Athens locals help sustainable fashion efforts in the community SAMANTHA KRUSE FOR THE POST In Athens, many local businesses contribute to the community’s sustainability efforts. Local businesses such as Greendragon Thread, Cricket Jones Jewelry and Coral Marie do their best to help the Athens community be more sustainable in its fashion productions by upcycling and reusing materials. UpCycle Ohio Thrift helps small businesses by providing access to its Community Makerspace. Equipped with a tool library, where people can go in and check out tools for at-home projects, UpCycle Ohio also offers a sewing/fabric shop, woodshop and metalwork tools to use. Shannon Pratt-Harrington, chief sustainability officer for Zero-Waste Event Productions, a social enterprise dedicated to reducing festival waste, used the fabric workshop to make custom bags to carry and transport flag poles for the company. One service she mentioned that Zero-Waste Event Productions does is picking up trash at festivals across the Midwest and recycling or com-
posting the waste. Pratt-Harrington is one of many local business workers who use the upcycled fabrics to make new pieces. “We get people excited and inspired to use the things that they already have or find new homes for them, reconstitute them or reform them in a way that works for them,” Sadie Meade, manager of UpCycle Ohio Thrift, said. “We teach people job skills in the Makerspace that they can use in the workforce or (to) create their own businesses.” When UpCycle Ohio Thrift was owned by ReUse Industries, a non-profit organization, Erin Hogan, owner of Greendragon Thread, worked as a manager of the Community Makerspace and gained skills from the tools available. Hogan just recently opened her upcycle business, Greendragon Thread, in June of 2021. She sells upcycled corsets and fabric dragon sculptures crafted with clay accents, with beads primarily forming the horns, claws and teeth, Hogan said. “I learned how to sew in the theater department at Ohio University,” Hogan said. “We had to make a corset and a vest … I fell in love with it. It’s like a building project, lots
of metal pieces integrated. It has become my passion.” The logo of Hogan’s business is a green dragon, symbolizing being fierce, passionate and fighting for what is important in life. “I really want to create as many things as possible from the waste stream, making one of a kind, beautiful items,” Hogan said. Cricket Jones gave antique silverware a new life when she started making jewelry out of these pieces 14 years ago. “There was a spoon that I must have used to pry a window, and it was almost a ring … so I played with it a little,” Jones said. This became Jones’ first handmade spoon ring. Using her garage as a studio, she now curates silverware jewelry that can be found at flea markets and yard sales. Sustainability also plays a big role in her creations. “I was kind of a recycler my whole life,” Jones said. “We don’t need anything new. It’s really causing a lot of our environmental and even political problems.” Coral Marie is a one-woman team working out of a solar-powered studio that creates clothes from recycled, recycled cotton materials. Marie makes designs for her sus-
tainable brand from inspiration that comes from the land that she lives on. “I really pull a lot of inspiration from the flowers, the tree branches and the lighting outside,” Marie said. “I’m also a very emotive person. I’m very sensitive. Relationships are really important, too … that relationship to the place where we live, the things that move us to emotion. I think a lot of my design inspiration comes from that sensitive, emotive quality of a looker, a listener and a thinker of what’s around me.”
Read the rest of the article online by scanning the QR code!
NOW LEASING NEW BEGINNINGS APARTMENTS TOWNHOMES
& HOUSES
450
$
starting at
per person per month
1 12 to
bedroom units
• LOW SECURITY DEPOSIT • NO HIDDEN FEES • CLOSE TO CAMPUS & UPTOWN + MANY MORE EXTRAS!
IN EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD! OUrentals.com 740.594.9098 12 / SUMMER 2022
➤ Leasing 2023-2024