We have a beautiful warehouse that is located near the Greenbelt and close to two parks. The ocean is a vital part of our lives. We play in it, we admire the beauty of it and most importantly we care about protecting it from harmful chemicals, waste, and we are most concerned about the amount of garbage, mostly plastic, on the shoreline. Living in Hermosa Beach, we like to dress casually on a day-
to-day basis. Tikaoo is a SF line that is creating clothing made from Tencel. We are using two types of Tencel, Lyocel (Eucalyptus Tree) and Modal (Beechwood Tree.) We are sewing all clothing in our warehouse in Hermosa Beach. Our Basics line is zero waste, zero plastic and completely compostable. These include a sweater, joggers and a tank top. Our lead designer, Drew, is using Clo3 for 3D designs. This allows him to enter a person’s measurement and print the pattern out. We then sew the clothing with Tencel thread, and have the client come in for a fitting and do alterations as needed. We are using vegetables, fruits, spices and other organic kitchen ingredients to dye the clothing. We are creating prints using henna dye and carved wooden blocks. We will also have artists visit the studio and paint on the clothing. We do have a Mimaki direct to fabric printer, which produces amazing decals, but the printer uses a lot of plastic, and we are trying to figure out how we can incorporate into our designs. Tikaoo’s number one goal is to be completely honest with our clients. Each piece of clothing will have a label that includes the materials used on the garment. For example, Tencel may be mixed with small percentage of spandex, we will be making labels showing the this, like an ingredients label on food. Tikaoo will be set up like a tailoring shop, we are producing one-of-a-kind garments only. If we do decide to have more than one style (for example a logo sweatshirt) we would make a maximum of 10 each, but that is in the future. Why are we creating Tikaoo? Because Fast Fashion (FF) is ruining our environment. The polyester, nylon, spandex and acrylic in FF garments release micro plastics into our ocean every time we wash our clothing. These microplastics from these types of materials are so small that they go through our waste management systems and are released into the ocean. An example of FF is H&M, they mass produce hundreds of garments in many different sizes and colors. The quality of the material they use is poor and you may get 3-4 good wears out of them before a seam pops and they are placed in the garbage. This garbage goes to landfills and the microplastics leak into the soil and eventually our water. Their surplus of clothing is then shipped often to Africa, especially Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. (amp.theguardian.com) 85% of all textiles go to landfills each year, 500,000 tons of microplastics are released into the ocean per year, this is equivalent to 50 billion plastic bottles.(earth.com-Fast Fashion and Its Environmental Imapct.) Many Luxury companies like Burberry have been known up burn up to 40% of their stock that does not sell, to remain exclusive. (bbc.com, Burberry burns bags, clothes and perfumes worth Millions.) This is why Tikaoo will make one of a kind pieces, we will aim to never have extra stock. Even in SF we have a difficult time sourcing fabrics. For example, Laguna Fabrics in Ca, will only sell 100,000 yards of their Tencel. A small SF brand like Tikaoo would never use 100,000 yards of any fabric. FF is a financial giant. We have to push against FF and demand that new textiles are made out of more sustainable material. People must think about what they wear and what it does to our environment. Tikaoo wants to make high quality, durable, biodegradable garments that are customizable.
