What does regenerative fashion mean to Herderin?

Herderin was a part of a Regenerative Food & Fiber Retreat, hosted by Fibershed, Rethink the Runway, and From Soil to Soul for SF Climate Week. We shared ourselves with a community of people curious about how we can engage with and create a food and fiber system rooted in regeneration. Near the end of the day, we took part in a fashion showcase and were asked the question: What does regenerative fashion mean to you? We wanted to share our thoughts with you, as spoken by Alexandria Vasquez.

I want to clarify that I’m not a designer in my dominant identity. I mostly see myself, by trade and by training, as a sociologist. I approach this work of design as a sociologist focused on healing; it’s how I use this field to intersect with the work of healing. 

So, when I think of ‘regenerative fashion’, this is something that came to me maybe 16 years ago: I thought of it as a tool – clothing, rather, as something that can create comfort like a homemade meal. I think there is quite a bit of connection between regenerative clothing and regenerative food. Soil being the common thread between them. And that they both have the opportunity to advise on how to be fast and how to be slow. If we mostly ate fast food, we wouldn’t have the connection that we have to what a homecooked meal takes and can feel like. You can go to any store; I grew up with my grandmother and we would shop at Food For Less on her very small budget, today’s equivalent to a Grocery Outlet. And my grandmother would cook every night for me. Fish, arroz con gondules, whatever she had, she would make. But she made it with such love and care that I knew that no matter how much we weren’t able to communicate through language, it didn't really matter, because I felt secure, I felt the love that she had for me as her granddaughter through the way she cooked for me. 

So, I would say that ‘regeneration’ to me means connection. It means understanding first and foremost that clothing is a social, emotional relationship form. It’s how we relate to ourselves and it's how we relate to each other. When we put a SKU on an item of clothing, it becomes a product. But we can’t treat food and clothing as just products. We know that they are very intimate to who we are. I would say ‘regeneration’ also means coming from the place of the heart-center. What we do to show our love, to gather community around us, to listen to other people who wear our clothing, who have a story to share, who live their lives in these fibers. And just like food, if we want to have good health, it's better for those ingredients to be sourced as close as possible to nature – to be alive; to be reborn over and over again through the planting of seeds that give health to soil. I think you cannot separate that when we think of regeneration in clothing.

Today I chose my friends and closest family to show these garments by Herderin that are in Climate Beneficial fibers because to me, what is the point of doing any of this if I don’t have anyone to cook for?

Photography by Paige Green