Sourcing local manufacturing allows us to keep our footprint low while reducing waste. All steps of our manufacturing process from knitting, dying, cutting, sewing, and printing are done within 50 miles in the state of California and then is shipped 370 miles from Los Angeles to Oakland where our logistics warehouse is. In a traditional manufacturing model, a sweatshirt would easily travel over 16,000 miles from start to finish. Not to mention that by keeping our manufacturing local we’re able to create clean and safe work environments for garment workers. It’s created a cultural landscape that rules and puts people first.

Unfortunately, the world of fast fashion produces cheap items that don’t last. You wear something a few times and then you throw it away, leading to waste in the landfill. Longevity of the life of a garment is key to sustainability. Longevity is created through a timeless design along with quality. Quality is created by taking the right steps when producing these goods which includes the whole supply chain and understanding the raw materials, production process, and deep diving into how suppliers do what they do. Keeping production in a centralized location helps give us confidence in our clothes and the ability for them to last.

Our sustainability efforts go beyond the clothes and goods themselves. We’ve chosen to use hemp hang tags instead of plastic hang tags, remove packing slips in each shipment, and use compostable packing that will disintegrate within—at most—180 days under compost conditions. Eliminating any single-use plastic in production for our garments. We even went so far as to find a logistics company that understood our values and could help source the right packaging from the right businesses, from both a political and environmental standpoint. For anyone familiar with the fashion industry, this was a huge challenge behind the scenes and it’s a big win.

Sourcing local manufacturing allows us to keep our footprint low while reducing waste. All steps of our manufacturing process from knitting, dying, cutting, sewing, and printing are done within 50 miles in the state of California and then is shipped 370 miles from Los Angeles to Oakland where our logistics warehouse is. In a traditional manufacturing model, a sweatshirt would easily travel over 16,000 miles from start to finish. Not to mention that by keeping our manufacturing local we’re able to create clean and safe work environments for garment workers. It’s created a cultural landscape that rules and puts people first.

Unfortunately, the world of fast fashion produces cheap items that don’t last. You wear something a few times and then you throw it away, leading to waste in the landfill. Longevity of the life of a garment is key to sustainability. Longevity is created through a timeless design along with quality. Quality is created by taking the right steps when producing these goods which includes the whole supply chain and understanding the raw materials, production process, and deep diving into how suppliers do what they do. Keeping production in a centralized location helps give us confidence in our clothes and the ability for them to last.

Seeing the true cost of fashion can help you make empowered choices. Some of my price tags might go up, but enables things like the switch from single-use plastic packaging to compostable packaging that will disintegrate within—at most—180 days under compost conditions, and printing with high quality inks. It also helps pay fair wages to garment workers and it helps Alimo create higher-quality products that will last a long time.