Description
Organic cotton as the basis of sustainable fashion
Natural Cotton Color was born in 1995 as streetwear fashion with the name Francisca Vieira. With the opening of imports and the entry of textile and fashion products ready in Brazil, in 2005 the businesswoman identifies in Paraíba the opportunity to develop a differentiated fashion project. Thus, he chooses as the basis of his creations an ecological product, naturally colored and organic cotton, whose feather is already born with the color of the final product, free of chemical additives.
Compared to the manufacture of knitwear and flat fabrics, colored cotton can generate savings of up to 87.5% water compared to conventional production processes. In this way, the businesswoman creates the Natural Cotton Color brand and strives to produce fashion so that the entire production chain is totally sustainable.
In the same year Francisca met the Texbrasil Program of the Brazilian Association of the Textile and Clothing Industry – ABIT which, with the support of the ApexBrasil Export Agency, promotes Brazilian companies interested in the international market.
At that moment, the businesswoman invited some small companies in the region, which were also beginning to suffer the worrying results of the avalanche of low-cost Asian products in Brazil, to form the Natural Cotton Color group. The objective of the group was to develop products only from naturally colored cotton to try their insertion in the international market.
Initially, the group exhibited at fashion fairs in Paris and London. Acceptance was immediate, but was accompanied by the great demand of foreign buyers for ecological and sustainable products with design, quality in finishes and certification of organic product. This gave impetus to the development of parts increasingly focused on the Value Added segment and to seek the first certification with international acceptance.
Today, the companies that make up the Natural Cotton Color group — under the leadership of Francisca Vieira — have added to their products in the segments of women’s, men’s, children’s and decoration fashion, a true army of colored cotton planters, lacemakers, embroiderers and artisans from all over the Northeast region of Brazil, especially Paraíba. Everyone works with decent remuneration and a lot of self-esteem, thus constituting an example of a sustainable social and ecological Production Chain in the Brazilian fashion industry.
