The Rushing Hour
From the very start, The Rushing Hour has committed to innovation and humanity. They believe in creating positive change with minimal impact to the world. They don't believe fashion that gets replaced every season is "Good Design", but rather making quality garments that last season after season, with a sustainable and transparent process and ethical factories that look after the entire circular process from growing to yarn, from production to recycling. They are passionate about giving their best shot to create beautiful and sustainable products, as well as giving back to society.
The Rushing Hour styles are designed for the value driven women by providing clothing that’s easy to mix and match and is environmentally beneficial. The collection has a minimalist sensibility with a polished edginess. It's versatile enough to go from office smart to street sleek with ease.
Sourcing sustainable fabric is very important to The Rushing Hour. At this stage, about 30% of the pieces are made from rescued dead stock fabrics, 25% is sourced from recycled/repurposed materials and 45% from organic and ethically grown fibers. Designer cast-off stocks (dead stock) are leftover fabrics and materials from the bigger brands and manufacturing process that didn't get to be used and are sitting in the store room waiting for some love, eventually they'll have to go to landfill. The Rushing Hour saves as much of these "dead stock" fabrics as possible and give them a second life: for example as trims or use them in a design that suits the fabric.
Organic linen is made from the flax plant, one of the purest, most environmentally respectful substances naturally found in nature. This fabric is crisp, resilient and colorfast. Also don’t overlook that it’s durable and stain-resistant, making it an excellent choice when purchasing investment items like a fitted blazer or tailored linen pants. Best of all, the fibers are fully recyclable and as such, biodegradable, with flax crops needing a great deal fewer fertilizers and pesticides than other harvests. Organic cotton is grown without anysynthetic pesticides. Most of the organic cotton is grown in China and Turkey. The current supplier is based in China and the aim is to support GOTS certified fair trade sustainable farmers to do their best to support the eco system without harming the earth. Organic cotton is one of the finest and gentle on sensitive skin.
Viscose, or rayon, is a soft, drapey fabric that is not only luxurious against the skin, but inherently better for the environment than its man-made counterparts. It’s made from the wood pulp of perennial trees like pine, beech and eucalyptus, as well as sugar cane, soy and bamboo. But despite the fact that it’s derived from plants and thus not toxic, viscose has received an unfairly bad reputation. This is mainly due to the fact that it still has a lot of same production process as synthetic fabrics. Some of the manufacturers that TRH works with use 100% renewable energy to minimize carbon emissions. Currently all viscose used in the designs are made with designer dead stocks.
Tencel is another fabric that is used. Tencel is manufactured from Eucalyptus trees, which grow fast on low grade land. You’ll find Tencel lyocell used mostly in place of cellulose fibers which have been regenerated like rayon and viscose. This creates an ultimately super-strong and highly durable fabric. Tencel production uses 80% less water compare to cotton. TRH also used hemp, which might be the fabric with the lowest carbon footprint of them all: needing no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or GMO substances whatsoever to grow. We love that it’s wonderfully durable and as soft as linen. Then there’s the fact that hemp makes use of only natural sources to thrive: rain, animal manure and compost. What’s more, hemp crops actually improve the health and quality of the soil by staving off erosion and replenishing lost nutrients. Hemp fabrics tend to crease easily. TRH is working with textile scientists to create smart blends using hemp, recycled PET and organic cotton to avoid the crease issue without satisfying the comfort.
In an effort to reduce carbon footprint, TRH has partnered with recycle fabric specialists to take it one step further. For recycled cotton the complex process includes sorting out the cotton by colors and breaking down the fibers before they are spun into new yarns. Recycling one tonne of cotton can save 765 cubic meters (202,000 US gallons) of water. Also repurposed leather is used in some garment accessories, like belts. The leather comes from vintage jackets, bags and other waste materials. Also PET bottles are being used at The Rushing Hour. They have been working with PET recycling partners to turn PET bottles into clothing or vegan leather. The recycled material is blent with organic fibers such as hemp and organic linen, silk. By marrying these ingredients strategically, the life of these fabrics can be increased, it lasts more washes and it creases less.
Conventional or mulberry silk makes use of cruel farming methods - boiling the live pupae of the worm only to remove its precious unbroken silk strand. The other type is ethical silk, which lets the silk worm peacefully live out its life. As the worm leaves its cocoon though, the strand of silk tends to break, leaving its texture not as smooth or shiny as the unbroken strand removed in ‘cruel’ farming. Unfortunately there are little to none production left for ethical silk left in the world. Most silk is mass produced in the first method. That is why TRH believes that the best option at the moment is recycled silk. Their supplier is an expert in recycled fabric and they also use 70% of renewable energy in the production process.
But TRH doesn’t stop with sustainability. They also believe in equality. And the first and most important step here is providing education for girls in developing countries. So, with every item sold, in collaboration with One Girl, one girls´ education costs for one month are sponsored (they focus on Sierra Leona and Uganda). A girl born in Sierra Leone is more likely to be forced into marriage as a child than she is to go to high school. When we help to educate a girl, it’s one step towards ending poverty.
Based: Sydney, Australia.
Ships to: Worldwide. Free worldwide shipping for orders above AUD250.
Products: Sustainable and ethically made womens wear.
Mission: To create positive impacts in everything we do: As a designer, I always strive to think about how my creation impacts the end user - to deliver the feel-good factor in and out. It was a fulfilling journey through discovering factories who trade with similar values with a transparent and ethical process. All the way through to using 100% biodegradable shipping satchels in our logistic process (they are made of corn).
Vision: To inspire our generation about sustainable living through clothing.
