The Future of Fashion is Here and it's Regenerative
Sandy Herrera shown beekeeping on a green roof in New York City
By: Christian Hopley
Regenerative fashion is the practice of creating fashion and sourcing raw materials in alignment with nature using indigenous ecological techniques. Even at a production level, this means creating garments from raw materials instead of heavily synthetic blends. Synthetic materials such as polyester require 342 million barrels of oil annually to produce. After the garment is made, it takes longer for the garment to decompose when it ends up in a landfill. While using raw fabrics such as cotton is a good start, it’s not enough. Cotton is the most used fabric in the fashion industry and its production accounts for 4.2% of all agricultural land globally. Through regenerative fashion, farmers will use techniques such as intercropping, crop rotation, natural compost, and low-no tiling to ensure we are using even raw materials ethically and at a sustainable rate. These are all indigenous methods that help to enrich the soil, enhance biodiversity, and reduce carbon emissions.
How do we grow cotton while giving back to the soil? How can we use our skills to be part of positive change?
Sandy Herrera is a graduate of our 10th Cohort and has been putting the idea of regenerative fashion into action. Sandy joined Custom Collaborative in the fall of 2023 looking for a creative outlet. She didn’t have any garment construction skills when she started but in the end, she was able to finish all 15 weeks of the training institute and create her final look for her cohort’s graduation fashion show. According to Sandy, “Since graduating from CC, I know my skill sets are strong, and that makes me feel confident.”
After graduating, Sandy interned at Art2Wear, where she mended, upcycled, and created garments for the shop. There she was able to put the technical fashion skills she learned during the training institute to use while also learning more about sustainable fashion. She now works as a teacher’s assistant and loves the diverse, intergenerational learning environment.
Cohort 10 graduates at their Graduation Fashion Show in 2023
Along with sustainable fashion, Sandy is also passionate about agriculture. Food insecurity and the scarcity of healthy food options disproportionally affect minority communities. Having grown up in what Sandy describes as a “Food Desert,” she makes strides to help create solutions against food insecurity, especially in the inner city. She has been on this mission for a long time and continues to support farmers’ markets and community gardens.
Most interestingly, Sandy has made incredible contributions to a greener New York City through Bee-Keeping. For the past three years, she has been training to be a beekeeper, cultivating and maintaining hives on green rooftops across the city.
She envisions a future where designers partner with farmers and other agriculture workers to create fashion that feeds the earth.