 Again, hello, my name is Shira Ganz. I am the senior executive director of policy of programs here at the mayor's office of media and entertainment. For those of you not familiar with our office, we are the agency in New York City government that supports the creative industries. These industries represent over half a million jobs and more than $150 billion in economic activity. So this is very important to the city. One way we do this in addition to us permitting all of on location filming in New York City is we've created NYC Film Green as a way to try to promote sustainable film production. Part of that is we create resources like tonight's events as well as many others that we will soon be rolling out on our website to support productions in the city who want to take steps to reduce their environmental impact. We will put in the chat the website and you can keep an eye on it as we've started to update the program and we'll be rolling out that new design shortly. So without further ado, I'd like to hand it back to Anna Laura for our topic tonight about sustainable costume design. Thanks everyone. The costume industry is an inherently wasteful industry. And that includes the costume industry. It's estimated that a typical film or TV drama will, it will use more clothing than the average person in their lifetime, and we'll produce more waste in a week than the average household in a year. Costume design and costume design and production are linked to the global fashion industry, which produces 8 to 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions. In New York City every year the municipal garbage is filled with 1.4 billion pounds clothing and other textiles that could have otherwise been reused or recycled. The global textile industry has a huge social and environmental impact with the majority of textiles in the world produced in developing countries producing significant social and environmental impact. The manufacture of textiles requires an abundance of natural resources, land use, water, trees, energy, crude oil, producing an immense amount of carbon emissions, producing immense carbon emissions, pollutants and waste. And as a massive consumer the costume department has the capacity to use tremendous buying power to operate in far more socially and environmentally responsible manner. And truly change the industry for the better. So I'm being told that my voice is really low. I'm going to try to speak louder but I am definitely speaking loud. Please keep saying in the chat if you can't hear me. I'll try to speak even louder into my mic. So, Noel if you want to go back to slide I just want to explain the circular economy a little bit, or forward a slide. There we go. So, we require a significant shift from a linear economy model to a circular economy. The standard approach has been the linear economy where we take materials out of the ground to use them to make products and we throw those products away. We're now seeing a shift away from the wasteful and polluting approach and moving towards a circular economy. This is an economy where products are designed to not become waste to keep them in use and where we restore and protect our natural world and resources. And it focuses on how we manage resources, how we make and use products and what we do with the materials afterwards. In this way, the lifecycle of a product is extended. And regarding the costing department, we have the opportunity to promote and spur their circularity by sharing, by leasing, reusing, remanufacturing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing products as long as they can to prolong the life cycle of a variety items used in performances. And so what's important about examining the life cycle analysis of the materials. The life cycle analysis is the act of measuring the environmental impact of a product or service throughout its life cycle from the resources used to create the product or service across its use by the user to its final end of life stages. And this helps us to understand how different products and services when designed differently to reduce the impact that we have on final. So that was just a little bit of an intro. And it will lead me into introducing our wonderful panelists for the night. I hope that you all can hear me better. Please feel free to let me know in the chat. So don't turn my head to the right. Let me see if I can move my laptop there. Maybe that'll help a little bit. Thank you for the input. Okay. So we have our lovely panelists. We are joined together together today by Kristen Ahern, Jennifer Berger, Taffer and Uali, Serge Lazarev and Helen Uffner. So Kristen is in 2018, Kristen founded Conscious Costume with a mission to educate and empower costume professionals by providing resources and community to galvanize a more ethical, inclusive and circular world. And through this work she's also hosted events with community groups, circular businesses and universities nationally and internationally. In 2019 Conscious Costume launched costume rentals to pioneer a new way to share costume resources as living art materials and shared events. Jennifer Berger is a personal stylist and costume professional in IOSC local US 829 and has been based in New York City for the past five years. Recently she was the costume coordinator for Pretty Little Liars Original Sins, and also somewhere in Queens, High Maintenance, Master and the Photograph. She's also an ambassador for the sustainable fashion organization Remake, which is a global advocacy organization fighting for fair pay and climate justice in the clothing industry. Taffer and Uali is a multimedia bio artist, social and environmental activist, costumer and storyteller, and her work challenges the need to use materials and methods that are non compatible with living systems. She is an Ontario green screen ambassador, she's a costume member of IOSC 873, Haftad and the Costume Society of America. She's also the co-founder of Sbiotics and Material Research and Design Studio in Barcelona. And her work with innovation in textile has received awards and mentorship from the European Commission, pairing and both business. She's also designed a course on sustainable costume design. Her research is the founder of Green Tree Textile Recycling, which is a nonprofit organization in New York City, with a mission to keep all unwanted post consumer textile materials from entering the waste stream. To maximize the benefits that come from recycling textiles for the environment and the community. They connect with fashion brands to arrange pickups and shipping of their textile recycling collected products. And the materials transferred to their sorting facility in the Bronx, where team members sort the garments for either re or for recycling. Helen Uffner is the founder of Helen Uffner Vintage Clothing and she's been recycling, renting, recycled and restored authentic 1860s through about 1980s men's women's and children's clothing and accessories to the entertainment industry for the past 45 years. Clients range from feature films to episodic TV to theaters across the country and abroad. And she has lost my place. So basically she rents these items, she stores items, and she keeps vintage items out of landfill. She works with theaters and designers who donate vintage pieces or well-made theatrical pieces in return for a monetary credit to the theater or designers. And you to developers Helen is now looking for a new face to continue the business, or a new business investor. So yeah, let's get started. Welcome panelists. All right, so I'm not sure what's going on with my volume apparently my volume not wonderful. Unless I restart my computer right now, I, I don't know what else to do. But hopefully you all can continue to hear me okay. Please let me know if that let's get started. So I want to get started with the costumers in the group we have Catherine we have Jennifer we have Christian. What does it mean for you to design for circularity. What does it mean, and how can we better design with circularity in mind. And that's a super broad question because there's actually so many little things that we can do in our department to design with more circularity in mind. Anywhere from like the more obvious which is like you know taking into account like shopping secondhand and vintage to using like more natural chemicals and dies in our processes to sourcing more sustainable textiles and natural textiles for building and even like down to the chemicals and the packaging that we use for washing laundering our clothes. Yeah, to all the garment bags that we use like what like sourcing different alternatives for those plastic bags that we use like millions of. So I think it depends on your practice and like what you're already implementing in your department and just starting small and like making those like a virtual habit in your