Toddler Chic, Environmentally Sound

You never know where your interests will lead you--just ask Kyle Smitley, founder of Barley and Birch, makers of "unabashedly organic, planet-saving clothes."

After college, Kyle, 26, ended up interning in Washington, D.C. and consulting on the side for a boutique. In the process she learned a few unsavory things about the clothing industry.

"A lot of people in the apparel industry were lying about chemicals they were using," she said. "For example, they would say this is an organic one piece, but what they didn't say is that it was dyed using heavy metals and produced in a sweatshop in India."

A former environmental science major, Kyle saw an opportunity to simply make clothes that didn't hurt people--not the people wearing them and not the people making them.

"I saw a really big niche in the market for a brand that had really, really high standards," she said. "We could be a good brand that shows you can do things the right way and make a high quality product and use the profits for good."

So she started Barley and Birch in 2009, named for the barley field behind her childhood home and the birch tree in front of it. After being turned down from multiple banks based on her age and inexperience, she got a loan from microlender ACCION San Diego, Kyle got her venture for socially conscious, planet-friendly kids clothing off the ground.

Not only does the company donate 15 percent of their profits to charitable organizations, but every part of the line is carbon neutral -- Barley and Birch offsets emissions created in production and shipping, as well as working with manufacturers and suppliers who depend mainly on solar energy.

"We do a basket approach," Kyle said of their environmental concerns. "Everything from donating to companies that are planting trees, to solar and wind power, to investing in renewable energy."

And the onesies (adorned with quirky images of chameleons, acorns, cacti and more) are made with organic cotton and water-based inks, so that children don't wear potentially harmful chemicals on their skin. The company further commits to its mission by producing every piece of clothing domestically.

"All of the pieces are from cotton in North Carolina, milled in North Carolina, sewed in North Carolina, dyed and printed in North Carolina," she said "A lot of that is based in our environmental concerns with shipping, but for the most part it's based on human rights standards."

Much of Kyle's global human rights focus grew out of her experiences spending time in Haiti in high school and El Salvador in college.

"I slept on a hammock and woke with scorpions crawling on me--you served the community for whatever community projects they needed you to do," she said of her time in El Salvador. "We were living with them, we got to see from their perspective what their life was like."

And her time in Haiti had just as much of an impact on her philosophy. "I think it kind of put a permanent goal in me to work towards a really solid level of global equality," she said. "By that I just mean it really really hit home that based on where youre born your life is going to be so different."

Kyle never planned to get involved in the clothing industry when she started Barley and Birch--she had an eye towards law school, which she currently attends in hopes of becoming a pro-bono attorney. Her lack of experience hasn't stopped her drive for the company to excel.

"My all time hero is Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia [an environmentally minded clothing company]," she said. "He got into business the same way I did--he saw the ability to make a good quality product and then subsequently had to learn how to follow his intuition running a business. I did an okay job just following my gut."

Barley and Birch recently announced their own foundation, eponymously named, allowing them to accept contributions to donate to the causes they support. Their first project is a children's home in Haiti.

"My future goal for the brand is to keep expanding," Kyle said, and she hopes to launch a bedding and adult line soon. though she also wants to become a pro-bono immigration attorney. Her reason for this philosophy of giving is simple. "If you're making money you should be helping other people with it," she said.

Comments

[m1jones]

01:42 PM on 02/13/2011

What's really sustainable and green? Here's a quote from Patagonia's web site:

"Today, we're able to utilize more sources for recycled polyester and offer it on more garments such as Capilene baselayers, shell jackets and board shorts, as well as fleece. We now recycle used soda bottles, unusable second quality fabrics and worn out garments into polyester fibers to produce many of our clothes. We've also started the world's first garment recycling program – bring us your old, worn-out Capilene baselayer, Patagonia fleece or Polartec® fleece (from any maker) and we'll make a new polyester garment from it using an innovative process developed by our friends at TEJIN."

So you can buy the cheap fleece at Land's End or Walgreen's - and Patagonia will make it into highly wearable more expensive garments. That's scalable, environmenally sound, and economically profitable - which should be the three pillars of industry and capitalism around the world.

[m1jones]

01:39 PM on 02/13/2011

Are $25 children's T-shirts sustainable on a planet with 7.5 billion mouths to feed? Local cotton growing and manufacturing is to be celebrated. But printing green cliches on baby T-shirts for wale at expensive baby shops, which most people cannot afford, seems like asking hungry people to eat cake.

Reminds me of high priced "green items" from the 1980's which ultimately made money for their founders and went broke because people weren't willing to pay $60 for a shovel.

Any long term economic change has got to be scalable and make sense for workers. That's American capitalism. You won't see $25 baby shirts at Walmart or Walgreens and that's where most poor and many middle class people buy theirs.

Patagonia has one very sustainable feature - they are relatively expensive but they guarantee to totally recycle their products which are made of oil-based polyester - to be quoted in another post. They began by manufacturing fleece jackets made of recycled bottles which would have otherwise ended up in landfill at the time.

[sabelmouse]

01:00 PM on 02/13/2011

the half dressed woman AA ad goes well with this.

