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Meet Mair Wilson, Director of Regenerative Practices at Christy Dawn – a role we would never have dreamed existed for a fashion brand just ten years ago. Mairin is part of the brand’s ‘farm in closet’ initiative in which the brand bought its own cotton farm in India to create positive and sustainable change from the ground up.
If you’re not familiar with the brand Christy Dawn (hard to believe if you’re a long-term reader!), you might recognize their beloved prairie dresses – made from recycled ‘deadstock’ prints and found in the thrifty fashion closet . lovers everywhere.
We asked Mair to unpack the brand’s trip to India and tell us more about her career in sustainable practices…
Could you briefly explain Christy Dawn’s overall view of sustainable fashion?
The core of everything we do at Christy Dawn is about mutual relationships. We work to build positive feedback loops, where if one person or an ecosystem wins, everyone wins.
Tell us a little about your sustainable fashion background and why you are passionate about it?
My mom owns a fabric store, so I grew up sewing my own clothes with her. After earning a degree in environmental science, I realized I could marry my academic interests with my love of clothing and textiles.
Before working at Christy Dawn, I worked with cotton farmers around the world to make sure they were paid fairly. The fashion industry has a lot to improve, but I love working with creative and innovative people who are moving the industry in the right direction.
Not long ago, the brand decided to venture into regenerative cotton farming. How did this move from dead cotton to regenerative cotton come about? Did you have source material that inspired the idea?
We believe the repository is stable, but is still receiving waste from a toxic system. Christy and Aras, our founders, wanted to find a solution that goes beyond sustainability and find a way to make clothing that also heals Mother Earth and her community. We started looking for existing regenerative farms, but after coming up dry, decided to create our own with our partners Oshadi Collective in South India.
Tell us how you discovered the land and started the farm?
It was all a very divine time. I reached out to Fibershed, a non-profit organization that focuses on sustainable textile systems, to see if they knew of anyone doing regenerative cotton farming on small plots. Coincidentally, Nishanth, founder of Oshadi Collective, contacted Fibershed on the same day. He was looking for a brand to partner with and had four acres to grow cotton. Since then we have been working with Oshad.
Shop the Farm to Closet collection
Does the brand hope to eventually make all of its own clothing from the farm?
We are now managing 80 acres and starting similar projects with other fibers. We eventually (hopefully very soon) want all of our ingredients to come from farms that we have a personal relationship with. For example, we are working with alpaca producers in Peru who are regenerating the land where the alpacas graze using selective grazing and peat restoration.
There is a huge human health issue associated with conventional cotton farming, especially in places like Texas and India. Can you talk to us about that?
Yes, conventional cotton farming can be very toxic in both the chemicals used and the treatment of the workers. I like to think of a fast fashion cotton t-shirt. There’s a very good chance that some or all of the cotton in that shirt was handpicked on a farm that uses toxic chemical inputs, then spun and woven by machine, then dyed with toxic dyes and sewn by someone. After all that intensive work, the T-shirt only costs a few dollars, which means everyone is losing out along the way, including the environment.
Consumers can be really overwhelmed by the variety of values and sustainable keywords to pay attention to. Can you tell us what the real value of this farm regeneration initiative is?
For the planet: I think about it on a micro and macro scale. The primary goal on the farm is to improve the long-term health of the soil. This means increased biodiversity, water retention, mycelial networks and soil carbon.
The benefits of healing the soil go far beyond the direct farm, because we’re reducing excess atmospheric carbon as we go, directly combating climate change. Additionally, farmers are creating a model that their neighbors and cotton farmers around the world can use.
For farmers: Even in systems marketed as sustainable, there is often a top-down approach where companies tell farmers “if you switch to [fill in blank with sustainable buzzword], we will buy your yield.” This approach places all the risks of changing methods on the backs of farmers. That’s why we decided to pay for the process we wanted and worked collaboratively with farmers to help them transition to regenerative agriculture. This gives farmers financial security and the freedom to take risks to help the long-term vitality of their land.
For the fashion industry: I think what I’m most proud of with Christy Dawn’s journey to regeneration is how authentic it is. We’re always going back to what feels best to us and makes sense to us, rather than trying to fit into an existing box. I think that’s how we’ve made so much progress in the last few years. And, we were able to show the industry that, if you do something authentically, you can have a positive impact on your immediate and global community.
For consumers: As I said, Christy Dawn is all about reciprocity, so we want our clients to benefit from being part of this circle. For some, it’s the ability to wear clothes that match your values, for others it’s that Christy Dawn dresses last forever or that make them feel more confident and beautiful.
What should we buy from the collection? Can you tell us which parts are from the farm?
Most of our cotton dresses are now from our farm. When you shop on our site, you may see a small icon on the top right of our product images that says Regenerative Cotton. My personal favorite from our spring collection is this Lennon dress.
We also now offer a very exciting land stewardship investment for our customers: you can invest $200 to cover all the costs of regenerating 3,485 square meters of farmland. At the end of the season, Christy Dawn will buy the yield from the land you invested in at a certain price. You share in the risks and rewards of working directly with nature.
What’s next for the brand?
Keep regenerating! We’ve started working with communities around the world of like-minded people who want to grow our clothing regeneratively. Look out for a super cute collection of throwback sweaters coming this fall!
Who else in the fashion space is making big sustainability moves that we as consumers need to support right now?
I always turn to the Mara Hoffman team for advice and support. They really have an amazing vision and are true leaders in the space.
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