Melissa Dizon-Ramsay?s Eairth makes people, especially from the West, feel good because it is ecologically correct through and through
LIFE STARTED TO ROLL AFTER 40 for designer Melissa Dizon-Ramsay. Her eco-friendly line, Eairth, is bouncing back after the recession, and is making headway in new markets. At 41, she?s starting family life, with her husband, Finland-born Edvard Ramsay, 31. Their newborn son, Alistair, is the inspiration for Eairth?s Spring 2010 collection titled ?Tropical Baby.?

?Getting married and having Alistair came at a perfect time. Things are becoming more serious. The business is having an identity, but we?re still experimenting,? says Melissa.

It?s an oft-repeated story about her burnout in Corporate America, working as global design director for Levi?s in San Francisco.

?I was leading a jaded existence. Everything was too fast and fashion-y. When I came here, I pared it down,? she says.

Melissa explored the country and was inspired by the innate fashion sensibilities of the cultural communities. With the backing of silent investors, she established Eairth, an acronym for earth and air. She said the brand was borne out of her personal convictions to produce socially responsible clothing.

Ninety-percent of the natural fabrics are sourced locally. Organic dyes are either formulated by the Philippine Textile Research Institute or gathered from sources all over the country.

Individualistic

Eairth?s sensibility is based on the traditional Filipino design aesthetic expressed through the handling of colors and materials. Thus, Melissa?s construction is round, draping the body. Its two-dimensional style results in irregular forms, layers and quirky details that are highlighted as the body moves. The label is ?Sustainable Luxury.?

On its first year, Eairth met with success, establishing outlets in nearly 50 stores in the US.

?I worked there all my life,? she says. ?I knew the market like the back of my hand. But you know what? What I learned was that when you do your own thing, connections matter so little. It?s what you do that matters the most, especially in fashion.?

But the business was hit by the global recession. Fortunately, the local market sustained the business. Eairth has such faithful clients as Irene Araneta and Daphne Oseña. Melissa is also developing a pocket collection exclusively for Itsie-Bitsie.

Recently, Eairth opened markets in Japan, Sweden and Denmark.

Eairth can be found in such stores as Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Eva, Steven Alan and Babel Fair in New York and Hollywood, Ranch Market, Cul de Paris and Desperado in Tokyo.

Timing is one factor attributed to its recovery. Melissa explains that the Western world was consumed by guilt for its excesses; consumers are now weighing in on the environmental impact of the products they consume or buy. Eairth made people feel good because it is ecologically sound. While other foreign fashion brands jumped into the environmental bandwagon, its approach was still conventional?getting supplies from all over the world, thereby leaving a large carbon footprint.

?They (other fashion houses) are not doing anything close to what we?re doing,? Ramsay says. ?They are starting to realize there?s another side of sustainability which they haven?t touched. One is color sense. Everybody dyes with toxic colors. It defeats the purpose of using organic cotton. Our pigments come from here, the deep jungle of Philippines.?

Unbroken line

Edvard Ramsay?s thrust is to strengthen the brand image.

?People appreciate Eairth because it feels like their own,? he says. ?Every piece is unique with its own story. When you buy something of this good quality, it is produced without destroying the environment. It?s sustainable luxury. What people need to understand about Eairth is that the stuff doesn?t come from mail-order somewhere, mixed in a batch. There?s this unbroken link between the person who collects the pigments for the dyes from the jungle to people who make the clothes to the end user.?

A pinkish braided, fringed shirt is dyed from sibukaw, a bark from Iloilo. Men?s slacks look like chinos when, in fact, the color comes from a fallen bark. Dip dye harem pants are colored from mahogany. A ruffled tiered shirt, made of gauze, jersey and cotton are colored from the hawili, a bark from the Cordilleras.

Because of the volatile nature of natural dyes, their coloration is not the same for every garment. Instead of considering them as flaws, Melissa points out that the lack of uniformity is an intrinsic quality contributing to the individuality of the piece.

For the Inquirer shoot, Melissa dons a silk tie-dye T-shirt dress, which takes nearly two weeks to make.

She explains, ?It?s not as if we take a fabric from a roll, cut the pattern and sew it. We make our own fabrics. All the cotton and fabrics are made especially for us because of the boiling and dyeing, the pigments are seasonal. The color palette is dictated by the availability of the materials.?

After making the dress, the leaves for dyeing are gathered and boiled immediately, otherwise the intensity of the pigments is lost. The leaves are chopped, soaked in the bath for 48 hours to extract the color. The dye processing takes two days. The tie-dye T-shirt dress fetches US$198, but is 30-40 percent less in the local market.

The latest collection, ?Tropical Baby,? was designed when Melissa was pregnant. ?It?s playful, youthful, loose, light, not dangerous, soft. I never liked pink, but I wanted this pink with a baby color.?

Living up to its Eairth?s philosophy, Edvard developed a stuffed toy, Stefan, made from fabric scraps. He?s got a square face with uneven button eyes and a lopsided smile. ?It?s not just for kids but for adults as a comfort thing. We wanted to reduce pre-consumer waste from industrial production,? he says.

On the conscience behind the brand, he says, ?People are getting tired of soul-less, mass-produced stuff. You can get a $10 T-shirt, but wearing an Eairth T-shirt is not the same thing. It?s for those who realize that this isn?t just having about having more stuff without meaning.?