[The Albany Kid]

10:31 AM on 02/13/2011

Barley and Birch? Isn't that a secret society for hippies at Yale?

J/K

[ZubinTomato]

07:12 PM on 02/12/2011

Barley and birch sounds like some cereal I got at the health food store several months ago. I just came out of the bathroom for the first time last week.

[NostradamnIsuck]

11:19 AM on 02/12/2011

Kudos for the local manufacturing...

[press4change]

05:37 AM on 02/12/2011

I was 100% with Kyle until she spoke about her hero. Just look at Patagonia, please.
When founder Yvon Chouinard speaks at a business school he is accorded rock star status.
Is it because he makes cool things that enhance outdoor fun? Only partly. I think the primary attraction is that he portrays himself as the “reluctant capitalist” (sub-title of his 2005 book) and a contrarian. Would you not expect this self-described ‘60s person who “likes breaking the rules” to have some positive impact on the garment industry, where most of his profit comes from? His book mentions “wages” only once (and not about apparel workers) and there is only the briefest mention about selecting factories that have “healthy relationships with their workers”. Oh, and he does mention that they audit supplier factories. [all you need to know about "social audits": http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_48/b4011001.htm ]

Former Patagonia "Corporate Social Responsibility" guy, Kevin Sweeney, wrote an Op-Ed for the L.A Times: “We Can Work Up to a Living Wage” - when the sweatshop issue was really hot. Let us focus on the decidedly non-contrarian defense of a non-living wage. Based on his 1998 Op-Ed, I can imagine the hang-tag for a pair of Patagonia surf shorts: “Paying the Thai workers that made this product an additional forty cents would bring them up to a living wage and that is the right long term strategy.”

[Jaqua Gamboa]

12:28 AM on 02/12/2011

As long as the woman is hot, I'll listen. Otherwise, forget it.

[camanokat]

12:57 AM on 02/13/2011

Can't get more shallow than that.

[DonMadrid1500]

12:16 AM on 02/12/2011

Do you really want to save the planet? Think about this. A women will increase her carbon footprint by 40 times by having 2 children. All you people think by buying these clothes you are part of the solution? The reality is that you are part of the problem and you dont ever want to admit it.

If you didnt have a child you could drive a fleet of hummers around for your entire life and keep all of the windows of your house open all winter and not do a fraction of the damage to the environment that having one baby will.

[brit myers]

05:18 AM on 02/12/2011

Yes because obviously we can save humanity by not reproducing. That will work really well.

So go ahead get your fleet of hummers and we will all stop having children so that way we can all go extinct and the hummers can sit there and rust for as long as the Earth exists.

[DonMadrid1500]

12:56 PM on 02/12/2011

so you ignore the elephant in the room and go for the cheap shot.

People who have kids think they are saving the planet by buying clothes from a company that says they produce things in a "green" way. All I'm pointing out is that they have already damaged the earth just by having the kid in the first place. I don't think they know just how much they have. They can never undo the damage, no matter how many Prius' they drive or low consumtion bulbs they screw into their light fixtures or even by buying onesies from a green company.

[rjmtx]

11:29 PM on 02/11/2011

This is all a great idea, and I am all for the local concept behind it all, but with my frozen wages, I won't be buying these for my one-month old because of personal economics (compounded with the fact that he is growing like a weed). More power to those that can afford it, though, and I hope they patronize this business.

I would be happy to get hand-me-downs of this brand, though.

[zamelia]

06:53 PM on 02/11/2011

i like a good price as well as the rest of us, but everyone wants to be paid a living wage, but get goods for nothing. to pay people to dye material, pick and loom cotton, print, take orders, ship... this costs money, especially for a small company.

[Ramkshrestha]

05:25 PM on 02/11/2011

Respect them who are qualified for that.

[jenjen1031]

04:42 PM on 02/11/2011

Wow! Doing well by doing good. What a concept!

[CocoLopez]

04:28 PM on 02/11/2011

Yuppie BS.

[Soulfest]

04:37 PM on 02/11/2011

Maybe a "yuppie" sounding name, but really good conceptually and in practice. I lived in North Carolina and it is truly very sad to see some of the people that worked in manufacturing for 30 years completely displaced by the closing of the plants and factories. This product is made in NC, that in itself is worthy of credit. In addition elimination of harmful chemicals to children, donations to charities, sounds like a revolutionary company to me.

[alex98]

04:54 PM on 02/11/2011

Its a good idea, but her prices definitely put it into the yuppie BS territory.

[woundedduck]

07:10 PM on 02/11/2011

You must love slave-made t-shirts, because that's what Walmart and Target sell.

[brit myers]

05:21 AM on 02/12/2011

Yeah well that is how much it actually costs to make clothes without hurting anyone. Clothes get a lot cheaper when they are being made by starving people who are being paid next to nothing.

[Kepler Poinsot]

04:20 PM on 02/11/2011

Wow ! Beauty, brains, and this too...

Step aside Palin, next decade Smitley is going to arrive
9 more years, and I am voting for Kyle
Youngest POTUS ever
Perhaps the 1st female POTUS as well

You go Kyle Smitley !