department and then building up from there so there's lots of options which is the exciting part. Those are great points. Any other inputs from the other questions. I mean, absolutely echo everything that Catherine said, I think the other question that I often asked people to reflect on is does that piece actually need to be built from scratch. I think there's a lot of pressure to build something new and that that is sometimes seen as being a more authentic design that's that's more yours because you designed that garment but I kind of push back against that and say we're costume designers were not garment designers. And by saying that you know you designing the garment from scratch is more valid. That's that saying that a shop's design contemporary design is less valid than a period or historic or fantasy design and I don't think that's true I think that's a, that's, you know, not not our craft. We're evaluating sort of where the different pieces could come from and instead of just defaulting to building. I was just going to add. I think like thinking about the circularity part of things like at the very beginning of your process and like thinking about the end use like at the beginning is like pretty important like when you're buying things, like buy better quality maybe so that it can be like reused over and over again, or rented out or something like that. And also, as of notes. Yeah, I think in renting in general, like if you just rent in the first place you don't have to buy it and then you can just like give it back at the end and then you don't have to worry about it at all. I think just keeping that in mind. And like you guys also said yeah all those little things really add up. And I think like this conversation is just important, like every little thing matters. Anyway, so, yeah. Those are all great points thank you. And along those lines. How do you source those those materials that are better for the initial, you know, where do you rent where do you source sustainable materials to make into those designs. Again for the costumers. Speaking about New York City, specifically I don't have that particular scope and or lens so I can start more broad and maybe you can like narrow in on your practice there in New York. Definitely like there's sources, aside from like just looking at like local craft shows which I think are cool to just like. First of all, connect with your local designers like who you can support their work it's like zero kilometers zero kind of sourcing which is like ideal. And having them like assist you and support you in making pieces or like sourcing or like leave that part of the state that's what they do is like sourcing where they're sustainable like brands that they have. You can also look at some really good websites like good on you or the good trade. If you're uncertain you're a shopper because they have huge lists like you can just type in as sustainable underwear, you know like things like that you basics that you like more specific like jeans or like outerwear or like you know anything and they'll give you a run through of like all different brands pros and cons where they're sourcing brands who say certain things that they're doing but they're not actually adhering to them so they're really really good online resources, as well as the costume directory because they're like global, so you can actually search on there at anywhere that you more or less like any hub in the world. There's some kind of brand that you can source locally that is doing some sustainable either sustainable designs or like textile recycling or like crafting hubs. So yeah that's those three are really good for buyers and designers. That's great. Feel free to enter those into the chat I'm sure many, many people would like to know about those directories. Kristen, Jennifer, do you have any other. I was going to add, as a remake ambassador remake also has a directory on their website and I was looking at it earlier today and there were even brands that I like hadn't really heard of before that they have like, you know gone through and they have really a list of like what they're doing well and what they're not doing so well, and kind of just you know as a broad look at the different aspects of sustainability and human rights and things too so I can put that in the chat as well. Yeah that's perfect. I thought about those like third party review reviewers and rating agencies because I think that they're so useful for us you don't have to do all the research yourself there's one place that you can look and someone has has done that. Because greenwashing is a huge problem. And like Catherine, I think that there's a lot of really great resources online. There's more than ever for second hand shopping online there's poshmark there's and Etsy is still great. So those are great resources for finding things second hand and Etsy Etsy and poshmark now both also have both have return or not return options they both have fabric options now they both have like a specific materials tab and then thread up can do return so I know returns are very important for a lot of designers so knowing that there's only one shop second hand and still return things I think is really helpful. And the other sort of more responsible choice that I encourage people to think about like if you are like if you have to buy the conventional thing you have to buy polyester you have to buy a plastic zip or whatever it is you have to buy the conventional thing. Consider buying it from a small business consider buying it from a black owned business a queer owned business like that's another way that we can have an impact with our budget. Even if we have to buy the conventional plastic cheap material, at least it could go to benefit someone in a community rather than a big box retailer. They're all really great insights thank you. But along that as well in sourcing materials and sourcing more sustainable. We do want to talk about renting costuming or costumes as well so Helen. Tell us a little bit about the work that you do with renting costumes and how many productions work with you. Oh my gosh, a lot I have to write it down because I can remember. What we do is we buy, or, you know, accept donations we restore, and we, we cover more than 100 years of clothing so if you're doing a period show, we also allow you to memo things take things on approval. So you don't have to rent them outright you can take them for fittings. And then what happens if something gets ruined, rather than even charging a replacement value will accept things that the production had bought for their production so then we can recycle those in turn. When we get things back that are no longer in good shape and we can't restore and then run to another production. So what we do is materials for the arts we donate to them, or we have a bin where we donate to schools or other productions that are low budget, that can perhaps make something out of something that partially fell apart but they can still make use of it. We also recycle everything we recycle tissue paper plastic bags hangers, and we often put on online when we have extras if any production needs them so we do that all the time. So that's an online discussion group. So production would come to you rent out all their costumes, and then return the costumes to you. Right, they'll either do that, or let's say we're doing two things that are out of town now. They'll tell us what we, what they need and they'll give us sizes and color palette. So we choose for them will take pictures, and then we'll send it to them on approval they're not obligated to take it. And then when they decide what they want then we write up the rental so we make it very easy for everybody. And so we do a lot in New York, but we do a lot out of New York as well. Good to know. Thank you. Sure. I have another question for the costumers. In your experiences and feel free to share certain case studies that that you've had, what have been some of the biggest challenges in pursuing sustainable alternatives in the costume department. You know, time or budget constraints at what are some of the biggest challenges, we can start with Jennifer. You're muted. Definitely time is a huge one. As we all know, like it's really like we never get enough prep time like during filming like things change constantly. And I'm like at the end, you know, people just want to be out of the building and as quickly as possible. It's really important to like, yeah, be aware of these resources at the beginning. And maybe like, even like before you like, to before you start the project even like necessarily like it's good to have these just at our disposal and like sharing it like we're doing, because like, in the moment, it's really hard to like take the time to research and like choose the best option sometimes for like materials and like also a part of it is like the design. And sometimes just finding the perfect thing at the right time that doesn't have to be like shipped super quickly, or is like local is just really challenging, because you mean the design is really important. Overall, I think that made sense. