Imagine Green Wear

What products are listed for this advertiser?

American Made Baby Rompers, Made in the USA Clothing for Kids, American Made Eco Friendly Clothes, Made in the USA Eco Friendly Clothing, Made in America Non Toxic Clothing, Made in the USA Non Toxic Clothing, American Made Onesies, American Made Organic Clothing, Made in the USA Organic Cotton Clothing, Made in America T Shirts / Tee Shirts / Tees, Made in America Tank Dresses, American Made Tops, Made in America Toxin Free Clothing, American Made Toxin Free Clothing, and American Made Tunics.

Curtis (Cas) Shiver began a tie-dye business in his father's garage, where he created SUNDOG Productions after graduating from Annandale High School. For over 25 years Sundog has been servicing local and national customers with creative dyeing and screen printing. IMAGINE GreenWear is a partnership between Cas and Mark and Elaine Fishbein, who had a similar printing/dyeing business in NJ for decades, and sold it after New York area garment production moved to Asia.

A new concept of organic decoration evolved between Cas, Mark and Elaine. The idea was to go back in time before the invention of modern screen inks, when all prints were done with dyes. After some months of testing, a seaweed base dye process was developed that worked perfectly on cotton. The prints were super soft, colorfast (washed perfectly), non-toxic, safe for all skin, environmentally friendly in the workplace, and the colors were brilliant! When they realized how eco-friendly the process was, the next step was to print on 100% organic cotton fabric, creating a totally green garment, and called it greenwear. Put simply, seaweed based dyes are eco-friendly, and modern screen inks, used universally on all printed sportswear items, are not.

IMAGINE GreenWear knits its fabric in South Carolina using 100% certified organic yarn, and cut/sews and decorates in its new 40,000 sq.ft. facility in Fairfax VA. Water is heated using energy from solar panels produced by solar panel. The building is cooled by a geo-thermal water system. The facility is one of the greenest textile printing and dyeing factories in the country.

Once the technical process of producing GreenWear was refined, the fun began! The new process opened up many unexplored design possibilities. The idea was to make creative, fun designs with front and back graphics and use interactive hand tie-dyes to make an artistic fashion statement. The new look and soft feel of dye prints has been well received by children's and women's consumers. Says Mark, There are no eco-slogans, the product is the message. If the fashion look is right, people will feel good about buying our domestic garments which happen to be the greenest in the industry today.


MISSION STATEMENT

IMAGINE GreenWear is going back to the time when fabric prints were made with dyes, before the invention of modern screen inks. The combination of using certified organic cotton to make our garments and using only eco-friendly dyes for decoration makes our product the greenest in the imprinted sportswear industry. Our products are designed and made in the USA.
Despite major ecological concerns of modern textile manufacturing and processing, clothing has not generally been on the radar of the Green initiative. IMAGINE GreenWear believes that sustainable clothing manufacturing is now becoming noticed, and will continue to do so with fresh fashion ideas. If the style is right, it just feels good to wear or buy organic clothes.

By offering an alternative to screen printing inks, IMAGINE GreenWear can make a difference in the industry which prints millions of images daily. Our dye printing process is very different than the inks used on all t-shirts and sportswear which have serious environmental and health concerns. The dyes we use are super soft and washable, and safe for the most delicate skin and the environment.

Our goal is to set a new standard for greener printed and dyed apparel, which blends cutting edge design with a process that is the most environmentally friendly product in the market.

Printing With Dyes
Dyes are very versatile, and allow us to make fun, creative and all-over colorful graphic designs.

PLASTICOL INK

We've all felt rubbery prints on t-shirts. This is plastic ink that fuses the color to the material with a lot of heat. Plastic ink has PVC's, phthalates or other plasticizers. It requires solvents for a rather messy clean-up in the print shop. Plastic prints cracks after a few washings. Plasticol ink is the most commonly used ink in the world, as it is cheap and easy to use.

WATER-BASED INK

Many organic manufactures prefer the water-based ink system to plastic ink. Water-based ink uses acrylic resins to glue the pigment color particle to the fiber. It requires extensive heating in textile dryers. Water-based ink has more toxic emissions, has a higher carbon footprint and requires more heat and energy than plasticol ink. Water-based ink has a short shelf life and excess ink is dumped into the water system. Water-inks fade after several washings and often have a rough feel and can crock, or rub off. Many apparel companies claim this ink is non-toxic, but the manufacturers of the water-based ink systems appropriately claim they are less-toxic than plasticol.

