Artistic Milliners Uses Innovation to Stay Ahead of the Curve
Forward looking and forward thinking.
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That’s the ethos at Artistic Milliners, the Karachi-based denim mill that has been at the forefront of environmental initiatives almost since its founding in 1949. Whether it is generating its own electricity with enough capacity to sell some to the public grid, experimenting with traceability and regenerative farming, or being the first Pakistani denim company to have a factory in environmentally conscious L.A., Artistic goes from strength to strength.
“We are absolutely the leaders,” said Katie Tague, Artistic Milliners’ U.S.-based vice president for global marketing and sales.
New initiatives abound, according to Saqib Sohail, responsible business projects lead. To wit, this year the company moved further into regenerative agriculture to sustain the quality of the soil for optimal cotton yield and worker safety.
For years, the soil had been subjected to harsh and toxic chemical fertilizers which rendered it almost unusable. “It made the soil so hard the seed was not able to germinate properly,” Sohail said. “The plant couldn’t poke through.”
Farmers were required to use more and more fertilizer and chemicals which increased the cost of tending the soil for a decent crop, in a population of farmers where money or materials are not to be squandered. The result was pretty dire, according to Sohail. “The whole water table had been poisoned with arsenic and other chemicals and they couldn’t use it,” he said. “A lot of damage had been done.”
Undertaken in partnership with Jack & Jones, Bestseller Group’s menswear brand, the project involves 92 farmers over 1,000 acres—and Artistic wants to increase that by 25 to 35 percent every year. Sohail noted how much it will positively affect raw materials and scope 3 emissions which will help advance the company’s decarbonization and sustainability efforts.
Growing cover crops and boundary crops are also part of Artistic’s farm program, as is the production of biochar, a commonly used soil amendment gaining popularity again among agricultural producers. It is essentially a lightweight, carbon-rich black residue from the burning of biomass (wood chips, plant residue, manure or other agricultural waste). Basically a DIY fertilizer, it is considered a long-term soil amendment and is particularly hospitable to microbial activity.
Artistic makes biochar with cotton waste, but encourages farmers to use the biomass and waste they generate themselves to replenish soils on their own. It can be used on crops as well as permanent meadows and pastures, which gives cattle relatively chemical-free land to graze on.
“We have seen this firsthand,” Sohail said. “We visit the farms every other month or so.”
Chemical reduction also solves the problem of skin disease among farmers, caused by toxic chemicals in the soil. According to Sohail, they have become far less common since the use of harsh chemicals began to taper off.
Tague said the recent regenerative farming effort is something of an extension of the Milliner Cotton Initiative, a project began in 2020 that takes place in the Punjab region of Pakistan, designed to focus on the entire scope of the cotton supply chain. It emphasizes visibility, women’s empowerment, capacity building and mitigating extortion.
The most recent foray into regenerative farming grooms participants to stay in their regions and stay with Artistic—which is not just investing in the farmers, but also reaping the benefits of a stable, productive community.
“There is a plethora of sustainable cotton standards and programs in the market, but there are none that view the cotton supply chain as a whole ecosystem and propose interventions based on the complex inter-relationships of all supply chain players,” Omer Ahmed, Artistic Milliners’ managing director, told Rivet.
Traceability is a priority at Artistic, which has sold a million Jack & Jones garments made with organic fiber and carrying a QR code. The company recently got a grant from the German Development Bank that it is putting into smart farm projects that help with digitization and assisting farmers in the input of data. It is working with Retraced blockchain technology and CropX, an app that does field monitoring—from aggregating farm data to real-time conditions and agronomic recommendations.
Artistic is also in conversation with Oritain, based in New Zealand, and Swiss-based Haelixa to determine which of the two companies would make a better partner in testing cotton to ensure compliance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. It also in the initial stages of two pilot programs with Better Cotton to determine the best, most accurate way of tracing product from field to gin to spinning mill.
The dream, Sohail said, is to have DNA markers at the farm level so Artistic no longer has to rely on forensic testing.
The company is hopeful the science will evolve quickly. “We hope to see the technology improved in the next couple of years so it becomes more cost effective, and we can do it on a larger scale,” Sohail said. “It can cost up to $200 to $250 per ton, which only covers about 100 acres of farmland, and right now we’re working with around 30,000 acres. That’s a lot of cost.”
Artistic also targets water use and currently recycles 85 percent. A three-year-old dyeing technology called Crystal Clear is water free and salt free and in its third iteration. According to Sohail, a decade ago the ratio of substrate to water was 1 kilo of substrate to 20 liters of water; now it’s 1 to 6. It can get even lower, he said, but not without compromising the character of the fabric.
Artistic is also utilizing waterless wash and finishing techniques that allow customers to pivot from conventional methods, especially toward those with zero discharge of hazardous chemicals or ZDHC. Leaving potassium permanganate behind will be a challenge, according to Tague, because it is one of the most prevalent wash techniques.
One solution to the potassium permanganate challenge is called Brilliant Fade, an ozone booster that can create authentic vintage washes without PP, and uses GOTS– and OEKO-TEX-certified and ZDHC level 3 compliant chemicals to reduce the impact on the environment and workers. In partnership with Star Fades International or SFI, the Los Angeles-based laundry Artistic acquired, it has developed multiple new washes that reduce or completely eliminate the use of harmful chemicals, water and energy. The washes are engineered to be used on their own or in combination to create a variety of finishes, including re-creating classic stone washes without pumice, PP or bleach.
Another green solution to harsh chemicals is BioBlack TX, developed by biochemicals innovator Nature Coatings. A healthy alternative to petroleum-based black-tone dye, this contains a proprietary pigment derived from industrial wood waste from sustainably managed, certified sources.
Like Artistic works to reduce water, it champions the reduction of waste across the board. It has invested in Laroche S.A. mechanical fiber recycling machines that it uses to convert post-industrial and post-consumer waste back into fibers, of which it now produces 500,000 kilos a month. Sohail said Artistic is introducing innovative techniques to increase the length of the fiber which normally gets smaller and smaller with mechanical recycling, to maximize its ability to be reused.
All of this is powered by Artistic Energy, the company’s arm that produces electricity both for its operation and the public grid. Launched in 2018, it produces a combination of wind and solar power that is on track to reach 17 megawatts next year.
According to Sohail, leadership decided the shift had to be made, that this self-sufficiency was where the market was heading. “I think maybe consumers are ahead of both suppliers and brands on this because demand is going to grow in that direction,” he said. “Consumers will drive brands and suppliers like us there.”
Scarcity of energy has been a major issue in Pakistan for a long time, and solar has helped the operation mitigate its needs and reduce the reliance on fossil fuels, Sohail said.
There was no particular catalyst that moved the Artistic needle in this direction. “Just a growing awareness that climate change is changing the way everyone does business,” he said. “The sooner you do it, the better, especially when you live in a country that’s counted among the top 10 most climate affected in the world.”