We hope you'll find this information interesting and helpful.  If you have more questions feel free to email us at info@iriestar.com .  We are always happy to help you, and pride ourselves on providing personal service.  Thank you so much for your interest in our work!

We begin the same way that any fashion designer does - with an idea.  But from there the process is a little different than any of the garments you'll find in stores.  We don't use CAD design and we don't have a battallion of patternmakers that do everything for us.  We work the old fashioned way - with scissors, fabric, pens and lots of pins.  It can take a full 24 hours of work for Julie to get from idea to actually having a working pattern and then we still have to create sizes.  We draft all our own patterns - nothing here is simply bought and resold.  Nor do we purchase the clothing "blanks" available through many dye supply catalogs.  These don't come in the fabric choices that we are passionate about, and they don't come in fashion-forward, truly unique, or elegant styles.  We like to keep our garments homegrown, which also allows us the flexibility to create custom items and special sizes if a customer needs it.

We do!  This is a very unique thing in the clothing industry - your clothing is made right here in our studio and it will continue to be that way until we can no longer support sales directly out of our own facility.  Currently we are employing "work from home" seamstresses as well as in-studio helpers to create our garments.  All items are limited-run, and because we offer custom sizing and specialty dyework there are many items that are one-of-a-kind.  No factory can do that.  We pay our helpers and seamstresses a fair wage, which we feel good about and hope that you do too.

YES!  We are proud to offer the ability to create custom sized garments.  It may take a few extra weeks to get your garment to you, as all custom orders must be fit in around our existing production schedule ( they take a little extra time to size and speak with you about your needs ) and a surcharge of 10% of the garment cost will be added on to cover the additional labor to resize our pattern.  Please email us to speak about your needs.

We dye in many different ways depending on the garment type and the fabric.  Some are dyed prior to construction, and some are garment-dyed after they are already made.  We use fiber reactive dyes, a low impact variety of dye that actually combines with the fiber of the fabric.  We do not use plant-based dyes because the chemicals required to "fix" them ( make them permanent ) are actually very toxic.  It would not provide a safe working environment for our studio help and also would create water-runoff containing heavy metals.  We choose fiber reactive dyes for their durability, effective color, and minimal risk.  We dye in small batches, so there will be variations from batch to batch.  If you need 2 garments to match precisely we recommend ordering them at the same time so we can dye them together.

We print our own fabrics as well, and because they are so labor intensive we create just enough to use for each garment.  It can take an hour of labor to print just a yard of fabric, and we also use our own screen designs.  Each garment is then a unique work of art - like a print that other artists might hang on the wall, except you can wear ours!  This is also why printed fabrics add a significant expense onto the price of any of our garments.

Please visit our dye sample page and then email us with your choice.  We have so many different choices that we cannot build them into the shopping cart for each garment.

There are many reasons that our garments cost more than others you might find on the market, and we are proud of all of them.  We use the highest quality materials that we can find.  We search constantly for new, amazing natural fabrics.  Many of these fabrics are available only through limited sources and there is a significant cost per yard.  Most of them also come to us undyed, so we have to add the labor and materials to dye the fabric ourselves.  We buy only materials that we are proud to wear also, and create garments that will truly be with you for years to come.  This is sustainable clothing - not a fad or something that will look dull and old by 3 months from now.  We want you to be able to wear our garments over and over and over. 

We also employ American labor and pay our workers a wage that they can actually live on.  When you purchase from us you don't even have to worry about ethics or about wishy washy labor policies. 

We also provide unique styles that take a little more care and time to create, and that have more flair than your average natural clothing company.  None of our garments are boring or dull, and we spend a lot of time creating new styles that break the mold.  Our clothing is quality enough to wear to the office, at home, to play, or out on the town.  We think our customers appreciate that our style is a little different.  We also provide customization in printing, dyeing, and sewing that not every company has.  We are not rich, and we understand that our clothing is not cheap.  But we also are not willing to compromise on the many reasons that it isn't cheap.  Our clothing is designed to be good enough that you could skip buying 3 less expensive garments in favor of 1 item from us and it will perform as well, and last as long, ( and probably fit better ) as those 3 other items would have.  We are serious about innovative natural clothing and we want you to know it.  If you purchase something and you don't think it measures up we want to know about it so we can get better and better. 

Julie has been sewing for over 10 years and has extensive experience in personalized and custom clothing.  We began our current line in 2003.

Items ordered directly from the regular hemp clothing catalog can usually be made within 2 to 3 weeks and in your hands shortly thereafter.  This depends on our current workload and if we have a fabric outtage.  We will always keep you informed about the expected delivery date of your garment and if we know of any problems we will tell you.  Please order well in advance if you do need it for a specific event, and let us know any special needs.  We can make special deadlines most of the time.  If you are ordering a custom size or anything extremely special about your garment please allow up to 4-6 weeks as this takes more attention.

We are working on beginning to wholesale our garments more.  It will take some time for our garments to be available in stores near you, so in the meantime the best way to get them is through our website direct from us. 

Because of the degree of customization we allow we do not offer full refunds on any garment.  Premade garments may be returned in original condition for store credit.  Any other garments may be returned based on quality defect or for alterations.  If your garment does not fit correctly we will do what we can to alter it to fit you.  Most alterations can be done free of charge.  Please contact us to discuss your situation.  In some situations we may be able to provide you store credit or exchange for garments out of our standard catalog.  We will review each situation individually to determine your needs and what we can do to meet them.  We always want our customers to be satisfied - actually we want our customers to be ecstatic!

We try to release new designs at least several times a year.  Because we are so small ( and very busy with all our different products ) we don't necessarily have whole new collections 2 times a year like big name brands do.  We keep our designs around for longer because we try to come up with designs that are more durable rather than being ultra trendy.  We invest a lot of time and energy in every new design, and only decide to post the ones that are the best.  It takes a while also to get website updates completed, so please be patient.  We work on it as fast as we can.  We spend a lot of time serving customers, so if an update is late it is probably because we were busy sewing, shipping, or producing some of our great stuff.  Our commitments to our customers always come first.

For any additional questions about shipping and store policies please contact our Policy page.

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