Germaine Caprio’s Case for Plastic-Free Living and Closed-Loop Production
Article By Ruby Zlotkowski – Artwork by Alma Myers
Germaine Caprio, founder of Majamas Earth, is a passionate environmentalist, speaker, and real life ‘planet hero.’ Her eco-friendly brand has transitioned out of clothing production and to lifestyle and self-care products as Caprio further roots into her mother’s wisdom, who profoundly influenced her climate ethos. In our time together, she passed on her own wisdom to Rat des Champs, including small business advice, and how to be truly sustainable in an inherently unsustainable industry.
This interview has been edited for clarity
GC: Hey, Ruby!
RZ: Hey, how’s it going?
GC: It’s going well!
Getting into Garments
RZ: I would love to hear about how Majamas Earth came to be.
GC: Well, I was having a baby, and I had to go back to work four weeks after having my daughter– it was really fast. I was working for a very male-dominated company, and if I didn’t work, I didn’t get paid. I was full commission sales. They’d never had a female sales representative before so they didn’t know how to handle my maternity leave. So, I went back to work, and I found myself waking up at night soaking wet in a puddle of milk, and my daughter would be sound asleep. I decided to rig up one of my running tops as a nursing tank at night, but it didn’t work, so I made a pattern. My grandfather was an Italian designer straight off the boat from Italy– I must have inherited that. I brought a pattern to the woman who did my alterations for my suits, and she made it for me, and that was sort of the start of me jumping into the garment industry. My mom was still alive, and she was a huge environmentalist, and she was like, ‘Oh, honey, you’re getting into the worst business for the planet.’ So she was the one that sort of tipped me off that whatever I do, I should make sure it’s environmentally friendly. I made a tank top three years later, after my mom had passed, and I introduced it to [a] Nordstrom [buyer]. I went to get her advice, and she ended up buying it, which was pretty great. And then I was in the garment world, and I quit my crazy sales job with that company eight months later, and my husband quit his job, and we were in the business! So that got me into clothing. Eventually, I opened at Whole Foods Markets and a bunch of other kinds of weird stores for me to be selling nursing and maternity clothes. We found that [many] women were buying our stuff because I didn’t design stereotypically. I actually think I made one of the world’s most comfortable bras. I hated bras, and I didn’t want to sleep in a bra at night when I was nursing. All of a sudden women were buying my bras, and then I got it into loungewear and I started [creating] really beautiful printed pants, shorts, dresses, and athleisure, and I was just branching out and growing like crazy. The whole time I was very focused on keeping my production here in the States, in Chicago, Philadelphia, getting my fabric from mills in L.A., because they were held to strict environmental standards… I was one of the first companies to start using recycled polyester, which is [unfortunately] still polyester that will eventually end up outliving all of us. I have a real issue with synthetic fabrics, which is one of the reasons I exited out of the clothing world. I’m not really manufacturing clothes anymore.
RZ: First of all, it’s so cool you just had a knack for creating clothing and you don’t come from a design background. That is so interesting.
GC: Well, I think designing is like cutting hair, you’ve either got it or you don’t. I inherited that from my grandfather who was a brilliant Italian designer. He came [to America] in nineteen nineteen, and was known for really beautiful business suits and sold them to the stars. He found a niche, and somehow I inherited that. I can look at a pattern or garment and know what’s wrong with it– I don’t even have to try. You got it or you don’t.
Material Decisions
RZ: Yeah, it’s in your blood. You mentioned recycled polyester. I’m really impressed by all of the information you provide on your website about your fabrics and the sustainable production process. I’m curious about the reuse of dead stock materials and the process of your recycled polyester. How does that work?
