I periodically visit a multi-disciplinary holistic health practitioner (the amazing Katinka Locascio; New Yorkers, she will change your life, write in for contact info) who also grows and blends herbs. During our first session, she told me that my body was “asking for nettles,” and that taking them would help my oft-pain-addled lower back. Well, they did, and now it turns out the stinging herb (fast becoming a foodie favorite, too) can also be used to make clothes: it grows easily without pesticides, and its hollow fibers insulate beautifully.

Nettle fibers with bark...

...and cleaned up.

Wild nettles have actually been used for textiles since the dawn of recorded history, though they fell out of favor when industrial cotton production took off. (Although it’s been popular for tablecloths, and the German army in WWI used it for their uniforms during a cotton shortage.) Now that alternative textiles are taking off, it’s finding a new audience, and Bodkin’s Fall 2010 collection is going to include some Himalayan wild nettle-blend fabric! According to one supplier, 80,000 Nepalese are employed in harvesting and spinning nettle textiles. The stuff is richly textured and cool in an urban-Bedouin sort of way.

Nettle-blend fabric swatches

Time to have some of Katinka’s organic Vermont-grown nettle-gotu kola-goldenseal-echinacea “Katinkture” tea, also known as the Bodkin flu shot.