Hemp

A dark blue natural indigo denim woven with half hemp threads, half organic cotton giving a light sheen, and unique texture and weight to the fabric. Woven at Mikutex in Osaka, Japan. Hemp is a strong cellulose fibre giving the textile a dry uneven thread with tough raw denim feel which softens over time and becomes so smooth. Olga Basha is using hemp to combat the trend of conventional cotton in denim as proof of concept and use for alternative fibers in denim.

Cotton can be extremely harmful to the earth and high quality fabrics must support different fibers that show promise in regenerative farming model. Globally 2.4 percent of all farmland is planted in cotton, which uses twenty-four percent of the fertilizer, eleven percent of pesticides, and a quarter of the water consumed by agriculture annually. The use of conventional cotton in clothing continues to wreak havoc on the earths ecosystems – we need to do better and support farmers and producers who are ethically driven and weave with different types of fibers.