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So you would say the time constraints. I think the time constraints is the big one budget as well, obviously. And those kind of go hand in hand. But I think the time constraints is, is pretty, pretty essential. Yeah. Any other input. Oh, absolutely time I 100% agree with everything that Jennifer said, I could do it within the budget if I had more time. I just think we really are desperate for a big culture shift. I mean in theater and film but like also like in the world that like we expect everything to be instantaneous and it is, it is bad. You know, it is harming people it is harming us for like the stress and anxiety of trying to get this done, but also, you know, there's there's that idea that like someone is paying somewhere like just because we're doing it super fast and getting it. It is, it is causing harm. I think that the problem from my end is that more often than not productions have last minute needs. And they call us and they need things and they don't even have an actor yet. They don't have actor sizes. And that's really the fault of the production side, not of the costume designer they're just waiting. So it makes it very hard on the costume designer, and it'll also increase the budget because they need those things on set right away, whether they're going to fit the actor that they finally choose or not. I find that to be a difficulty for costume designers from my end. And I would say like, as far as using more natural materials like unless the aesthetic of the project that you're working on, like immediately shout you know like linen silks and all these things like people are very resistant to that you know there's like just a fetish of using like a lot of synthetics, which is fine if you're giving it a second life and you're sourcing things from like vintage, renting and like secondhand there's tons of really cool clothes that are made out there if we stopped producing clothes like globally today we could live until like, we could live like hundreds of years so with all the clothes that we have made so it's like we can make films for sure with secondhand and vintage and repurposing and upcycling fabrics and clothes. But yeah, like as far as like for builds and like for breakdown which is kind of like more what I was in doing the last few years, I just find that yeah like matching colors for like natural dyes, and it's like a more time consuming again process. So, again, like time consuming and like a specific vision in mind and so matching impossible things that only exist like in this one universe and then you're trying to get like 10 exact duplicates of that for like all of your action scenes. And sometimes like the quicker, cheaper, easier way is like the more toxic way unfortunately. It's yeah, it's like, it's exactly as Kristen said you, we need a massive shift in perception of like what our priorities are because it's also just also harming the workers and the people that break down artists and yeah it's incredibly powerful. I mean it can be extremely exploitative the labor practices and these these associated with the fashion industry we can have a whole conversation about that. But it sounds like budget and time constraints seem to be some of the biggest challenges. So, when you have spent potentially on some of your projects, a little bit more on, you know, seeking these all sustainable alternatives. How did, how were you able to navigate that into your budget. Where did you have a lot of hoops to go through. Jennifer, do you have any input on it. So yeah like what happens, a lot of the time as you kind of like go through the script and then yeah break down the budget and then you kind of like present it. And then it either you know gets approved or not or tweaked. And so like I think, like kind of like back what I said at the beginning like thinking about sustainability, when you're just like breaking down everything and like when you are presenting your budget in general. Or if you're given like a specific number like thinking about how that will go into all of your little things like the actual clothing, but then there's like cleaning costs to that could go up because you're trying to use like green or dry cleaners are, you know more effort goes into like the wet cleaning and stuff or laundry detergents and things like that. A lot of the time, like, I have broken out like shipping costs to and so like just putting, I guess more money into that shipping is obviously detrimental and like a not cost way to because getting things all over the place is really harmful. And but like sometimes you know you want to get that like rental thing that's in California. And so you might put like more shipping into your budget to get that like special thing to be reused again instead of just buying something on Amazon that's like free shipping. And I don't know and then I guess also someone was saying returns at one point like that kind of factors into the budget to because on a lot of the things I've worked on, we like over by right and then we have to return stuff to get that money back. And it's just it can be like, difficult. You know you want to choose like better companies where like, you might not, you know, like people throw things away a lot of the time for like returns or like it's just their logistics, you know can't necessarily keep up with the returns that like our industry might cause them. And so it's kind of being smart again in the beginning when you're like purchasing things. Because we have to do returns, but like maybe we can do a smarter way of, you know, like where we purchase things in general, to get that money back. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Yeah, definitely does. Cool. Definitely does. Yeah. Have you have has anybody ever sourced recycled fabrics from like companies like green tree recycling. And something that has been hard to do on, you know, again the time constraints I'm sure it's a little difficult to source these recycled materials to make a costume. But is that something that you that is ever something that you can wiggle into your costumes. I've sourced I've sourced from fab scrap before there's also a really wonderful vintage store in Brooklyn called Stella Dallas Stella Dallas living they do vintage, they have tons of vintage buttons and vintage fabrics which is just awesome. And so yeah I've definitely used recycled fabrics before I think it goes to being perhaps more open minded about what you're looking for you might not be able to find the perfect color or the perfect print because you have a smaller selection. So I think it's a great way to stick to something that is a second hand fabric. So, being like really clear on what you need for that design like, is it more important that it is floral or is it more important that it is light blue or whatever it is. Just, you know, having a broader design eye for it. And Jennifer thank you so much for bringing up the issue of returns. They do you think that's something we count on a lot in our budgets is always going to buy a whole bunch of stuff we'll try it on. So I think it's important that you have returns, again to sort of your major retailers are going in the, are going in the garbage they're going in the landfill, and I'm really sorry to be the bearer of bad news on that but it is. It is the case and we, we have become really dependent on that two day shipping and free returns to buy boxes and boxes of things and then return at all and it is, I don't know what the impact of just costumes is, but it's got to be massive just knowing, like the productions I've worked on. I mean, like I said at the beginning, the impact of the sustainable costume department is, or the costume department sorry is, is huge. And the amount, the volume is also huge so you can. A lot of those aren't even being used. It's just returns that are just ending up in landfill because a lot of these, they do not get sold again. And that's just the reality of it. I want to say something also that even though we went. I often buy things only because the pieces are beautiful. So we do sell a lot of trim like period trim if you want to build something. So we have buttons we have trim and lace and collars and things like that so we make we make that accessible all the time. I don't think a lot of people know about it but we do. Thank you. That's, that's great. Great information. Jennifer, you mentioned something when you, oh, sorry, yes Catherine. I was just going to say, if you are doing a lot of shows often like, or even like garments, I've sourced a lot of like