GC: Well, the recycled polyester isn’t what you would think it is. It’s not like recycled cotton. I still think recycled cotton is probably one of the most sustainable fabrics out there, but recycled polyester really comes from, they claim, plastic water bottles– plastic bottles that shouldn’t be made anymore anyway. Humans are so stupid. We should really stop using anything in plastic [including] plastic water bottles, because we know microplastics go in our water. [Recycled polyester] doesn’t come from old clothes or dead stock or anything like that. Twenty years ago, when they started using old plastic to make fabric, I thought it was really innovative. It felt amazing, like satin, but it’s hot, like polyester. It wasn’t ideal, and I started moving away from it and moving towards organic cottons. People don’t realize organic cotton may not be sprayed with pesticides, but when you manufacture it and make it into a fiber, it takes a lot of chemicals and water to break it down, so that’s not ideal either. Cotton is not a soft fiber, so you need to really break it down, like bamboo. Bamboo’s another one. Everyone thinks it’s so great, [and] it is great! It grows fast. You can make it without chemicals. Most of it is made in China, which used to be a bad thing, but now I’m not so sure; they’re way ahead of us as far as sustainability goes. But I think you’ve got to be really careful when you’re looking at a particular fiber. So I don’t know if there is one perfect fiber. There is a really great fiber called naya that’s made by, believe it or not, Eastman Chemical Company, who used to make Kodak and did the Polaroid. Now they’re making fabrics that are more plant-based and use less water. Tencel [fabrics] are great fibers because when you use water to break down a particular fiber in modal or lyocell, they recycle that water and use it again– they don’t just dump it after one production [cycle]. So there’s pros and cons to every fiber you look at. I just got so overwhelmed with the waste because it’s more than just your clothes, it’s also all the waste on the cutting room floor. I used to make baby swaddling blankets and baby hats with it. I used to have my cutter cut [the fabric] a certain way so that we had the least amount of waste possible. This was before places like Trashie existed. The thing that [clothing companies] should all be doing, and what I would have started doing, is offer a recycling program on your site, like Stella McCartney, Norma Kamali, and Eileen Fisher. They take stuff back and either recycle it, rework it, or find another use for it. I think the only way clothing companies who claim to be sustainable can truly be sustainable is by offering an option on their site to recycle their garments people want to get rid of. It costs a lot of money and that’s probably why so many companies don’t do it, because margins in the garment world are tiny. Adding another level to your sustainability, getting more expensive fabric that’s made responsibly, or paying your workers [fairly], which we do, means your margins get tinier and tinier because no one’s going to pay two hundred dollars for a pair of lounge pants sold in Whole Foods.
Business
RZ: I was actually going to ask about Majamas Earth from a business standpoint, if you don’t mind. You produce everything in the U.S, you’re an ethically minded business, and a lot of small businesses, including ours, feel that we’re competing with big corporations who are able to operate on a scale that drives their production costs down. They sell internationally and can order hundreds of thousands of pieces per product and get extreme discounts for producing that much. How do you operate from a business standpoint with your fabrics being sustainable and produced in the United States? And do you have any advice for a small business trying to be sustainable but make the prices so they’re not luxury prices?
GC: I think the best way to keep your costs down as a small business is to stay narrow. We stayed very classic. I found ten of my best sellers and I focused on those. It helped my production team work more efficiently because they became really familiar with the garment they were making, and they were able to make it better with a higher quality and more quickly. The bottom line is, the margins in the garment industry are so tiny, so you just have to charge more. You have to find your niche. But I’ve gotten so turned off from fashion. I’ve become a real capsule clothing person. I found a really nicely made sweatshirt after I stopped manufacturing them myself two years ago, and I bought one in every color. And I thought, ‘I’m just going to wear these and wear these and wear these,’ and it worked! Sticking to a capsule collection is the best way we individually can help the planet. And reusing, shopping your own closet and, of course, thrifting and maybe bartering or sharing with your friends. If they’re tired of something, swap. I still think the bottom line is, we all have too many clothes. That was another driver for me to leave the business. You’ve got these huge companies claiming they’re sustainable, and when you’d really look into their practices, they were very non-transparent. Anyone who’s not transparent about how they produce isn’t producing responsibly. I got really tired of hearing, ‘Oh, we’re a sustainable underwear line!’ and then you look at [their practices] and think, ‘No, you’re not.’ To me, it became frustrating to be overlooked. People would find a bigger label, or the trendy label, and claim that they give money back. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but you’re polluting the water and you’re dumping your dyes into a small little village where people are making your denim.’ It made me kind of angry and bitter. But I think the best way to do it is to keep your collection tight and keep it focused on your bestsellers. And then really just to do everything you can to keep your waste as low as possible.
