|
In December, Brazilian stylist Caio Von Vogt will be exporting his first load of cloth produced from jute fiber, made from a plant grown in the north of Brazil for the production of food storage bags.
Vogt, who is from the southern Brazilian state of Paraná and lives in the southeastern state of São Paulo, completed the project for development of the cloth, which he called "ecovogt", in October, after six years of research.
The entire production process of the cloth is ecological. Jute is grown without chemical additives, threading is done using scentless vegetable oils, instead of chemical products, and dying is also natural.
Macela tea and saffron, for example, are used to dye the cloth yellow. Brazilwood and castor seeds are used to dye the cloth red, purple and brown. The looms were also adapted for production of jute cloth.
The company to administer export of the cloth is Capelin Exportadora Ltda. The trading company has offices in Turkey, France and Mexico. The first sale will be to Europe.
The volume, however, has not yet been defined. "Our market is the European, but we have interest in selling to all the countries, including the Arab countries," stated Vogt.
Cia Têxtil do Castanhal is responsible for production of the cloth. At the beginning of last month, the company started producing 100,000 meters of cloth per month. The intention, however, is to reach the volume of one million meters a month, according to Vogt.
There have already been some attempts to produce clothes out of jute fiber, but the fabric was never produced in large scale or with concerns about the environment.
Social Responsibility
So as to supply raw materials, around 20,000 families in the northern region of the country are planting jute.
"The project has a noble cause, which is to provide work to families that plant jute," stated Vogt. Jute for production of bags is being replaced by cheaper raw material, polypropylene.
"These people would be unemployed," stated Vogt. The stylist's intention is to inform people who buy clothes made out of jute that they are wearing a product made with social and environmental concern.
There is currently a laboratory at the Textile Engineering College (Unifei), in São Bernardo do Campo, part of Greater São Paulo, in southeastern Brazil, which is working on improvement of the production process of the cloth.
Around 20 professionals are working in the area. The college signed a partnership with Vogt around one year ago.
Apart from producing the cloth, stylist Vogt also has a showroom in São Paulo, where he makes clothes out of jute fiber. For the time being, the items are only sold custom made, at his studio, and at some boutiques around the country.
Starting next year, however, Vogt intends to open an exclusive store under his brand and to present the clothes in Europe. "I have already been invited to participate in a fashion show in France."
Vogt also produces other kinds of clothes in the sports, streetwear and casual lines, under brands "Von Vogt Brasil" and "Caio Von Vogt". The clothes are sold at three exclusive stores in shopping malls in São Paulo and at multi brand retail stores.
The stylist, born in a small city called Planalto, in the southeastern Brazilian state of Paraná, arrived in São Paulo while he was still a teenager, about to finish high school.
Vogt never took a fashion course, but he worked for large companies. He develops collections for Vicunha, a large clothes manufacturer in Brazil, and up to last year the company produced for jeans brand Etoile. Their private brand was established eight years ago.
Contact
Caio Von Vogt
Tel.: (+55 11) 3742-2880
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.