recycled for instance fabrics from Econil and things like this for like active wear. So like, but I have like a big swatch book that they send so it's like nice to just have that instead of like buying a bunch of fabrics that you're potentially not going to use and just, you know, like keep those in your, yeah, in your folders and your binders. Yes, definitely. Yeah, so Jennifer, you mentioned wet and dry cleaning. So this is something that I had a question about. And I, maybe this is a question for the costume, but also Helen, because I know that you, you also have dry cleaning, wet cleaning services with your costumes. Are there aspects of dry and wet cleaning services that people and fellow customers should know about? Is there a preference? Jessica Helen, do you want to go ahead? For us, we prefer that obviously things like men's suits and woolen things be dry cleaned. Cottons and linens, believe it or not, this is how I spend my weekends, I'm at home cleaning things naturally with, you know, with natural cleansers and hanging them up all over my bathroom. So I prefer that, that, you know, especially early authentic pieces be hand washed, rather than dry cleaned over and over I think dry clean, dry cleaning tends to ruin fabrics, but some things have to be dry cleaned, even let's say crepe dresses or men's suits, things like that. We have no choice. But is there one that is potentially better or more sustainable? In terms of where one sends it, you mean? Well, I think it's natural cleaners, but it's not up to me. Unfortunately, it's the production that chooses where it goes. And very often, they don't necessarily go for the best, they go for the cheapest. That does bulk cleaning and you can ask the designers if that's so, but that's what I've noticed when it comes back. It depends. I've worked on some period shows where we've used wet cleaners. I mean, they've been like period shows with a lot of builds. Like it was rain. So, you know, it's like a kind of like gossip girl take on like Mary Queen of Scott. So it was like not really like proper period wear all the time. But yeah, it was like a really good service. The only thing is, I think it depends on the stains particularly like because oils are like not soluble in water and wet cleaning does involve some water. So it's like the difference between wet and dry cleaning. Dry cleaning is just like dry solvents. But yeah, of course, dry cleaning is like one of the most, I think you can find like more eco friendly dry cleaners. But you're, but there's still dry cleaners out there that use like for instance, Perk, which is like one of the most like carcinogenic volatile toxins that there are that exist. Yeah, just by very, very little exposure. It's like carcinogenic, like neurotoxins. Yeah, all the bad degenerative body things that you don't want to be exposed to. So, so yeah, the wet cleaning is a little bit better. It's not like all the all say sends like organic everything but it's definitely not using like the harsh chemicals that dry cleaning is. But again, like Helen said, like a wool suit. Yeah, you want to probably get that dry cleaned. Yeah, and I would just add to think, you know, the all the harmful chemicals that are in conventional dry cleaning there are did a little research into this a couple years ago and so I'm trying to like go back in my brain archive about that. But I think that there's two methods one uses CO2 instead of Perk one uses silicone like beads that that strip the sweat and grime off of it. But if you are trying to use like a green dry cleaner make sure that they tell you what the process is either on their website or they can answer questions about it, because I have seen so many dry cleaners recently just throw organic over it but they don't back that up with any information. They've just all of a sudden all their logos are in greens and have leaves and they're called like clean cleaners or something. There's a lot of greenwashing in the dry cleaning world so don't pay more for the same stuff don't pay more for branding. Yes, definitely. So you bring up greenwashing. But so you, you're constrained with budget and time. So if you have to purchase off the rack clothing. How do you minimize your impact or how can you minimize your impact if you have to go through that how do you avoid greenwashing. And then you look at labels that kind of thing. Kristen do you want to start that off. Yeah yeah I mean I think it's the stuff we mentioned earlier those third party rating systems remake good on you they're great. And again they do that work for you. If you're, if you're on the company's website and you're trying to find out what's going on. Again, always transparency. You know you don't want something that just says ethically made you want to see that it is fair trade or certified or or something really specific about what they mean. I honestly really respect companies that also talk about like their gap, like, okay, we've made this out of 50% recycled materials and we're hoping it's going to be 70% recycled materials by 2030 or whatever or you know we are working towards a living wage currently half of our stuff is still produced in Bangladesh and in not good factories but we are working on that and just being open with you as the consumer. So just always look for transparency and details. Great. I was going to say, yeah be careful of like the buzzwords like people you know you especially to circularity is a big a big one that kind of like Zara I think like came out with something recently, you know and then there's vegan. And like that a lot of time is just like plastic like you have to do, you know just use your brain and like use some research and like actually look at like what the materials are because there are companies out there doing really cool things. And even if you have like an actor that wants to be vegan, you know, it's really important to like, you know, honor their values and things but you also don't want to just put them in like a plastic dress, you know. So just, yeah just using those certifications and things those resources I think is really important. I just put a link in the chat for everyone the sustainable production toolkit is a wonderful guide and Laura Gaston who's the costume contributor to that guide created a really robust list of certifications that can help you know if something is real or if it's greenwashing. Yeah, also looking at like the fiber content if it's made from recycled fabrics like you're saying like you don't want to put somebody just like in a plastic dress or whatever but you know maybe that plastic dresses at least recycled so it's like at least one step better. And also if you're buying like a ton of stuff from like, you know, your big box stores. Just getting some samples first I think it's like super important and like getting approval instead of like buying a ton of things and then like trying to return them later. Like we're very guilty of over buying and I've just. Yeah, like often stuff ends up being dead stock because it just gets really busy nobody knows like, you know, there's nobody to even like do the returns and then you're like who's credit card was this on like, things go through the cracks and then you end up with like racks of random clothes that like don't have a use so yeah that's a very real thing that also happens on production so I think, especially if you're buying just because it's like cheap and it's like three for $5 or something which like in that in and of itself is like super alarming but but yeah just be mindful of like getting some samples getting approvals and being sure of what you're buying. It sounds that with, you know there's budget constraints but it sounds like it sometimes ends up being even more expensive, because you're buying so much. So, interesting. So looking at the best kinds of materials. What are the best quality materials for durability and I'll direct this question to Serge here because you know you're dealing with recycled fabrics or collecting these fabrics so what would you say are the most durable materials for longevity. So, in terms of a post post life when the when the garment can't be used as a garment anymore. The best materials are the pure materials such as cotton, or wool or cashmere, because then those materials can be used as other things down the line. For example, to give you cotton can either be made into wiping cloth and cashmere and wool can be respond right if you have a mixture of the materials it's really hard to break them down. And we do have an avenue for recycling of those materials. The materials that are natural have two or three lifespans right so you could use a wiping cloth once, twice, maybe you could wash it. And then after you're done using a swiper cloth you could bring it back to us again and, and the next time around it will just get shredded and become a part