Sustainable Choices
RZ: Yeah. At Rat des Champs, we talk a lot about how we relate to sustainable choices, not only in the material, making sustainable choices is objectively less harmful to the planet and that’s what’s most important, but also the experience of being surrounded by things you’ve carefully considered. Like you just mentioned– a capsule wardrobe. Basically, romanticizing sustainability. I’m wondering, what about the experience of a sustainable lifestyle do you enjoy?
GC: Oh, I think it’s so addictive. I think once you realize that you’re doing something right for the planet, a particular species, or for others, it’s addictive. I remember the first time I tried a shampoo bar– you would have thought I got diamond rings. I sell some on my website, because I think that’s the number one way we can all lower our impact. One shampoo bar replaces two plastic bottles of shampoo. And for my clothing line, when I’d find really beautiful fabric, like when my mill would call me and say, ‘Listen, we’ve got this gorgeous cotton modal we’re making,’ and they’d send me a swatch, it was just like someone gave me a drug. I loved the hand of it. I loved it. And I would do whatever I could to buy that fabric, even if it were twice as much as the polyester I was moving away from. I think if you make a really good product, a really beautiful, high quality product, your customers will pay for it. When I would make something that wasn’t loaded with dyes and it was this beautiful, heavier cotton, and women would call me and write me and say, ‘Oh, my gosh, it is the first time I’ve worn a bra without getting a rash under my boobs!’ or ‘It’s the first time I’ve worn underwear without getting a rash along my backside!’ And I thought, ‘Wow, this is addictive.’ When you can please people and know that you’re making their lives better, it’s a great feeling. I think the sustainability train is a great one to jump on and everything we do is cumulative. It all goes back to help the greater good.
RZ: If somebody feels like their whole life is full of plastic and are overwhelmed by the idea of a sustainable lifestyle, where do you suggest they start? Is there a small habit change that can go a long way such as the shampoo bar?
GC: I think the shampoo bar is a great place to start. There’s so many high quality, beautiful shampoo and conditioner bars out there now. We’ve all been conditioned to, pun intended, think that high priced, swanky labels we’re all familiar with have the best shampoo and conditioner, and as my mom used to say, ‘It’s just going down the drain.’ There are so many, like the ones I offer on my site. We make different variations for different hair types, and they’re rich and they really sud up, and you’ll never know you’re not using shampoo from a plastic bottle, which means you’re not washing your body in plastic. Another thing is, ditch drinking from plastic water bottles. If you go to any conference or concert there’s still plastic water bottles being sold, and there are still plastic cups and plastic utensils. It’s just disgusting to me. Whenever you can, bring your own aluminum water bottle. That’s another way to get out of plastic. And when you’re shopping and going down the aisle, don’t opt for the apples in the plastic bag. Don’t buy avocados in that horrible plastic netting. My husband will still bring those home every so often, and I want to slap him, because as soon as you cut that netting, you’ve got tiny microplastics everywhere, and that’s what’s killing us. So, whatever conscious effort you can make, it might cost you a little more, but it’s usually just pennies and in the long run, it costs us less because it’s better for our future and for future generations.
RZ: Did you have an anti-plastic come-to-Jesus moment, or was it your mom’s influence throughout your childhood and over time that formed your anti-plastic [ethos]?
GC: Definitely my mom. I grew up with a mom that questioned everything. Everything. She was a hippie, but she didn’t look like a hippie. She was really down to earth and a very smart person. She knew things before others. She was talking about plastic pollution in the early seventies when plastics were really getting big. She was talking about how we’re destroying species and building in places we have no business building in, like what they want to do now with building on our wetlands that supply fresh water to the world. It’s just crazy. She was way ahead of her time. And that’s where my influence came from. I sort of tried to ignore it when I was in college and briefly after, but then her teachings, all those years of telling me, ‘Germaine, this isn’t great for us, you ingest [plastic] every time you drink from that water bottle,’ it finally started to sink in. Sadly, it took me a little longer than I think she would have liked.
RZ: That is really inspiring. She sounds like a very cool lady.
