food for thought
Discovering the true seeds of slow living
By mary kingsley
It was the summer of 2016 when my twenty-something daughter Emma and I decided to“ do something” about fast fashion, a topic that had recently captured our attention. We had just watched The True Cost, a 2015 documentary by Andrew Morgan that revealed in stark terms
Photo: Mary Ball
the environmental devastation and human exploitation rampant in the fashion industry connected to the manufacturing of cheap clothing. Our eyes were opened to the massive toxic inputs, the excessive consumption and pollution of our waterways, the explosion of microplastic contamination in our food, our water and even our bodies— all of this in addition to the ongoing abuse of workers worldwide. We decided then and there to take action, and thus began Lady Farmer.
We both wanted clothes with style and comfort that didn’ t harm the earth or other humans. For two people who were so blissfully unaware of what was involved, the logical conclusion was that we needed to create a brand and produce our own slow fashion line. Simple. Right?
With the term“ slow fashion” we quickly saw the parallel to the slow food movement, an idea that had been evolving since the 1980s and was at that moment moving more into the mainstream with the“ farm-to-table” trend. It followed that“ farm-to-closet” could be the next frontier in a culture beginning to explore the deep flaws within the systems providing our daily needs. Like our food, our clothing is essentially something that begins in the earth as either a plant or an animal and, for most of humanity’ s history, has been produced locally, sustainably, without toxins and without environmental or human abuse. Living here in the Montgomery County Ag Reserve and having close friendship ties with young women growers, Lady Farmer seemed the perfect name for our new brand, with the tagline“ Sowing Seeds of Slow Living” as our guiding principle. Thus began the adventure!
What ensued was a years-long journey into researching, fundraising, sourcing, manufacturing, marketing and distribution. Our initial funding source was a Kickstarter campaign in September of 2017 that met its initial goal quickly. To keep
28 plenty I autumn harvest 2026