Small fashion houses sow sustainability seeds with sewing pattern releases

When Michelle Larsen launched her fashion brand, she planned to make every item herself, with an eye toward transparency, sustainability, and fair labor practices.

She's stayed true to those principles as her brand has evolved over the years, but she's recently turned her original vision on its head: many people now make one of her creations.

Larsens' line, Fortiv, is one of the few small fashion brands that has started selling PDF sewing patterns, plans for cutting and marking fabric, and instructions on how to sew these pieces into a garment in addition to or in place of ready-to-wear garments.

“A few years ago, I had this connection that really aligned with my values ​​of creating sewing patterns because it gave other people the opportunity to create things,” she said from Vancouver. “There’s a level of accessibility there that I really appreciate.”

Larsen and her peers see the sewing pattern model as a continuation of their slow fashion mission, unlike fast fashion companies like Zara and Shein, to reduce their industry's negative impact on people and the planet.

But slow fashion is often costly, because in addition to reducing the number of models launched per season and garments made per model, one of the pillars of the model is paying a fair wage to everyone involved in the process.

“There are a lot of people, myself included, honestly, who can’t afford more expensive items,” Larsen said. “It’s really nice to be able to say to someone, ‘Hey, if you can’t afford that $240 tulip top that I make, you can sew it.’”

Larsen has so far only released this pattern: a sleeveless, corset-style shirt with laced sides and wide scallops at the hem.

A second style, an elasticated waist skirt with gathered side panels, is currently being tested and should be available to customers soon.

The tulip top PDF will run you $22 before tax and only requires about a yard of fabric, which Larsen noted is easy to find at a thrift store for just a few dollars.

The pattern pieces are narrow, so they fit easily into scraps for those who already sew. That's part of the reason she designed the shirt that way.

“I am constantly aware of my own use of resources in the course of my activities,” she said.

But beyond reducing waste, this measure also makes good business sense.

Although the number of people who can sew is smaller than the number of people who need to wear clothes (a term that encompasses almost everyone), Larsen doesn't see the move as reducing her customer base, as she will continue to sell custom pieces.

“In a way, it’s come full circle,” said Leah Barrett, a fashion professor at George Brown College in Toronto. “I’m old enough to remember a time when clothes were made at home.”

Much of the fashion industry's environmental impact comes from overproduction, said Barrett, who specializes in sustainability in clothing manufacturing.

The term “home seamstress” may be preferred by many, given that seamstresses can make mistakes that result in unintentional waste or make more garments than necessary. But the scale of that waste would be insignificant compared to that of fast fashion brands, which have to guess how much to produce to satisfy customers.

“There are a lot of these demand forecasts that go wrong and leave designers with serious inventory problems,” Barrett said. “There’s no other way.”

Except, perhaps, the sale of models.

While there is still some prediction involved, will customers like a garment enough to buy the pattern and take the time to sew it? There is not much waste if designers get it wrong.

Barrett cited another Canadian clothing company that has expanded into the couture market, Cedar & Vine, based in Weyburn, Sask., which sells 100 percent linen fabric that sewers can use to make the designs it recently launched.

A style can fail if it's not made of the right fabric, she said, so offering fabric or at least fabric suggestions will minimize failure, and therefore waste.

Turning to pattern making seemed like a good fit for designer Brooke Cannon, who had long felt torn. She wants to create, but the world is already full of stuff.

“It’s like a negotiation with myself,” she said. “I thought, ‘It’s just a small amount of money, and I’d rather people invest in my brand and my designs than in a fast fashion brand.’ But at the end of the day, it’s still a participation.”

She and business partner Katie Beaton decided to close their respective online stores—accessories line Never Ending Weekend for Cannon and cult slow fashion line Beaton Linen in Beaton's case—and start something new together.

The result is British Columbia-based Beaton Weekend, which will soon be releasing models of some of Beaton's most beloved designs.

Cannon has spent the last few months sketching the patterns and writing and illustrating the sewing instructions.

“I basically spend all my time doing very nerdy, not very dopamine-boosting work,” she said.

In the end, she hopes it will be worth it.

The great thing about creating templates is that once they’re created and they’re out in the world, they generate passive income. It’s done. You’ve created something, and it’s digital, she said. It just happens.