Our Farm-to-Closet initiative is an invitation to step into the circle of regeneration — to wear your values and invest in healing, while dressing yourself in beauty too.
In partnership with the Andean Pastoral Livelihoods Initiative and Revolution Knits.
Alpacas are the newest members of the Regenerative Evolution and the stars of our latest Farm-to-Closet Collection. Each sweater in this collection is made from the softest alpaca wool, then hand spun and knit by Peruvian artisans who are all paid a living wage.
1 Year
From November to November, Alpacas roam the high grasslands of Peru, grazing the flora and growing their hair.
5 Minutes
With great animal husbandry skills, the alpaqueros shear their animals - a fundamental step to maintaining animal health.
3 Days
The freshly shorn fiber is washed to remove dirt and oil, then dried in the Sun for a few days.
1 Day
The fiber is combed, brushed and combined to create a thick, yarn-like material called “tops”
2 Days
Skilled artisans twist the thick tops fiber into tight, fine yarn, using foot-powered spinning wheels.
4 Days
Hand-knitters, who are part of a cooperative in Lima, Peru, take the yarn home with them and knit it into sweaters.
Peatland soil holds the most carbon in the world — while these special wetlands are only 3% of the Earth’s land mass, they store around 33% of the world’s overall carbon.
When this initiative began, we were determined to pay not only the alpaceros a living wage, but everyone within the chain of production, including the skilled knitters who are part of a fair-trade group.
Compared against market price:
Meet Mario and Porfirio — each sweater is made with yarn from their alpaca farm in Tinke, Peru. Mario and Porfirio work with the land and the alpacas, nurturing mutually beneficial relationships in which everyone benefits — including the Earth. Alpacas are a part of their Quechuan identity.
When you shop Farm-to-Closet, you are actively joining the Regenerative Evolution. Each purchase helps replenish even more soil, sequester even more carbon. Plus, you’re wearing a garment with reciprocity stitched and now knitted into every seam. If you pay attention, you can feel it.
Regeneration is about mutually beneficial relationships — reciprocity between the land, the people who tend it and ourselves. Our Farm-to-Closet initiative is an invitation to step into the circle of regeneration — to wear your values and invest in healing, while dressing yourself in beauty too.
Nature is self-healing — regenerative farming fosters the plants and soil’s innate ability to build the health and resilience of their ecosystem. By using selective grazing and holistic, indigenous farming practices, farmers can revitalize soil and draw down carbon. Regenerative farming not only heals the land’s immediate ecosystem but helps heal Mother Earth from climate change.
As we’ve grown, we’ve come to realize that relationships are at the core of everything we do — relationships to people, to Mother Earth, and to ourselves. The alpaceros and alpacas roam the grasslands in a way that nourishes the soil for future plants and provides farmers, spinners, weavers and dyers with a living wage, opportunities for growth and education, and a method for preserving ancient practices and traditions. This in turn gave us healthy, regenerative alpaca fleece for this collection. What’s good for Mother Earth is good for us, too.
This is our first year working with this community to create sweaters. We started small with the plan to build capacities, so that we can source the all the alpaca fiber for future collections from this project. We will achieve this by investing a part of the profit from every Christy Dawn purchase back into the soil with the awareness that regeneration is a continuous practice. We are excited to improve and foster even more healing in the future!
