Brooklyn’s Sustainable Design Boom: 10 Eco-Friendly Designers To Know Right Now
Swati Argade of Bhoomki
Bhoomki, 158 5th Ave., Park Slope
With her Park Slope boutique Bhoomki (and its motto “Ethically Fashioned”), Swati Argade has carved out a niche as both a member and major booster of Brooklyn’s sustainable design community, selling her own designs as well as other local, ethically-minded designers (including just about every other person mentioned on this list). After making her own designs for a decade using artisan fabrics made in India, Argade opened up her shop in 2012, and says, “I thought this neighborhood was really ready to embrace sustainable fashion. We ended up opening soon after the first Bangladesh disaster [the second being the 2013 Rana Plaza building collapse], when there was a huge fire right around the same time Sandy hit. Because there was so much talk about that—the fact that people were really dying for our clothes—people were coming in and were very much ready to have that conversation.”
Argade adds, “The design community here is so incredibly supportive. We all share resources, whether it’s names of factories, sample makers, fabric suppliers for sustainable fabrics. Luckily, there are manufacturers in Brooklyn and Manhattan that are really servicing local designers—if you’re not making things in the thousands, places overseas won’t even look at you. We’re all excited to get the word out that you can do really quality design, it can be affordable, it can support local manufacturing.”