Sustainable Edition
Syd just sent me a great custom American Apparel t-shirt which is conspicuously branded as the “Sustainable Edition”. I haven’t looked into what exactly makes it sustainable, but I sense a strong correlation between “sustainable” and the “organic cotton” materials.
American Apparel is known for its “sweatshop free” production facilities in downtown LA as much as it’s known for hiring porn stars to model its clothing. But that’s neither here nor there.
What I find interesting about this label is that a t-shirt is essentially a platform. And as a platform, is it particularly proper for American Apparel to label a t-shirt as sustainable when, for example, they have no idea what kinds of inks will be used in printing processes downstream from their factories?
In response to this concern, I could see is a contract or agreement with companies that purchase these sustainable edition shirts. The contract could state that further processes applied to the t-shirts would not invalidate the “sustainable” claims made by American Apparel. In this way, American Apparel could stand 100% behind its label, whereas now I might find reason to question the legitimacy of their “sustainable” claims.