of textile insulation and now it could live in somebody's wall or ceiling for another 50 years as insulation, rather than have some kind of a petroleum based material which can't be used as a wiping cloth because it has no absorption. It can't be respond and it will it will still become as a part of textile insulation but just has one less use. And I think it's important to have as many uses as possible because, like you said, it's, it's a lot of overproduction of clothing and a lot of over shopping it. And an amount of waste that you mentioned in the beginning from textiles is enormous. It's just enormous and we deal with it every day, and it just keeps growing and growing. So, yeah, the best materials to get back to it is the materials that are natural, natural fibers cotton wool cashmere. Great. And can the costumers add any intel on, like, can you influence the materials that you're using on your productions, or does it always follow like a look instead. Catherine, do you want to add anything. I definitely influence the materials that are being used. Definitely, there's like a look and style but you're like co creating this you're pitching and so if you're good, you have like a good team of buyers are like you have a good resource of where you're getting like some. Even like for instance, if you wanted to I was talking to Gersha Phillips who's like the designer for Star Trek and we were talking about mushroom leather so that she tried for Star Trek. Because I work kind of in that field now of like making biomaterials. So yeah there's there's like avenues where you can try different things where like, you sometimes don't need to like you know get clearance for like having a certain look you just need to make the look really strong and pitch it and like have a story around it and that's, you know, like the new norm. So, perfect. You bring up biomaterials. What are some Catherine I'll direct this to you. What are some interesting materials that you that you've used in your designs with biological materials. So, I mean for like, I actually let's say I've only really use like natural dies that's like as far as that's gone in for more like art film and my own material research studio we've created algae based like bio plastics or like silicone kind of looking materials. So we made. Yeah, we've made like several different costumes with that material that we really like and also mycelium and bacterial cellulose which is like a scoby kind of material. There's all kinds of like weird things that are coming out there and they're definitely like more on the artistic side some of them but they're actually like companies that are doing this on a scale. And that I think are really good partnerships for the for us as customers because we can give them like visibility. And we can also give them feedback and like a smaller scale rather than them like producing things for mass market, you know, we're like, have a smaller scale they like sometimes have a shorter lifespan they have like very specific needs that they fulfill. And then we can say like okay this is like how this material is reacting now, and these are the kind of requirements are like the kind of feedback so that we will give you and so that's like a really good way that we can help actually advance that field it doesn't seem like related but I think it's like a really really good place for those bio materials to be tested. Actually, there's also one brand called skitter, and they are like a plant based water repellent spray, and they specifically partner with I date partnered with our costume department. Because they wanted feedback from our department to know like how their product was. Yeah, how their product was acting reacting with different textiles and in different scenarios, so that they could move on to their next production past like proof of concept and minimal viable products so. Yeah, that's, and yeah if you're interested in that skitter, I can pop the link on there as well so so yeah. Thank you. Have there been other interesting recycled materials that you've used into your costumes for the other costumers as well. Kristen Jennifer. Just a lot of cardboard. I think that's been more in like weird structured things and puppets type those type of envelopes are really good if you're doing something like costume craft focused. I feel like it's more in crafts that I've, I've found. Interesting upcycled materials I also want to shout out an organization in Chicago, called the waste shed they're creative for use center like materials for the arts, and every winter they do. There's a disco where you get like a surprise box of materials and you have to create a look with it, and it's been really fascinating seeing what people create with some of the very strange materials because some of it is conventional like, you know fabric and stuff that's been donated but a lot of it is very strange and seeing what the artist do with it is just a really good source of inspiration for how something could be used. That's interesting. And now, looking towards the afterlife of these costumes, and after they've been used. What have you done with these with these or what have been some methods for dealing with these costumes. Catherine you mentioned that sometimes there's racks of clothing that you can't return so what do you do to promote, or what have you done on your, on your sets to promote circularity. Well, there's, there's a lot of avenues I think you can take your depends like what it is that you have. Yeah, you can definitely share with other productions in your union. Let them know like hey send this out to like all the costume department members we have all these racks of, I don't know, white, extra large fruit of building t shirts random but like anyone can use that you know what I mean so like surely somebody else is doing a production somewhere that can take that off your hands, and you can like mediate their what price for that. You can also. Yeah, like donate them to a vintage store or second hand store and get some credit from for your next production or like if you're ongoing like just for the next period of time. Yeah, yeah those are a couple of things that you can do but there's there's really a ton of things that you can do if you're like on Facebook groups as well like Helen was mentioning, it's also like costume queen. You can just, yeah you can just let people let people know what you have like someone will take it someone will use it like let's keep it in. Let's keep it in the department. I feel like thinking outside of costumes your by nothing group your free cycle group I've gotten rid of so many fabric scraps that way I had like a mom who just wanted glittery things for kids to play with during the pandemic I got rid of a couple bags that way. You know any way you can find for it to be reused rather than recycled is is a better choice. To say, I've used a lot of times like donate NYC website like the directory. I can stick a link in there but it's really helpful for finding like shelters like just like places around New York City that will actually use on the items instead of just like Salvation Army or you know goodwill that are going to like resell it. And yeah, that's important I can find that link. I'm going to say exactly that Jennifer I think that's super important there's one that I've used in Toronto called close off your back and it's similar like if you can find like shelters or anything like this there's also some organizations that work with people that are like, don't have the resources to get like new outfits for interviews and for like getting jobs. One here is called just for success and I'm sure there's like similar things all over wherever your hub is. Are you ever able to potentially store the costumes as well is there like somewhere you can store them and keep them for further productions. So that's sort of what conscious costume was our rentals was founded to do was you know I so the Chicago Grand Theater Alliance does a costume swap every year, but they're always like bags and bags of stuff left over afterwards. So the conscious costume sort of came into like fill that gap because you know often there'd be people a few weeks later going, I wish I grabbed that because now I know that I need it. So, I'm keeping some of those things in the ecosystem, I will say from like a circularity perspective we have more people who like to use it to get rid of things than to source things and I am, you know if there's anyone here who is designing a show, we are but also if you are designing a show in Chicago we're local to there. So, yeah, trying to provide storage because I talking to other costume professionals that was always the issue with storage that if we were pulling it you know sometimes it was in a director artistic directors basement and it was very unorganized and hard to find things. Wouldn't