Washing.  It’s the phenomenon of wiping the slate of your brain clean as well as the cycle you put your clothes through.  In this ever-soiled world, there is always more washing to be done.  Now the term has expanded.  It’s gone beyond the vocabulary surrounding cults and housewives and has gone towards the flooding of markets by the media.  When on the topic of sustainability, green-washing is also ever-present.  And, not long ago, local-washing became a new word on the horizon.  So, what about it?

We know that buying locally made goods is important.  And as soon as we, as consumers, proclaimed that priority, savvy businesses followed suit with letting their customers know that their product too, is local.  Using the zeitgeist as a marketing tool is fine as long as it’s not false.  For instance, not long ago, Juicy Couture changed the tags on its products from “Made in the Glamorous USA” to “Designed in the Glamorous USA”— an assertion that was probably much closer to the truth.  But, can a product that is Made in the USA from foreign-sourced materials still be considered and then labeled as an American made good?  Our answer at Locallectual is, “yes”— as long as it’s labeled that way.

I started thinking more deeply about the dilemma not long ago when I learned that clothes by Catherine Malandrino—one of my all time favorite brands for women—were USA-made.  I did a bit of research online and learned that the products are in fact made here but from fabrics that had been imported.  Had I been local-washed?  My personal take would be, “no.”  Though there are plenty of brands that, when they say they are local (read: national), they really take the conservative route and use American made materials to craft the Made in USA goods, the literal end result remains much the same.  Take the brand, Prairie Underground.  The Seattle-based company uses, “…local sewers, dyehouses, knitters as well as sustainable fabrics like hemp and organic cotton sourced directly from the United States whenever possible.”  Now, that’s an exceptional case, and I’d love to see more of it.  Until then, let’s take it one step at a time, and document our triumphs with proper transparency as we go along.

-Serena