Why use organic cotton?

At Ishiteshiro Clothing Store, almost all of the cotton fabrics we use are organic.

I started the Ishiteshiro Clothing Store 11 years ago, when organic cotton certification was just beginning to become more widely recognized.

However, organic cotton is still considered expensive and is only for certain people, such as those with sensitive skin.

I myself have atopic dermatitis and there was a time when I had trouble with clothes, so I was careful about the materials I used. So I started using "organic cotton", but when I looked into it more closely, I found that it was not only the quality of the material itself, but also the production background, which is very important.

Most of the clothes we wear on a daily basis are made of cotton.

I wondered, "How can cotton be so cheap, even though it's a plant that someone grows in a field?"

They discovered that there was unfair exploitation through child labor and low wages.

How many small children are forced to work in cotton farming...

And the amount of pesticides used in cotton cultivation is staggering.

"Cotton only accounts for 2.5% of the world's agricultural land, but it accounts for 16% of the world's pesticide use."

According to a survey by WWF, this situation not only leads to the degradation of farmland, but also poses serious health problems for workers.

Organic certification was initiated to solve these problems associated with conventional cotton cultivation.

Cultivation and manufacturing processes free of child labor and exploitation,
Organic cultivation without the use of pesticides and other agricultural chemicals

Based on this premise, it is certified as organic cotton by a third party organization.

We choose to use it.

Of course, it is more expensive than other cotton, not only because of the labor required to make it, but also because of the costs involved in certification.

However, considering the above issues, I can no longer use regular cotton...

Right now, our clothes are being made in a faraway country. Cotton produced in a faraway country is brought here and made into cloth, which we then dye and tailor.

No matter how far away it may be, I don't want to use fabric that has been through a process where someone has cried or been hurt, and I don't want my customers to use it either.

I feel that it is necessary for organic cotton to become the global standard. If that happens, I think it will become impossible to mass-produce products at low cost, and it may become harder to get the cheap prices that are available to the general public.

However, when we think about the people involved in cotton cultivation, it is something that we must understand, and ultimately, we must accept it as a given if we are to protect the environment of this planet.

The clothes are made from earth.
It was made by someone's hands.

Such obvious things are being forgotten.

It is not possible to grow cotton and turn it into a final product in Itoshiro (it's too cold anyway, so winter arrives before the cotton balls can pop), but we use colors from the surrounding plants to dye the fabric.

By actually making clothes with our own hands, with the colors blessed by the earth, we want people to get a real sense of what it means to make "clothes born from the earth," and to deliver each and every piece with love.

It's my way of showing respect for the botanical gifts and human hands that make clothing.