it be great if we had like this great shared space like space was what we really needed. And that's that's something I'm aiming to provide a bit of a bandaid for at least in one small region. Yeah I feel like a lot of costumers are anyone in film would would benefit from just being able to store their things. I'm working on a project right now to create like an app or a website or something where you can sort of upload pictures of everything that you have and like sort of have decentralized storage but like better insights into what everyone has you don't have to go to the Facebook group and go does anyone have this or that but like there's a community that you can hopefully search as easily as you can search, you know, an online store and get a sense of like okay these are all of the size 32 tux pants within 10 miles of where I am right now. It is very much a work in progress but hopefully something that will exist because it's, I think it would be a really cool way to share our resources and decentralize that storage. And quickly that's often how a lot of rental stores or rental houses have started it's just like actually costume designers that have kept all their kids, and then sometimes they've partnered up with other costume designers will have kept their kids and then they like get a space and they start renting and then it grows and yeah there's a lot of that there's some more like modern ones also I think that are starting to pop up which is kind of cool. It's six o'clock. So that does end the panel part. But maybe I'll just close it off with before we get to the questions. You all have offered so many great valuable options for costumers to pursue sustainability. If they're constrained with time if they're constrained with budgets, what would you say is like the one thing, like the, the, if they can only do one little thing on their next show. What would you say should be the top priority person do you want to start. Oh, it's really hard. I think. Just try to source one more thing sustainably than you did last time. And you know if you've already, if you've never done anything before, if you've never prioritized sustainability. Just do it once just pick one costume and say I'm going to try to find this is it shoes is it undershirts is it socks I mean undershirts and socks and undergarments are relatively easy to find a more ethically produced option for. So yeah just get started stop stop letting perfection be the enemy of progress and just get started wonderfully put wonderfully put. Everybody else wants to add anything to that we can Catherine. I want to go off of the clothes thing and say bags like bring your own bags if you're a shopper or like buy the reusable bag of the store if you just like want to save face with the store when you're doing returns. There's a lot of stores like sax has their own reusable bags, like debate like all of these places they all normally are doing that it's like pretty contemporary practice at all these big box stores have like their own bags so that, and also like, don't throw away big blocks and shoe bags and boot bags because you use them once and they look kind of ugly like nobody cares just use them until they're fully like you need to throw them out because that's also a thing for sure the amount of plastic that we use is insane. Yeah, I would say and I and Kristen's idea is great by the way but I would say if you're doing a show. Don't be afraid to contact other small theaters to ask if they might have done that show and they might have exactly the items you're looking for and you won't have to build anything from scratch, and you can recycle something that's already existing. Amazing. Like Kristen said work in community amazing. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much panelists. I see lots of questions have been put into the chat. Jen, do you want to open up the questions or haven't been able to follow the questions. Yeah. I can, I just, I can read off the questions. Hold on let me just. So, we have one. I'm sorry that I that we got earlier how can the city help facilitate the deacquisition process at the end of a production. So any comments or suggestions from our from our panelists. Most welcome. I mean from what I understand. I think that FAB scrap was the foundation of FAB scrap was partially funded by city money. Because there are certain requirements and restrictions of how much fabric waste can go in a dumpster for that textile producers and government producers in New York. So that that circularity exists because the city said enough waste is enough waste. So I think. A lot of people are sort of against regulations, but I think by saying you have to be responsible for what you're getting rid of a government can have an influence on this. Yeah, I would say just research who are the textile recyclings in your area and in contact them and most 99% of the time they'll be willing to accept merchandise that you have. And I would note on what Kristen said as well, ab scrap. The fee that you pay for recycling with them is like, you can get a tax receipt for that, because they're like a non for profit. So you can actually get that money back, which like for productions is a big deal all the tax breaks that you can get so that's a way that you can advocate in your budget for these kinds of processes like oh well, you can get a tax break actually recycling our, our scraps. Well that's great. I do see another question that's come in from begonia Bergus. My name is begonia Bergus I would like to ask which organization you would suggest to dispose of clothes that are no longer usable recyclable or fixable like pieces that are stained with lots of fake blood cut for SFX rigging or have been heavily distressed. Yeah, I would answer. Yeah, it's this is very complicated because in order to recycle clothing for our process in order to to make clothing into textile insulation, the materials have to not not be contaminated such as fake blood and paints. So if it's slightly contaminated it's okay, but but if it's, if the whole cloth is like covered in heavy paint that material is no longer valid for textile insulation. I don't know how you would recycle that. This is this is something we deal with all the time you know materials come in and the things are many things are very complicated to deconstruct right whether whether it's paint stains, or they have too many zippers buttons or just too many materials. So that you run into an issue of you know how much time is it going to take to pull off all the stuff and put it into separate categories. And what kind of volume are you going to get out of these categories so the textile recycle accepted no, and when you store it, it's very, it's very complicated situation. If it's slightly stained, it can be done, but if it's if it's heavy, if it's heavy stain, we can't do any other comments. I was going to say I think that's where like rental houses and costume places can come in handy again because like we do all kind of need those distressed garments and especially if it's not like super identifiable or something like, I'm pretty little liars we had a whole like background, you know, seeing where they were all has to be a little bit dirty and things and then we ended up joining that to a new costume rental upstate. I think they're called tool bitties shout out, but I don't know I think that's also where like last those can come in if you like have a big rack of things that I mean are super specific for you know being shot or whatever. Possibly that could be reused by somebody else and they don't have to go through the trouble of like distressing it themselves to and that just goes back to like being in community and like conversely it's not easy, I guess, but there are ways to use it that way I guess. Yeah, I mean we have and I'm sure us other costume places like the one upstate we have a whole distressed section. So it makes it easy if you're doing, you know, a poor scene in the 1930s and the depression. It's always good to have that we don't need everything that's perfect. So I'm sure that other costume places will accept that as well. Yeah, we accept distressed things, but going off of what Helen says, you know maybe don't create a new distressed thing from the beginning if you can avoid it, but rent something that's already distressed distress in a way that can be undone, depending on what the thing is like try to be conscious about how you are permanently changing the garment and think about that we use from the beginning so you're not getting to the end going oh I have all of these blood soaked things, I guess they're garbage. Those are great answers. I had a question on that sorry it's Jennifer here. My camera doesn't seem to be working right now but just on what you guys were saying on that. What is like, you know, do you ever in your decision making for these types of