WEARER SAFETY AND THE EFFECTS OF SCREEN INK SYSTEMS

IMAGINE GreenWear clothing is toxin free for children and adults to wear. The clothing with inks that contain binders, plasticizers, softeners, and specialty finishes have some propensity, from mild to severely dangerous, to have contact with the skin that can absorbed in the body of the wearer through the skin. Small children sometimes suck on clothing and this oral route adds yet another danger.

HOW ARE WE DIFFERENT?

Our dye colors make a permanent bond to the cotton fibers: unlike inks, our color particle is not fused or glued on the material. Our dyes become the fabric, and are safe for newborns to wear or suck on. We mix our dyes into a base of organic seaweed and water, that's all. Our dyes use little energy and have very high absorption rates so color run-offs are small, contain no heavy metals, and are safe for the environment. Clean up is ?clean'. We pre-wash the garments without detergents, and the color will never fade or rub off our designs.

In fine art painting, the color medium used has a look we can immediately identify. Water colors are different than oil colors or pastels. Aesthetically, dyes on fabric look different than other fabric ink systems. As dyes penetrate and bond to the material there is no grin through or cracking. They have a rich full look, and whether we print them with dark or pastel colors they feel exactly the same, indistinguishable from the soft fabric.

HOW DO WE DEFINE IN THE INDUSTRY

Printing with dyes is difficult and challenging, but once we mastered the process we realized that the combination of organic material and our dye printing makes our garment the greenest in the industry. By the industry, we mean capable of being mass produced to consumer color value and wash standards, using existing printing and dyeing equipment, with readily available and affordable supply of ingredients


WHY GO ORGANIC?

Organic cotton is cotton grown without pesticides. There is an abundance of information about the effect of these chemicals on the environment going back to the Pulitzer Prize winning book Silent Spring in 1962, which exposed the dangers of saturating our planet with pesticides. Today there are hundreds of studies, books, websites and blogs about the effects of chemical spraying. :

More than ? of the pesticides used in the world today is for cotton growing
Half the pesticides used are known carcinogens
1/3 lb. of pesticides is used to make every t-shirt in America
Only 3% of the annual global harvest is certified organic
A three year process is required to convert contaminated cotton fields to organic, and farmers do not yet see enough demand to make the investment.
HOW DO WE CHANGE THE STATUS QUO?

IMAGINE GreenWear believes that as the green initiative continues in our society (green cars, homes, energy, dry-cleaning, foods, etc), the future of textiles will be more and more green too. Part of the problem is that until recently so little has been done to make organic clothing fresh and exciting, and that is what fashion is about. Only if the demand increases will it make sense (and cents) for farmers to find alternatives to toxic spraying. Today more top fashion designers and retailers are offering more choices for organic apparel. We believe Green is a big part of the future of textiles and not just a fashion trend. Just like green cars.


OUR PRODUCTS, OUR FUTURE

We knit, cut, sew, decorate and accessorize our garments in the our state of the art factory in Fairfax, VA. We only use material made from 100% GOTS certified organic yarn and we use cotton thread. All garments have front and back prints, since our customers have fronts and backs too!

We believe in fair labor practices and this is important to us, quality production is the result of people who enjoy their work and are proud of the product.

We currently have a children's line of rompers, onesies, t-shirts (long and short sleeves), 2fers, hoodies, dresses and yoga pants, sizes newborn to 8 years. We have a collection contemporary women's fashion tops, tunics and dresses.

Our philosophy is to produce unique and exciting designs of wearable art on a garment that happens to be organic. We do not print slogans and messages, our message IS art and design. We believe that good fashion is the best way to promote and increase the production of organic apparel.

There are endless possibilities with dye printing and the creative challenges are very exciting. Our process offers an alternative to screen inks to create prints that are safe with no toxic residues on the material, while also being the best system for clean industrial processing and the environment.

Our process will set a new standard for the industry and we hope will make the world a lot greener.


The following is a reply from Imagine Green Wear to our question – "Are your products American Made?"

Recieved June 11, 2014

 
"Thank you for your inquiry, and we agree on the importance of Made in America and certainly see the groundswell of like-minded folks starting to pay attention again.  At this point not everything we do is Made in USA, and really driven by our customers.  We have an organic brand that is 100% made in USA, Imagine Greenwear  www.imaginegreenwear.com and we also house a moisture wicking brand in our building www.sportsciencewear.com. We also do a lot of custom orders for our customers that are not sold through us, but through their sales channels.  Our website www.sunpup.com mainly shows our rock n' roll line which is not Made in USA at this point.  As demand grows we will continue to switch this brand also."

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What does Made in USA mean?
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