It’s not just for the stoner set. Stella McCartney, Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein are among the designers incorporating hemp textiles into their fashions. It’s a versatile material said to be easy on the environment.

It’s durable. It’s versatile. And when it’s used in textiles, it’s easier on the environment than, say, cotton. Yet its cannabis connection has slowed its widespread use. We’re talking about hemp, and, by extension, hemp fashion — a concept that seems like an oxymoron but is quietly being embraced by the mainstream as major designers and clothing retailers take on the material that has long been equated with burlap and granola-munching hippies.

Stella McCartney, Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein are among the designers who’ve seen through the smoke and incorporated hemp textiles into their lines. And Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters, American Rag and Fred Segal are some of the better-known stores selling fashion-forward hemp brands, such as Livity Outernational, Jung Maven, Satori and Hemp Hoodlamb, all of which exploit hemp’s various attributes in chic items that run the gamut from technical outerwear to dresses that would hardly be the first choice of the dreadlocks-and-doobie crowd.

“Hemp clothing has definitely come a long way,” says Al Espino, the owner of two hemp clothing boutiques called Hempwise in Santa Barbara and Isla Vista. “Ten years ago, a lot of the hemp clothing played on the connection with marijuana with labels saying ‘contains marijuana fabric.’ There was a lot of confusion and I think it held back the industry. Now there are a lot of small [fashion-forward] companies. It’s gone from a niche market with an illegal drug connection to appealing to the organic and natural crowd.”

Hemp is an industrial, nonpsychoactive plant that is part of the cannabis family; the fibers are different and stronger than a marijuana plant, making it suitable for textiles.

What’s drawing designers to hemp textiles are their natural performance attributes and their low impact on the environment. Hemp fibers are highly absorbent, UV resistant, antimicrobial and long lasting. Growing it also requires less water and fewer pesticides than does cotton. Growing hemp in the U.S. has been prohibited since the ’50s, so most of the hemp used by American clothing designers comes from China. “It’s so high value and so much lower impact in every other way that it eclipses the carbon generated through shipping,” said Isaac Nichelson, founder of the Santa Monica-based hemp clothing line Livity Outernational.

Eco-chic is a rising tide in the fashion world, and the use of hemp is swelling — aided by technological advances that have produced appealing and increasingly refined hemp textile blends, the most common being hemp and organic cotton and hemp fibers woven with recycled plastic, both of which soften a material that can be coarse.

Still, hemp’s illicit image is hard to shed. Two teenage girls read the sign for Hempwise and giggled before walking into the shop on a recent weekday to peruse the women’s section, which is stocked with slinky hemp-blend T-shirts and Capri pants, and asymmetrical mini-dresses. All of it was set out in displays that play up the “eco” with only the merest hint of “Rasta.” A mint green Vespa was parked inside the doorway on bamboo flooring that led to displays of backpacks and wallets, hats and menswear — all made from hemp.

One of the brands sold at Hempwire is Livity, which Nichelson started after a friend pointed out that the materials he was using as a clothing designer weren’t in sync with his environmental beliefs.

“I was using nylon, PVC, Teflon — every toxin known to man wrapped up in a garment that we were putting on ourselves and dropping in a landfill later,” said Nichelson, who started to look for alternatives and found one in hemp. Eight years later, he’s running a multimillion-dollar business that sells outdoor-wear to Whole Foods and Urban Outfitters. On Thursday — Earth Day — he’ll be opening his first branded store on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica, so strong is his belief that hemp is “headed straight to the mainstream. Eventually it won’t even be perceptible. Hemp is as high performance and functional and as cool and flashy and sexy as any conventional product, but it doesn’t impact the planet in terrible ways. More and more, it’s going to be incorporated into things where the end user doesn’t even know or care it’s there. They’re just reaping the benefits.”

By Susan Carpenter  Source.

April 16, 2010 – It’s hard to be a consistent political conservative in 2010. New information and biting criticism from the left are exacerbating a great clash between the principles of free-market capitalism and the social conservatism that wins votes from the “moral majority,” played out on the battlefields of countless proxy issues.

Potential constituents are faced with the same choice policy makers are: should we prioritize economic gain, or hold true to our social values? This question is especially relevant to the debate over legalization of industrial hemp growing in the United States, because its main dissenting argument asserts causal ties to marijuana consumption.

Hemp prohibition dates back to the 1950s, but the American tradition of hemp usage goes back even further. Washington and Jefferson both grew hemp, Ben Franklin owned a hemp paper mill and the Declaration of Independence was drafted on hemp paper. Those same hemp fibers are stronger, more absorbent and more mildew-resistent than their cotton counterparts. Those same inferior cotton crops are grown using 50 percent of the world’s pesticides.

Legalization of hemp could provide a significant boost to our ailing economy. Rather than investing in a new, unreliable technology, or a service agency running on artificial, middle-person demand, the United States should go back to its roots. Hemp crops flourished in the post-Revolutionary U.S. because they’re a hardy, durable crop with myriad uses; from car bodies to T-shirts, alternative fuel to carpeting. Hemp production would increase our international competitiveness for the highest quality products.

Hemp biofuels could also ease our demand for fossil fuel resources in volatile parts of the world, freeing our economy of the burden of ever-rising fuel prices. It’s a well-known industry fact that Henry Ford’s first automobiles were constructed from, and fueled by, hemp materials or by-products. That same hemp fuel is biodegradable, meaning spills would serve as fertilizer rather than ecological degradation. It also reduces unsustainable land-use that saps the nutrients from the soil, and is a good plant to add to crop rotations.

These benefits ought to outweigh the possible increase in marijuana consumption, but they really don’t need to. That’s because the tie between industrial hemp crops and marijuana usage is dubious at best.

Over 30 “industrialized” countries, including Canada, have legalized hemp production without significant increases in marijuana use. The plants, while genetically very similar, have been bred to grow at different heights and in different ways — that breeding has made it relatively simple to detect a THC-containing plant among the hemp. Cross-pollination would dramatically reduce the THC content of marijuana, meaning that hiding it among the hemp crops would produce an un-sellable product. The THC content in hemp itself is so low that smoking enough to feel its effect is likely impossible.

People have serious questions to answer in terms of our trajectory for the future. One of the answers we must consider is legalizing industrial hemp farming. The arguments against it are outdated and flawed, and the benefits to the environment and the economy are numerous. Conservatives especially can emphasize the economic boon legalization would provide, while liberals can also appreciate the environmental benefits. The key is to communicate to policy makers that hemp legalization will win votes, only then can we overcome the Congressional deadlock that makes our little problems into big ones. By Beth Mendenhall. Source.

Please Read and/or Share these Links:

Why can’t we grow hemp in America?

BioFuel / Plastics:

Scientists Bio-engineer Plastic Without Fossil Fuels:

Car Parts Made from Hemp:

Environment:
The Versatility of the Incredible Hemp Plant and How It Can Help Create a More Sustainable Future:

Help Save the Earth, Time to Substitute Hemp for Oil

Hemp – a green solution for improving the health of people and the environment

Hunger:
Can Hemp Products Save the World?

Economy:

Solution Found for Failing Economy:

Can Hemp Save the Economy?

The Case for Hemp-America has Handed this Profitable Market to Other Nations

Time to put Hemp to Use

Hemp Facts:

Why can’t we grow hemp in America?

The Case For Hemp in America

Hemp Facts