things like buying distressed or, or, or, you know, doing the distressing yourself what what are the kind of cost implications of choosing either one of those. It's typically cheaper to get something already distressed, because labor is sort of the most expensive part of things. I don't I don't know for sure, and it certainly depends in many cases on the length of how long you need it for the length of the rental and if you need to do anything to it so, as with anything it's very complicated and very unique to every situation. Okay, we have another question. Are there suggestions, and this is from Alice Tiffany she's are one of our own at Earth Angel suggestions for alternatives to plastic shoe and garment bags. And if preferably clear. Yeah, there is a company that you can actually call or email and contact them for samples because they also are trying to partner up with like costume departments and with film called simply stem. There are compostable garment bags and shoe bags, but I would say also as far as like, I mean, not like the best but like for bags also like sometimes onion bags so you can like reuse they're like more reusable than plastic clear bags. They have and as well like if it's just like garment bags using at least like the vinyl but like zip bags that you can like continue to reuse or just like more sturdy and also you can store your garments there for wrap. So, yeah, that's those are my. Yeah, that's it. Great, thank you. Any other options for alternatives. Okay. So did we have any other questions that were posted in the chat. No, we just had a couple of comments. I don't know if everyone can see them but we had a comment from Jean Jean shrink, who said that they have had fairly good success washing in an agitator less top loading washing on a hand wash cycle with some stuff that I used to send to dry cleaner so that seems like another, you know, more friendly option than and then going to the cleaners and probably a little bit less. And also Aaron from fab scrap has also included their website in there so please check that out and and sounds like they have a bunch of textile waste fabrics that people can source on the using the washing machine for hand wash things. Plays to contemporary clothing but there's a lot of contemporary clothing that will say dry clean only on it. Because the manufacturer does not want to give more detailed washing instructions because if you ruin it because you choose to wash it a different way then they can't be blamed or then the dry cleaner can be blamed like so much in your closet is probably dry clean only that will be fine on a gentle cycle like I've seen so many like nit polyester tops that for some unknown reason is dry clean only it will be fine. I've been experimenting on my own what the boundaries are of this dry cleaning caveat. And everything's turned out fine in my regular washer. Yeah, I would advocate for an air dry. Don't don't throw it in a dry. Yes, definitely. Yeah, and then we just had another question about, can you say the name of the garment bag and shoe bags, the plastic bags that you were talking about. Yeah, thumb in the chat simply stem STM, E M STM stem. Yeah, really great chat, really great comments in here. There's so many resources that were shared by everybody amazing simply some perfect. Does anybody else have any other questions. Please, please put them in the chat. These are the experts. Okay, we have one more question. How do you all feel about digital receipts over paper receipts as a way of being more sustainable. I can talk about it, I guess, I actually haven't really used digital receipts that much but in just because in my brain as a coordinator on like lots of projects, the physical paper does just make more sense to me it's easier to just like hand a PA the receipt envelope to go to returns. I feel like, sort of like, you know budget wise there's going to be a lot of room for error digitally and I would love to see at anyone else's like suggestions on programs that could do that, like streamlined and stuff but I don't have a lot of experience of it. But I think physically for me makes more sense in my brain, but I hope to see, you know, that expanding in the future, I guess. So I generally prefer digital receipt actually, unlike, unlike Jennifer. And so paper receipts not actually paper it's actually plastic. It is a heat receptive plastic paper looking material. So it's not recyclable. So don't put your seats in the recycling because they are not actually paper. And so for that reason I prefer digital. But there is also sort of the balance of digital items is digital artifacts still does have a very real world footprint if it exists on the cloud it actually exists on a server somewhere. So it does have a physical impact. So there is, again, there's always like a balance and a trade off. But yeah I do prefer digital I organize my life much better digitally I am responsible with receipts and I've tucked them places and I go oh I'll put that in the file later and then I don't. And so for that reason I prefer digital because I can, I can always find it. Yeah, we, we also, we give out a lot of tax deduction receipts, and they only digital and unfortunately we get some of the older population complain that there's no printer and there's, they don't know how to fill it out. You can't find it, but you don't even need to print it, you just follow it right to your accountant. And I think it just less waste for everybody for us in our, in our category. You know, so it depends if you like how your productions do accounting, because sometimes you do, you end up doing both like you end up getting like all the paper seats and then you have to upload everything to like sync on set or like cashier or like one of these like digits so you have to take pictures of the receipt anyway to like put it up there and it's like, or you get the digital receipt and then you have to print it. Exactly or the opposite way around so like somehow it ends up being like you're doing both both things. So yeah streamlining that process would be fantastic I like accountants help us because I think it's also it's not that's not just a costume department situation that's like a more entangled involves a lot of other people. I think it's hard for costume departments we email all our receipts, but when we get items back they don't send everything back at the same time so they print on paper, and then circle the items they're sending back and sometimes they print it multiple times because they're they're they're sending back other items from that same sheet. So it's a lot of waste of paper unfortunately but I can't think of an easier way for them to do it. So we keep the paper and then we slice it and we turn it over and we use it as a scratch pad I mean it's the most that we can do, but it would be hard, I think for productions to work only with digital receipts. Thank you for all your inputs. We have another question that has come through. Do designers in this panel ever included carbon footprints in their costume designer contracts as a way to offset the pollution that the fashion and movie industry creates. And also do they know of any designers that have done it. I know it's not the perfect solution to the problem but do they find it's worth it as a way to help offset our damage to the environment. And this is also from begonia for guests. Thank you for your question. It's really, really hard to measure I've never included it in a contract before but so my my head shot that that we used was from a puppet project that I did a number of years ago, that I tried to do carbon offset for the performance. And it was just like such a tiny little sliver that like it was barely even measurable. But measuring your individual impact is really, really tricky and I've never included it in a contract for that reason. Has anyone else. I have not either but I do know that I believe it was like this one of the Spider-Man the one of the later Spider-Man movies actually like one quite a few words for sustainability and like their carbon calculations and like environmental profit and loss. There's a lot of case studies on that one so one of the things is like actually having somebody be like a sustainability PA or sustainability coordinator for the production. You can get one for the costume department and you can like budget for that amazing, because I think it needs to be in tandem with like a professional corporation or company who does that work like caring for instance who does like environmental profit and loss or there might be somebody here like also the Ontario green screen does like carbon calculator or like Albert so it depends I mean I don't I don't actually don't know what it is in New York but I like there's there must be a service there for that does carbon carbon calculation for productions. Yeah and I think calculating it on