Hemp: The Super Fiber of the Future

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What’s in your underwear? Have you really thought about it? You should. The fabric around our most sensitive skin could be negatively impacting our health in a big way. Instead of cheap, toxic fabrics, we should be focusing our energy on incorporating strong, sustainable fabrics like hemp into our most worn garments.

On a recent episode of The Darin Olien Show,

I sat down with the genius fashion designer, Jeff Garner. Jeff grew up on a horse farm in Tennessee, loving all things natural. He would frequently wear hand-me-downs passed down from his grandparents, and used those pieces to inspire new designs. 

His friends may not have shared his passion for fashion, but they indulged him by letting Jeff design their rock and roll inspired outfits. As Jeff’s talents became harder to ignore, he quickly shone in the world of couture. 

Hemp is Fashion

Today, Jeff displays his unique style in the sustainable, non-toxic outfits of Prophetik, his fashion line. One of the main components in his designs is hemp.

“Hemp is the super fiber,” he says.

It’s durable, non-toxic, naturally anti-microbial and anti-fungal and just feels good on the skin. Jeff’s line of hemp boxers could help change the industry for good, but he feels people are turned off for one reason: price. 

“People are addicted to cheap price points,” he says. And it’s true. Think about it. Are you willing to spend $40 on a pair of underwear? Before this conversation I had with Jeff, I might have said no myself. We’re used to buying our $10 pack of undies from the big box store and calling it a day. But at what cost are we settling for cheap clothes?

The Hidden Cost of Cheap Clothes

Jeff says it’s a big one. “We keep moving manufacturing to cheaper parts of the world,” he explains. Since we won’t pay more for our clothes, it forces people in developing countries into inhumane working conditions. This horrid lack of standards harms not only the people, but also their surrounding environments. 

By using a fiber like hemp, we could change all that. Clothing would be free of toxins, long-lasting and sustainable. It would be better for our health and better for the environment. But a t-shirt and a pair of pants would be more expensive. Could we handle that?

I think we could, if we shifted our perspective on clothes in general. Do we really need a closet full of a million different outfits that we barely ever wear? For Jeff, he tends to adapt to the old school thinking of his Grandmother. She would sew her own clothes and wear them till they started to fall apart. Then she would sew on patches or repurpose them into new pieces, and repeat the process. “That old kind of thinking would be a nice way to move forward, I think,” Jeff explains. “Just have what you need.”

Just like all the other things we carelessly dispose of, clothes end up in landfills, destroying our environment. That’s why a new way forward, like hemp fashion is imperative. We need to start rethinking how we approach everything. And we can start with our closets.