Lucille Chi
From Habitude‘s About page:
We’re a design-oriented company with a strong belief in protecting and respecting the earth’s natural resources through all of our business and personal choices. Our aim is to offer sustainability AND style to the eco-conscious consumer.
Habitude founder, Laura Chapuis states: “By 2005, I’d been working in the fashion industry eight years and I was finding it less and less meaningful. So, after 10 years studying and working in New York, I packed up and moved south to Texas.” When she landed in Texas and learned that most of the organic cotton grown in this country is grown there, it felt like serendipity. She said, “like finally, here was the time and the place to do what I’d always wanted to do . . .” In addition, Laura mentions her fondness of the Gandhi quote “be the change you wish to see in the world.”
She always dreamed of starting an organic and sustainable fashion business, one which worked in partnership and harmony with the planet. Her key belief is to pay fair wages and use the Earth’s natural resources without exploiting them. She humbly points out: “I was really inspired by the idea of a different kind of business model, one where answering to the planet and all its inhabitants was first and foremost.”
A big highlight is her Why Organic? page explaining how 100 percent “organically grown cotton never uses synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or defoliants. Instead, organic cotton growers use natural methods like crop rotation, natural fertilizers, and beneficial insects to ensure a healthy crop.” This approach lowers cancer rates in humans, helps restore life and allows the land to heal from the wounds conventional cotton has made over the years of pesticide use. Habitude reminds us to “just think, if our ancestors managed to grow cotton naturally for hundreds of years, then surely, in the 21st century, we can, too.”
Image Credits: Habitude.org homepage featuring Ashley Dupree Photography, Model: Havllah Bender
One Comment