In the search for interesting sustainable fabrics that look and feel good, I often come across blends that offer one technological and environmental marvel adulterated with something altogether less appealing. Take the seaweed-blend shirting shown here on Lykke. Seaweed is micronized and combined with a substrate of lyocell (wood pulp cellulose, which is produced very cleanly) to form fiber. It doesn’t retain heat, so it’s cool against the skin in the summer. Its manufacturers also claim that the marine minerals and other nutrients absorb into the skin, protecting it from free radicals and “creating a sense of well-being.” The catch? In this fabric, the fiber comes blended with 75 percent conventional cotton, which, for those of you who haven’t heard, is more or less poisoning us all.

I decided to make the dress, if only to raise awareness of a new, interesting natural textile technology. Algae is a promising substance in all sorts of fields, like fuel (jets have flown on algal oil blends to much recent fanfare) and on-site CO2 absorption at power plants. Although, as it turns out, only the organic cotton gauze version of the dress is going into production (look for it at Steven Alan this spring).

Still, and I hope I’m not going to get in trouble for saying this, I wonder about the “well-being” angle. It’s all well and good if a fabric feels nice and comes from an abundant self-generating source, but I’m curious about the actual structure of the fiber. If it turns out the seaweed is only there to dose the fabric with vitamins, does that violate the principle of sustainability?

What do you think?

Not that this blog exists for boasting purposes, but it must be noted that Bodkin is the first recipient of the Ecco Domani Sustainable Design Award, part of the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation’s annual award program. This grant is not just making the upcoming fall presentation possible; it’s making Bodkin’s continued existence possible. I share the accolade with my former partner Samantha Pleet (whose fearless attitude got Bodkin off the ground). She is now focusing on her namesake line, but we still share a studio, and things like markers and hole punches.

I commend Ecco Domani for having the balls to start this category. (Am I allowed to use the word “balls” when talking about them?) Sure, the “green is the new black” zeitgeist is old news, but this is an award that’s gone to Rodarte and Alex Wang and it’s still, at this point, a bit provocative to expect directional designers to step up to the plate. Judging by the number of emails I’ve gotten since the announcement, the world is ready for it.

I know quite a few well-regarded fashion designers through my previous line of work, and every one of them is interested in working more sustainably. They may not declare it publicly, but some of the hippest lines in New York are trying out things like recycled polyester and cotton linter (waste cellulose) next season.

Behind every garment is a story—not just that of who made it, but where its fibers were grown, how they became the color they are, where its zippers and buttons came from, how it got to you, and what it all means about us and the way we live.

Because of my writing background—along with my tendency, a la Julianne Moore in Safe, to be acutely aware, down to the molecular level, of modern society’s ambient threats to respiratory and reproductive health—I have decided to document the minutiae of the Bodkin project, and along the way I’ll try and make sense of some thoughts I’ve been having for a while about the science of consumption, and the culture of style.

I started Bodkin (with the help of my talented former partner, Samantha Pleet) not because I felt there weren’t enough amazing clothes out there—there are—but because too few of them are made with regard to anything other than how they look. Is it possible to achieve a certain aesthetic while adhering to a rigorous standard of sustainability in materials? What about the rest of what sustainability means—fair labor, local versus global, and the question of utility in an industry that trades on desire? These are questions I’ll look at in this space.

Right now, I’m in the throes of preparing for my first presentation during New York Fashion Week on February 16th. But a writer must write, and I’ll be posting regularly until then and more regularly afterward about who’s behind the clothes, the materials, how I make decisions in regard to sustainability, the environmental and socioeconomic intricacies of clothing and textiles and the way we live and dress and consume. And, because grey areas are inevitable as any business tries to be sustainable, I’ll expose and discuss them.

Along the way, I encourage you—whoever you are—to speak up in the Comments section.

[Naomi in I’m a Plastic Dress, available in March at Jumelle and Kaight. Photo by Andrew DeFrancesco.]