Eco-fashion does not sacrifice the beauty and aesthetic

Eco-conscious style has been a heaving trend around the world and fashion, which was often once portrayed as a wasteful enemy of the environment, is now evolving into an industry that sustains. Locally, a generation of designers seems to be rallying toward innovation and eco-awareness—from Oliver Tolentino’s award-winning couture frock made of piña fabric to Eairth’s plant and flower pigmented holiday collection. And Jacinto and Lirio is another recent addition to sustainable style’s burgeoning boosterism. Started in 2009, Jacinto and Lirio features fashionable and functional bags and accessories made from plant leatherette, specifically the water hyacinth or more popularly known as water lilies.

Founders Noreen Bautista and Anna Krystle Mariposa were both part of an enterprise development minor in college and had to create an actual business as a course output. While in search of ideas for the project, a trip to Laguna brought them to a livelihood project that utilizes water hyacinth.

Despite its sweet-sounding moniker, the plant is deemed pernicious as its overabundance can cause waterway clogging and turn into breeding grounds for mosquitos and pests, negatively affecting communities in the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. This resulted in an effort to rid the waters of the plant and, as Filipino ingenuity would have it, utilize them to create and sell native woven products.

For Bautista and Mariposa, though, there had to be something more than just weaving baskets and mats out of the plant. “At last, we were introduced to this water hyacinth leather by local innovators and it instantly amazed us. This is what you call Filipino Ingenuity! We saw the potential for the high-end fashion market. Hence, this led to the creation of Jacinto and Lirio, which actually means ‘Hyacinth and Lily’ in Spanish,” recounts Bautista.

According to Jacinto and Lirio, each stylish piece is crafted from a mix of materials to give it a modern look, with at least 50 percent of the end product made from water hyacinth leather. The bags cost about P3,000 to P5,000 and aims to target a new breed of consumers they call the Social Socialite. Says Bautista, “We are witnesses to a new kind of woman, a fashion forward woman whose social and environmental convictions are second to none—the birth of a responsible consumer who takes into account more sophisticated motivations with his or her purchases.”

Manila Bulletin:  What is the difference between leather and leather made from a water hyacinth? Do you think that it is as durable as the commonly used leathers made from animals?

Noreen Bautista: We chose it because it was the first one we encountered and we saw the need to utilize the plant because of the many livelihood programs that can benefit from our market. But we recognized that there are several attributes to the material, but we do recognize there are other plant materials that we can use to derive more innovative uses from. Technically the processes to make water hyacinth leather and animal leather are entirely different. But what sets the similarity is the look of both materials. Aesthetically, the plant leather look is already a breakthrough, but we are looking forward to more research and development with the local innovators to make the material better.

MB: Did you ever feel that being an eco-friendly brand makes it hard to produce a piece that is stylish and trendy due to the limited materials at your disposal? Do you think the world of eco-friendly fashion creates a lot of opportunities for innovation?

The eco-fashion trend is really big globally. Europe especially has a strong preference toward eco-fashion. Although the wave still isn’t strong in the Philippines, it will eventually be bigger. But it has to be noted that just because you’re eco doesn’t mean you can’t be fashionable.

Eco-fashion does not sacrifice the beauty and aesthetic. We make sure our bags are made with elegant designs and that is actually what the customers see. People are growing in consciousness of being environmentally sustainable, but they still want to have beautiful products. So our brand must holistically incorporate both. As for the innovation, definitely a lot of innovation can happen for eco-friendly fashion. Just the idea of getting design inspiration from our natural resources invites many opportunities for innovation. As we mentioned, for example, it’s not only the water hyacinth that we can process to be made like leather. We have an abundance of plants that can be made into such a material as well.
 
MB: You also contribute to a special livelihood program of the Cora Cares Foundation. Can you tell us more about this? How did this partnership come about?

Jacinto and Lirio bags are made by women under the training of Cora Cares Foundation, which was founded by Cora Jacob who is known around the world as the “Indigenous Genius.” For 40 years now, Cora Jacob has been designing world-class handbags and accessories. But more important, Cora Jacob has changed the lives of many women migrant workers around the world by providing them with livelihood and training of quality goods.

We started this collaboration when we presented to Tita Cora our business idea. Being passionate with indigenous materials, she agreed to do the designs and that’s when we encountered the equally passionate women who are now expert bag makers in her foundation. We are also closely coordinating with water hyacinth communities who we will be our main suppliers for the leather-like material. We sponsor their training and we treat them as business partners so we can build a mutually beneficial supply synergy for our brand.