Creating Bodkin

Creating Bodkin

By Sidra Durst

When Eviana Hartman got together with a friend for a weekend sewing project, she didn’t fully realize that it – and the ongoing struggle to move towards sustainable, environmentally responsible production -- would end up consuming her life. But less than a year later, here we are: sitting together in her Williamsburg studio, surrounded by scraps of organic cotton and samples of dresses made from plastic bottles.

Hartman, is soft-spoken, deliberate, and thoughtful. On this particular Saturday, she is dressed for comfort and crafting in a short-sleeved sweatshirt so broken-in that it hangs off of her like a curtain, and her long brown hair is swept out of her face and into a messy topknot. Today she is taking a break from her usual litany of tasks -- which on this particular morning involves the dreary-sounding duty of installing accounting software -- to experiment with milk paint, a biodegradable non-toxic paint. Milk paint is usually used for furniture, but Hartman wants to see if it works on fabric. As she stirs up a batch of black paint and talks slowly about the beginnings of Bodkin, I glance around the studio. Some of last season’s pieces hang against a wall.

I had taken notice of Bodkin shortly after its debut last fall. The line was originally meant to be a casual weekend project, an outlet for Hartman and her friend Samantha Pleet’s creative energies. But Pleet had already made a name for herself as a designer with her eponymous label and had an attentive following. And Hartman had spent the good part of her New York years working for glossy magazines.When you are surrounded by fashion editors, it’s hard for an endeavor of this nature to stay secret, despite your best attempts at a low profile.

Word got out quickly, and within eight months, they had received Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation’s newly created Sustainable Design Award. At the time Hartman was still working as an editor for Conde Nast. Suddenly, she found herself at a crossroads: continue with her day job or devote herself fully to her new line. “I got a taste of designing, liked it, and decided I wanted to make it my job,” she says.

“I would have liked to have had a year to myself to really develop Bodkin before it got out into the world,” she tells me in an e-mail, “but that’s not how it happened.”

Despite the magnitude of attention the label enjoys in the press, Bodkin is still a one-woman show. Pleet, hands already plenty full with three clothing lines, parted ways amicably with Hartman after the initial collection as Bodkin began to take on a full-fledged life of its own. Hartman handles virtually everything, from business strategy to managing production, finding and ordering fabrics, quality control, to tagging the garments and shipping them to retailers. When I ask her how much time she spends actually designing, she looks at me ruefully: if only running a fashion business was more about creative output and less about haggling with factory owners and bookkeeping -- designing the clothing itself occupies a tiny slice of her time. In a recent e-mail, she tells me -- with no small measure of relief -- she has found a full-time summer intern.

Hartman’s newly assumed identity as an aesthetically and ethically progressive fashion designer may appear sudden, but upon closer inspection it is the natural culmination of her diverse interests. While majoring in English at the University of Virginia, she enrolled in renowned architect and sustainable designer William Mc- Donough’s urban studies class, Environmental Choices, which led to further coursework, and spurred a growing interest in what she describes as “an obsession with the invisible realities of tangible things.” McDonough’s manifesto on sustainable design spurred her to examine fashion from a different standpoint. “It was Cradle to Cradle that made me think I could reconcile my tendency to think about clothes way too much with my desire to work for the common good.” Although she wrote a regular column about environmental issues for the Washington Post in addition to working as a fashion editor and writer, she was eager to take greater action. “I wanted to be the one trying new things rather than writing about those who are trying new things,” she says.

On Hartman’s blog, she explores the thorny issues around labor, manufacturing and globalization, and pricing (“people get angry at how much [locally produced clothes such as hers cost”), and is remarkably open about the obstacles to a fashion company achieving sustainability. “It’s probably not possible to have an environmentally sustainable business operation--it’s only possible to try,” she says. “Every decision has its downsides…we can’t be footprint-free.”

There is a separate slew of challenges that comes with running a fashion company devoted to producing clothes that attempt to mitigate the environmental toll of modern-day apparel manufacturing. One of the biggest challenges for her is very basic: finding consistently available fabrics that fit the Bodkin ethic. “There is only so much organic wool in the world,” she says. “Normal fashion labels can make whatever they can dream up--it all exists out there. For me, it’s a lot more limited. I’ll find an amazing fabric, put it in the collection and sell it to stores, and then [the fabric] won’t be available...and I won’t be able to produce the style.” A company with a higher sales volume has more control over sourcing, but, she points out, “there are arguments that a global corporation is inherently unsustainable.” That said, she knows that Bodkin needs to get larger in order to survive, and she has been trying to work towards growing the company and finding a backing partner.

She is also refreshingly frank in her views of the corporate greenwashing of America, and sets the record straight for all who would call Bodkin a “eco-friendly” or “sustainable” clothing line. “I’m not marketing myself as an ‘eco’ line. I’m making clothes that have a particular look to them, while also having a particular point of view,” she says. “’Eco’ and ‘environmentally friendly’ are misused by all sorts of people, and they don’t really mean anything anymore. ‘Sustainable’ is an absolute, not a reality, when describing a business or industry. I am careful with these terms because I wish to respect the nuances of the English language. I also don’t want to be self-righteous about the impact of what I’m doing, so much as conscious and curious. In fashion, ‘eco’ doesn’t refer to a particular aesthetic, or if it does, it’s not my aesthetic,” she says, adding that she has been more successful in standard fashion boutiques than in overtly ‘eco’-themed stores. “Regular boutiques that share my sensibility—which I guess isn’t for everyone--seem to believe in me a lot more.”

Hartman is that rare combination of an idealist and a realist, and this is unmistakable in her aesthetic. Her clothes embody the sort of urban ease that looks sharp approaching from a block away but comfortable and effortless up close; pieces that are free of affectation or overdesign but are still fresh to the eye and quietly desirable.

Her upcoming collection for fall weaves together influences that never overwhelm the garments themselves -- hints of the geometric fascinations of Buckminster Fuller in the piecework of a tunic made of ahimsa silk (often called “peace silk”, as it is produced without killing the silkworm larvae), the otherworldly sounds of musician Jean-Michel Jarre which come to life as folded and stretched abstractions, and the languid drape of her boyfriend’s disintegrating exercise clothes.” Standout pieces include a longsleeved cotton catsuit tie-dyed in a gorgeous array of lilac and mulberry hues, a simple and clever t-shirt dress of bamboo jersey that has been cut at the neckline to reveal a sliver of shoulder. Many of the clothes are tie-dyed by Hartman’s collaborator Audrey Louise Reynolds, who uses a cornucopia of fruits and plant matter to create a brilliant spectrum of naturally-produced colors.

For those aspiring to follow in her footsteps, Hartman has a few words of advice, learned the hard way. “Get some work and life experience first, and do [your] homework regarding the business and technicalities of fashion and design. Start small and slowly, unless you have a lot of experience, money, and employees already. Have a distinct design sensibility, and do not use the terms “eco,” “organic,” “earth,” “tree,” “peace,” or “humanity” in the brand name.”

If Hartman has her way with Bodkin, the rest of us will be the better off for it, too. “I want to have a healthy, balanced life, and if I can do that while making a living devising clothes as part of a business model that supports sustainable farming and good jobs -- and not have to make spreadsheets and split hairs with factory owners all day – then I’ll be very lucky and happy.”