall to a chair to make sure
he stays in New Hampshire," said Steve Boucher, communications and
legislative director for the state Department of Resources and Economic
Development.
He cited a list of recycling initiatives Earthtec has
undertaken, including a night at a New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball
game this year where all the plastic bottles collected were turned into
blankets for a Manchester homeless shelter.
"You talk about a company that’s got it’s heart in the right place and they’re at the top of my
list," Boucher said.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