GC: She was. Anyone who met my mom loved her. She was really down to earth and a really good person. Again, so wise on so many things.
Climate Responsibility
RZ: Sounds like it. I want to talk about climate responsibility and the discourse surrounding consumer guilt. Some people feel that the responsibility should fall entirely upon big corporations who have made us dependent on convenience, both the lifestyle and the price. These corporations have spent so much money creating a system in which we don’t learn how to do things on our own, and we’re invested in things that are horrible for the planet and that are hard to deviate from. Some consumers feel it’s not their responsibility to make certain sacrifices or even if they did, they feel like it wouldn’t make a difference. And it’s important to note the difference between people who can’t afford to divest in convenience and those who choose not to, whether it’s climate change deniers, consumers who don’t feel like it’s their responsibility, or people who care, but don’t walk the talk. So it’s a nuanced situation, but I’d love to hear your perspective on climate responsibility.
GC: John F. Kennedy said, ‘One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.’ I agree that corporations have definitely made it easier for us to shop and ignore the harm they do to the planet, but we aren’t sheep. We all have our own brains and our own way of thinking, and I think making the effort to skip over the plastic packaged avocados for the single ones is an individual choice. Yes, the individual ones are probably more expensive because you’re not getting the one rotten one in the bag along with the four okay ones. I think the price ends up evening out. Corporations have caused this conundrum, but I believe as individuals, we all have a responsibility to lower our impact. And we all can. I think it’s a cumulative effort. I believe that where we put our money is the most powerful tool we have in the environmental climate fight. You invest your money every time you go shopping. So, if you’re walking through a grocery store or a clothing store, you’re telling that company when you walk up to the register with those polyester pants, ‘I support this. Keep doing it.’ And I think that’s what it comes down to. If everyone made lower impact choices, think of the cumulative effort it would have. It would be huge. But, I agree that it’s cheaper and easier to walk into a [store] and buy anything on those shelves without giving it a single thought. There are marginalized communities that are unable to pay that twenty cents more per apple, but I think it starts with those who can make the choice. Although a shampoo bar is around fourteen bucks, it counts for two bottles of shampoo, so sometimes there’s not a [negative] financial impact when you’re making a choice that favors the climate. Sustainability doesn’t have to be expensive. We all have the power to choose something that is a little bit better for us and the planet. Plus, I like to think of it in the long term: if you’re bringing that plastic into your house, you’re bringing it into your body, and do you really want that plastic in your body? Do you really want that stuff floating around your brain? I think it’s just education, Ruby. I think we have to share this message with more and more people and let them understand and know that just one choice that might have a lower impact on the planet creates this snowball going down the mountain that’ll make a way bigger thud at the bottom than you realize. If you like a product, you tell a friend, and if that friend likes a product, they tell a friend. Before you know it, we’re all starting to shop a little more sustainably. So, yes, corporations definitely got us in this mess, but we let them by buying it. I think that we are all responsible and we all can change it. I know we can. Anyone who says my actions don’t make a difference… I mean, come on, that’s like saying your vote doesn’t make a difference or going to a climate protest doesn’t make a difference. It does! You’re seen, you’re heard, and it counts.
RZ: I commend you for the way you’re spreading the message. It’s really inspiring to me and it’s inspiring to us at Rat des Champs. I think it’s amazing, and I appreciate your perspective.
GC: Thanks! You know, I did a podcast for years that was a lot like what you’re doing. I interviewed other companies who cared about the environment the way I did. It’s called Care What You Wear. I interviewed a woman who made sandals from all the rubber and trash that was being thrown into landfills. There’s a lot of people out there, and I’m inspired every day by people who are trying to make a change. It might start with a whisper, but all of our efforts end in a scream. I think it’s really, really important to keep pursuing it on a personal level and on a business level.
RZ: Yeah, it’s all part of that cumulative effort. Thank you so much for talking with me.
GC: Oh, thanks, it was really my pleasure. Anytime I can support the word about living more sustainably, I’m happy to do it, so feel free to reach out again.
You can hear more from Germaine Caprio at www.germainecaprio.com
To purchase shampoo bars and other earth friendly products, go to www.majamas.com
