On a routine visit to Mara Hoffman’s studio in June, I was expecting to find racks of vibrant prints, cut-out jumpsuits, and graphic bikinis from her Resort ’17 collection. Instead, I found myself flipping through a small, tightly edited selection of supersoft blush and lilac dresses made of Tencel and organic cotton. It was a clear departure from her bold aesthetic, but it signaled a change for her business, too—she’s shifting to a new sustainable model. Resort was just a teaser for what was to come; Spring ’17, which Hoffman showed in October, was the first full collection designed with her new eco-conscious mantra.
“We’ve been working on these changes for the past two years, but I’ve wanted to do it for a while,” Hoffman says. “I think having a kid really shifted things for me. For so long, it was all about my own personal drive and making the business work, making sure I can actually pay my employees—every day was scrappy,” she continues. “Then I had my son, and it was like, ‘Wait. This goes far beyond me.’ Here I am as a manufacturer and I’m making things [every season], but my son and his generation are the ones who will have to deal with all this stuff. We’ve been making things too rapidly, and there’s too much of it. There’s this daunting feeling that you can’t change [an industry] that’s been in motion for so long, but I couldn’t keep showing up if we weren’t going to make some changes.”
Contrary to popular belief, going from a “regular” business to a sustainable one isn’t like flipping a switch. It takes many small, gradual changes, and the first one for Hoffman was shifting her fabrications. “We started with what we knew,” she says. “For swim, we began using 78 percent recycled polyester for our prints and 78 percent recycled nylon for our solids. We changed our prints to digital prints to reduce waste. We’re using Tencel [a fabric made from cellulose found in wood pulp], organic linen, and organic Japanese cotton jacquards.”
Those softer fabrics line up with Hoffman’s new aesthetic, too; mellow colors and more artful prints have replaced the super-bright, body-conscious pieces she’s known for. Standouts from Spring ’17 include a lovely white cotton shirtdress, a simple lemon yellow maxi, and a pair of trousers in a pale blue woven fabric made by a women’s collective in India. It all reflects Hoffman’s own tastes, which you couldn’t always say about her collections in the past; you’ll sooner find her in vintage Levi’s and a men’s button-down than a flashy dress. “I don’t wear a lot of print anymore,” she admits. “I love saturation and color, and it’s fun to have those wild, joyous pieces. But I wanted to take the opportunity to grow our solids, and to do prints in a different way.” The rainbow-striped linen pieces are certainly bold, but they feel a bit warmer and more nuanced than her digital prints, because they have imperfect edges and are on a natural, non-stretch fabric.
You get the feeling that when Hoffman started her label 16 years ago, she envisioned most of her collections would look like this—bohemian, soft, and easy. But like many contemporary designers who become known for a very specific, hot-selling item—in her case, it was those kaleidoscope-printed dresses and bikinis from years ago—she started to feel limited. Department stores wanted more of those moneymaking pieces every season, even though Hoffman wasn’t in love with that look anymore. “You close your eyes and think of what Mara Hoffman looks like, but for me, that’s changing,” she says. “The bottom root of the collection is still there. It’s still about celebrating joy and happiness. We still speak to color. Those are underlying, nonmoving parts, but they’re reinterpreted for a refined customer.”
Some department stores and buyers might be more concerned with their bottom line than supporting Hoffman’s new direction, but she’s fine with that. “I’m okay to shift the business a little if everyone isn’t on board right away,” she says. “It takes time. It’s daunting to implement changes and offer things that aren’t your ‘bread and butter.’ I don’t have those bread-and-butter pieces in this collection, but I’m working on creating new ones. And there’s still so much reward, because there are really great people who love what we’re doing.”
So who are these people? They’re the type of women who aren’t afraid to have a “uniform” and re-wear favorite pieces. “I want to push this idea of spending a little bit more with me, and you can re-wear [the clothes] so you don’t have to buy so much. Uniform dressing is cool—that’s what we have to start telling people,” Hoffman says. “Influencers and bloggers who change their outfits seven times a day, they’re sending the wrong message. It’s overconsumption. It isn’t style; it’s just showing off all your stuff. I want to expand the conversation about how we buy things—spending a little more, but buying less and wearing it a lot. It goes back to our parents’ generation, when their closets were so small and specific. My mom would buy one skirt and just wear it nonstop—what if we all did that?”
Hoffman’s first round of sustainable pieces from Resort ’17 will be available later this month, with Spring ’17’s cotton dresses and rainbow-striped pants hitting stores early next year. She’s the first to point out that it will never be 100 percent sustainable—it isn’t realistic for most labels. “It’s a forever process,” she says. “It was daunting to begin this new direction, but we realized we can do this, and we made something that’s so much better than it was a year ago.”
Original article and pictures take http://www.vogue.com/13498734/mara-hoffman-new-sustainable-fashion-business-natural-fabrics/?mbid=social_pinterest&crlt.pid=camp.FcE1EIfjDxes site
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