the production level is probably going to be a lot easier than measuring it on an individual design level just because it is. It's a bigger impact there's more numbers to start adding together. And as a reminder the green production guide does offer the pair tool, the production environmental accounting report. And it's offered at anybody can access that through the green production website. And it's offered free of charge and you can plug in some of the biggest impact areas of your production. It doesn't include materials for like costuming. But fuel use energy use transportation. Those are those can all be measured and it gives like a rough estimate of your carbon footprint. But I think it all comes down to like any little action it still counts right. You know, just starting somewhere and then getting the ball rolling to minimize your impact is super important. One thing that I do one thing that I do because you know carbon footprint is sort of a is it is a tricky tool for measurement, especially for us is I do something called my conscious budget where I do like case studies of individual productions and I just sort of do a quick one to one ratio of conscious sources so anything where I tried to be just a little bit more sustainable anything secondhand anything rented anything from a small business etc. Versus conventional sources and just like look at that as a percentage of like how well I did during a production, because then I can sort of measure for myself, the, the ethical footprint the sustainable footprint etc. Because, again, applying carbon to clothing, it can be really really tricky. I just put in the chat, the link to the blog that has a few of those examples there. Yeah, for sure and there's also a lot of indirect emissions with clothing right like all the downstream where how it was produced every single separate material. So yes it can be quite challenging to measure the the carbon footprint of costumes. It was really discouraging like honestly when I started thinking like oh this is something I want to measure it was just so hard to do that I felt really discouraged which is why I kind of like made my own measurement tool that like actually, I feel like reflects my choices, you know, in a more tangible way for me. I think also a fun one, it's not related to like, I think it is related like if you do your individual closet and you like understand what's happening at like the level of your closet and then you like go to work and look at like how much you're buying there and like what kinds of things you're doing, especially if you're a designer or buyer or somebody who like influences the looks and like the fabrics and the chemicals and whatever that are used on a show. Yeah, doing, I think, just understanding like your own carbon footprint or like your own environmental profit and loss, you can do those at an individual level like the red up which is like a second hand online shop has a really easy and fun one and then like this amount of clothing or like your habits like equal these amount of flights around the world or like I don't know so it's like a way to like conceptualize since we're such visual people, you know what that actually means in real world terms and not just a lot of numbers. And I mean I think that's also where it's important to look at the life cycle analysis of every single piece of clothing that you buy, are you buying it from somewhere overseas are you buying it from where you know to bring it over to you is has a higher carbon output than buying it from your local vendor. Is it made from a polyester is it made from a cotton. That all contributes to the overall carbon footprint as well. We have some comments, so they were just. Okay, great, their comments were into the chat more resources. Great. And that I guess, if there's no other questions. I guess that concludes the question and answer period with the panelists. Thank you so much for all of your valuable insights all of your experience in this, in this with this topic. Oh, it very appreciated thank you so much to everyone else that also came into to listen into these panelists. Well, welcome to stick around for our office hours portion of this of this office hours event where anybody can just open up and ask any kinds of questions pertaining to sustainable production. We have many earth angel staff on hand as well to offer answers to any of your questions it doesn't necessarily have to pertain to the costume department. We're ready to plug those into the chat as well. And we can answer, or if you come up with another question for the panelists. Please, please answer or please enter those into the chat. But yes, thank you so much panelists. Do either of you have anything that you'd like to share any final, any final lasting comments on how to be a more sustainable costume department. I like Kristen said just do one little thing it's like overwhelming to think of the impact that we have like negatively and to just be like well it's just too overwhelming like I would just want I don't know where to start so I'm not going to do anything. Like just do one thing like even I don't know but bring your own coffee cup or your own bags like little things and then like just slowly start doing all the other bigger bigger projects. And that starts catching on you know you mentioned the coffee mug for example and I know when I was in grad school like I was the only person my first year who brought my coffee my own coffee mug to the coffee shop when we would take coffee breaks. And by my third year, everyone was bringing them. And so you don't necessarily know how quickly those ripples will go out but they will have it. Yeah, those are great points just start somewhere start little, and then it just becomes a habit. I think that before you think of a way to recycle it or reuse it. Yeah, the importance of buying items that can be disassembled and reused as well. Perfect. Do we have any, any chat, any questions from anybody participating anything general sustainable production comments questions. Yeah, I can say that I had a client last week and she told me she had worked on a Broadway show. And when the show closed they said just get rid of the clothes and she just couldn't do it so she took them all to her house of state. And then later found out that they were revitalizing this show somewhere else as she rented the entire production. There's really no place in New York that can house these things and that's that's really a shame I'm not necessarily we will house the vintage things but there, there are no places to house, you know, the, the costumes and themselves, or to, I don't know where you can donate them unless you know you know donate them to, to TTF. But other than that I don't know where to go you know they could be sent to Kristen, but it would be nice if they were continually recycled and there was some kind of a listing of places where where items from shows could go if the producers had no idea where to send them. Yeah. Maybe that'll be in the works soon enough. Maybe we'll have a resource for that. So we're there don't seem to be any other questions. So I really just want to thank the panelists thank you so much for participating for contributing contributing your time for giving your insights. And thank you so much to mom and to the NYC film green program for hosting this workshop and spreading information on how we can all just be better for the environment, specifically in terms of the film and TV industry. Our next workshop. Oh yes, and these are some tips and resources that on the page. Some tips from the green production guides peach. This on in terms of sustainability in particular, but then some some resources in the New York City area in terms of textile donations. And how where to rent here's Ellen after vintage store, but then also guides on how to be more sustainable as well. As a reminder, this session has been recorded, and it'll be posted to the NYC film green web page. So you can watch it as many times as you'd like. And also our next off office hours will be on January 31. And it'll be on sustainability on screen. It'll be about normalizing sustainable choices and actions for our audiences. We'll talk about green storytelling and we'll talk about you know green product placement on screen as well. So please stay tuned for that event and feel free to join us. I'm sure it'll also be incredibly insightful. Take a screenshot of the screen as well for these tips that you can introduce into your own clothing choices or even how to wash it properly. And again, thank you so much. And I guess that concludes our office hours and have a lovely, lovely evening and rest of the week. Thank you so much. Thank you for organizing this. Of course, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for coming. And thank you again to all the participants as well. It's our pleasure.