Greetings–I’m just back from an amazing and much-needed week in Jamaica.

Reader Jill just responded to my post about cotton and wondered why, in fashion, the model of “convenience” is underpinned by systems of production that are anything but. Food, she pointed out, can easily be sourced locally or at least domestically; why not fashion? (In the news: Cynthia Rowley recently traveled to Washington to argue in favor of the fashion manufacturing base shifting back here!)

Yes, local and vertical and simple is ideal…but it’s easier said than done. In fashion, the feel and drape of fabric is everything to the shopper. No one (at least from what I’ve seen) will buy something just because it’s organic. And fashion is a global business in that someone in Paris or Tokyo might want to buy something I make, and why wouldn’t I want that? (Could I impose a 100-mile restriction on customers? What would you, readers, think?)

The thing about fashion is its globality; concepts such as chic and hi-lo bounce among influencers with a global mentality. I identify with the way Swedes and Parisians dress; in one way or another, I want what they’re having. The clothing production system, with its economy of scale, is also set up to favor larger brands, which get large by selling around the world.

On a scale like mine (I sell to 12 stores) all I can do is use fabric that’s available, unless I commission weavers, which I’ve done for the handloomed silk in the Dharma and Refraction dresses—the most expensive pieces I make. (People actually get angry about the price of clothing. But what you buy at Target is China, China, China.) Otherwise, I use what I can find. The sustainability-minded fabrics out there that meet my aesthetic standards are few. You can’t be guaranteed to produce something from deadstock. So I order everything from Patagonia’s scraps to domestic mills’ crepes made from wool of Chinese origin.

In food, a carrot looks and feels like a carrot, and a good, fresh carrot is likely to come from the farm in the next county. In fashion, South Carolina cotton muslin isn’t going to cut it for a shirtdress nearly as well as Japanese-milled organic (Texas) cotton with a crazy texture, and there’s no such thing as safety pins made in the Northeastern U.S. (or maybe I’m wrong?)

What I’d like to see are more mills in the U.S. that create fabrics with beautiful textures and details from domestic raw and recycled material. I’d love for something local and vertical—from agriculture to sewing, like an American Apparel with farms and without the creepy misogyny—to take root here, but I’d need millions of dollars and a bunch of people. (Who’s in?)

But also, the developing world needs work, and projects that empower and enrich people. My trip to Jamaica reminded me of that (tariff issues make it impossible for its commodities to compete).

As an appreciator of the bioregionalist philosophy, I often think about scrapping the way I currently do things and coming up with an entirely new business model. (That is, when I’m not lamenting the paradox of this altogether–so many talented designers, but do we really need all these new clothes?) I think about how tailors and dressmakers and mothers and grandmothers, not stores, used to be where wardrobes came from.

Could I start over selling made-to-order pieces on the Web with New York vintage clothing scraps, New York labor (which I’m already using), and a 100-mile limit on online orders? Maybe, but in the long term that wouldn’t be, for me or probably any independent designer, financially…sustainable.

I went fabric-hunting today and fell in love with the most beautiful Japanese knit. Style-wise, it was very Bodkin. It has a traffic-stoppingly exaggerated texture, it’s cuddly and looks really cool, and it’s reversible. The catch? It’s 8 percent recycled cotton and…92 percent conventional cotton.

I never look at most “regular” fabrics for this reason. Organic, recycled, and otherwise environmentally preferable fabrics make up a fraction of the offerings, but then again, that makes deciding a lot easier.

I’ve let this one go, but I wonder what readers think. Would you roll your eyes at a shirt that bothers to announce its 8 percent recycled content? What if it was coming from a ’sustainable’ line? Does that even matter as much as the design when it comes to whether or not you’d actually buy it?

And while we’re on the subject, would you feel better about organic cotton grown in Turkey and woven in Japan before being shipped to New York, or conventional cotton grown and woven (and leaving traces of pesticides) in the Southern U.S.?

For more than a year now, I’ve been a member of Kiva.org, a microloan web site. The idea is so simple, there’s no reason not to try it: Partnering with field credit organizations throughout the world, Kiva presents a variety of entrepreneurs and allows you to PayPal a small (or not-so-small) donation that goes directly to the entrepreneur so that they can fund expansion of their business. You can see their photo, their story, and a description of what they do, and sometimes even updates about how the business is expanding. And the great thing is that you can keep on giving–once the loan has been repaid, you can lend that same initial donation to someone else. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

I gave $25 to a bicycle shop in Mexico, and then to a tailor in Azerbaijan, and now I’m loaning it to Savoeun Pork, a 22-year-old Cambodian weaver. He’s requesting $300 to buy more silk. (I can relate.)

Hand-looming is not just a time-honored craft passed down through families but also a very low-energy (as in low-CO2) way to produce textiles.