Cultivating Resilient Apparel Communities through Circularity, Transparency, and Equity
Burlington, North Carolina, June 2024 – Know Your Clothing is a campaign spearheaded by TS Designs, a wholesale apparel screen-printing company operating in North Carolina since 1978. With the rise of fast fashion and industries moving overseas, TS Designs has made revolutionary strides in its business model to compete while fostering community prosperity and well-being.
TS Designs has launched several initiatives including Where Your Clothing: a unique supply chain tracking system using QR codes printed on the neck label of each shirt. Tracking the supply chain of their clothing gives customers a deep understanding of where their clothing comes from and its social and environmental impacts. Each year, 97% of clothing is produced overseas with a staggering 30% of clothing produced never reaching the consumer, resulting in massive material waste, overproduction, and plastic pollution.
Know Your Clothing’s vision is to create a globally scalable model of regional apparel manufacturing clusters, ensuring supply chain transparency, minimizing waste, and fair worker treatment, while promoting the widespread adoption of natural dyes and fibers.
Eric Henry, President of TS Designs shares his perspective, “We want to provide viable pathways to building a transparent apparel industry for both people and the planet while uplifting the livelihoods of apparel workers, farmers, and local businesses.”
To continue this work, TS Designs is launching a crowdfunding campaign to advance further research and development on scaling the use of natural dyes and fibers, and connecting local manufacturers. The goal is to raise $100,000 by the end of 2024. Croatan Institute is the fiscal sponsor of this campaign and long-standing collaborator with TS Designs on regenerative initiatives. For more information on how to get involved as an individual, company or organization, visit knowyourclothing.org.
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Croatan Institute is an independent, nonprofit research and action institute whose mission is to build social equity and ecological resilience by leveraging finance to create pathways to a just economy. The Institute has worked collaboratively with environmental nonprofits, community development organizations, farmers and land stewards, impact investors, foundations, and government agencies on complex problems at the intersection of finance, social equity, and ecological resilience.
TS Designs is a t-shirt manufacturer led by President Eric Henry, based in Burlington, NC, that produces the highest quality printed apparel through a domestic, transparent, and trackable supply chain. Guided by the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit, TS Designs is an innovation leader beginning with the development of their eco-friendly screen print process, REHANCE™ to their complete Dirt to Shirt™ made-in-the-USA manufacturing supply chains. With their own garment dye facility, they have developed techniques encompassing reactive and natural dyes with natural fibers such as cotton, hemp, and wool. TS Designs has produced multiple white papers addressing challenging issues in the current apparel industry.
Key words: supply chain, transparency, apparel, industry, climate change, fair wages, workers, local, community, campaign, circularity, natural fibers and dyes, fast fashion, sustainability, action
Contact Info:
Eric Henry, President TS Designs & Founder of Know Your Clothing
TS Designs | Cultivating Responsible Clothing™
Know Your Clothing | Cultivating Resilient Apparel Communities through Circularity, Transparency, and Equity
336.675.6266 Mobile / Text
Priscilla Trinh, Communications Manager, Croatan Institute
comms@croataninstitute.org
919-794-7440
Post Office Box 2044
Durham, North Carolina 27702