Patty Grossman and Leigh Ann Van Dusen

It all started with a couch.

Looking to re-upholster her sofa, Seattle resident Leigh Ann Van Dusen began exploring natural fiber options—and found that the pickings were slim, she says. Not caring for the aesthetic of recycled polyester and concerned about chemical processing of organic fabrics, Van Dusen decided to take matters into her own hands. In 2004, she launched O Ecotextiles with her sister Patty Grossman, now the company’s CEO, with the aim of producing fabrics that are non-toxic and sustainable in their production techniques.

To produce enough fabric to cover one sofa requires about 500 gallons of water and up to 20 pounds of chemicals, the sisters say. 

“People are bringing toxics into their homes and they don’t even know it,” says Grossman, who is also head of textiles for the Sustainable Furnishings Council, a High Point, NC-based nonprofit promoting socially and environmentally sustainable practices among furniture manufacturers and consumers.

O Ecotextiles rolled out its first products in England in 2007 through a partnership with a British designer and launched in the United States in early 2008. The company currently offers about 20 fabric choices, made from various fibers, including hemp, bamboo, linen and silk.

Relying on fibers grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers, O Ecotextiles’ fabrics are processed using an oxygen-based bleaching method, rather than chlorine-based chemicals; dyed using comparatively low-impact dyes retained in a closed-loop system; and softened with non-chemical finishers.

The company’s fabrics are certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and Oeko Tex Standard 100. Ecotextiles fabrics scored low in laboratory testing for chemical emissions; so the company markets its fabrics as one way to garner indoor air quality points through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

O Ecotextiles currently has processing facilities in six countries in Europe, Asia and South America, but has had difficulty finding U.S. mills that will process according to the company’s standards.  “We’re hoping that will change. U.S. mills are missing a giant opportunity,” Grossman says, sustainable fabric processing “could be the saving grace of the U.S. textile industry.”