A jacket is a jacket, right? Well don’t tell that to the boys and girls at Hoodlamb for they will truly laugh at your face. With the all new Summer Tech 420 they managed to take all the good things from one of their classics into the warm period of year. The outside is made from a mix of 55% and 45% Herringbone organic cotton while on the inside the lining is made from organic cotton Sateen. Besides being comfortable you can also be rebellious in this jacket. Need to hide some documents or rolling paper? No problem this jacket has secret places for it.
Hoodlamb was founded in the nineties as a brand specializing in surf clothing. From this point it developed into a brand with a keen vision on sustainability. At their core philosophy lies the use and promotion of industrial hemp which is the basis material for all of their clothing. Besides industrial hemp they also use organic cotton and recycled plastic for their garments.
Worth mentioning separately is the lining that is used in the winter version of the Tech 420 jacket. It is made from a fake fur that is soft warm and durable. It is made from 20% hemp 35% percent recycled pet and 45% acrylic satifur. Both summer and winterversion of the 420 are impregnated with a special oil based on hemp seed which ensures that the jackets are 100% waterproof.
That hemp was the first plant mankind grew for
its fibers. Before there were flax and cotton the Chinese planted hemp seeds to
make materials as rope and linen. These materials were needed by craftsman and
helped to build the earliest elements of our world wide civilization. The
oldest example of industrial hemp is more then 12.000 years old. When we
stopped roaming the earth and became farmers. Hemp was there and helped us to
achieve our goal.
The reason
for the early domestication is clear. Hemp grows easily also on less
fertile ground. It doesn't require much water. And hemp is resistant to most
deceases. In modern days these three attributes mean that only little
fertilizer is needed and that hemp grows without the use of pesticides. In
ancient timers it meant that without all to much care it grew on almost any
soil giving a rich harvest year after year. This meant that in a civilization
without any agricultural knowledge hemp was the to go for crop.
As was the
case in the 20th century hemp was grown for military purposes as
well. Soldiers fought in clothing made of hemp, used bowstrings made of hemp
and defended flags made of the same material. Paper holds a special place
within human civilization. For years it was the only information carrier
helping getting messages through time and space. In China a form of proto-paper (like
papyrus) was made from silk. I was only when ancient Chinese realized that
mixing the fibers of hemp with mulberry bark produced a cheap strong and
lighter form of paper that writing really took off.
This spring a new adventure will start for one
of Holland’s
finest new agricultural businesses. HempFlax will plant over 700 Ha. of industrial hemp
on newly acquired fields in Romania.
It is also here that the company that has been growing and processing hemp
since 1994 in
Oude Pekela (Groningen) has build a new hemp processing facility which will be
Europe’s biggest once all the plans are realized. The total production of
industrial hemp grown by HempFlax or ordered by the company is now little over 4000 Ha.
Moving to Romania doesn’t
just mean finding new territory in the literal sense. It also means exploring
the possibilities on a new part of the plant. Due to the climate in The
Netherlands it hasn't been possible for the company to grow hemp for seeds and fibers alike. The dry autumn of Romania
however ensures that dual cropping in the most literal way is possible. For
this purpose HempFlax transformed a John Deere cropping machine in such a
fashion that it is now possible to harvest both top and bottom of the plant.
From the top come the seeds, from the stem the fibers.
Hemp seed
is durable food in itself, it is rich with proteins and contains lots of other
good nutrients. It is the only vegetable source for all good fatty acids known
to nature. Once pressed into oil there are a lot of other purposes. Ranging
from flavoring up a salad to cooking. It is even possible to run a diesel
engine on it, but given its excellent healthy properties, this would be a
complete waste.
Hemplax HempFlax is Hollands biggest hemp
company. It has been growing industrial hemp since 1994 and is known in the
automobile industry for the car door panels it produces. If you drive a
Mercedes of BMW there is big chance that your door is filled with one of their
products. Besides these panels it also uses hemp tot make excellent
insulation. A recent experiment of the company resulted in the realization of
the first hempcrete house to be build in the Netherlands.
