Impact & Ethics

As a longtime environmental advocate and journalist, I am very aware of the impact our stuff has on people and the planet. That’s why in both creation of the images and production of the Dogwood & Hastings wares, I strive to find the lowest-impact choice that’s also the highest quality. Keeping our things for years, being passed along, heirloom-style, is not only environmentally responsible, it’s aesthetically meaningful, carrying the essence of one time into the next.

From my thousands of photographs from my travels (my photography experience comes from shooting fashion runway shows in NYC), I’ve chosen just a few, and manipulated them minimally. I want to preserve as much of nature’s color and pattern as possible in the final products. And a portion of the profits from this venture will go back to the places images were taken (see Nonprofit Partners page for more details).

Dogwood & Hastings is designed in Oregon, printed with nontoxic dyes in Durham, North Carolina on organic cotton fabric (Global Organic Textile Standard certified), and sewn and finished in Oregon. Fair wages are guaranteed for anyone who works on Dogwood & Hastings.

This is also a zero-waste line: All fabric is cut to minimize waste and the scraps will then be reused as labels and for some fun, one-off creative projects. Boxes and packing materials are reused. And of course I recycle and compost (I’m even one of those “turn off the shower while I shave my legs” types, so I’m definitely not into wasting anything!).

Please direct any further inquiries you may have about the sustainability aspects of Dogwood & Hastings to founder and designer Starre Vartan at dogwoodandhastings (at) gmail (dot) com.

Photo Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli (land surface, shallow water, clouds). Enhancements by Robert Simmon (ocean color, compositing, 3D globes, animation). Data and technical support: MODIS Land Group; MODIS Science Data Support Team; MODIS Atmosphere Group; MODIS Ocean Group Additional data: USGS EROS Data Center (topography); USGS Terrestrial Remote Sensing Flagstaff Field Center (Antarctica); Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (city lights).