Dope ropa
Hemp clothing loosens up.
By Britt Schoenhoff

For centuries hemp has been used to make clothes in countries around the
world with the exception of the United States, where it's been illegal to
grow hemp since 1937. But over the last few years boutiques specializing in
hemp fashions have sprouted up across the Bay Area. Stores such as Two Star
Dog, Frankel Brothers Hemp Outfitters (FBHO), and Labyrinth Phassions and
Costumes carry hemp clothing that caters to both environmentally and
fashionconscious customers. Hemp, a highquality, renewable resource, can
be used to produce pesticidefree, UVprotective clothing that people feel
good in and feel good about wearing.

Brothers Steven and Allen Boutrous, who began Two Star Dog in 1993, decided
to start their business because they believed that there was a niche for hip
hemp apparel. "There was nothing environmental in fashion at the time,"
Steven says. "Everything that was made of hemp looked like burlap sacks."
The brothers recruited designer Stella Carakasi who has infused a
contemporary yet classic feel into the line's garments.

Carakasi, who designs men's and women's fasions for the company, constructs
her clothes out of hemp fabric imported from China. She finds the fabric
intriguing and inspiring but somewhat frustrating to work with: the
industrial hemp textile is tough to manipulate in its raw form, though it
does soften up and become malleable after it has been washed and treated with
lowimpact, chemicalfree fiber reactive dyes. "It's a very termpermental
fabric because it shrinks and then stretches," Carakasi says.

Despite some of the designing difficulties inherent in using hemp fabric,
Carakasi is committed to facing the challenges of working with the weed.
"Now that I've figured out what the fabric can and can't do, I'm having
fun," she says. "I've started making more fitted styles and replacing
zippers in elasticwaist items." The quality, durability and comfort of the
linenlike fabric motivates Carakasi to pursue and expand hemp's sartorial
possibilities.

Similar incentives prompted Bob and Dave Frankel to start their own hemp
clothing business, FBHO. The Noe Valley shop showcases a variety of brand
names, including Two Star Dog, Hempy's and Indigenous Designs. The clothes
carried in the store are consistently upbeat and urban, appealing to the
practical consumer who shops at the Gap or Banana Republic but with a liberal
dash of attititude. "We look for personality in the products we select,"
Dave says.

Jennifer Jensen's vision embodies the theatrical peices she crafts for her
company, Labyrinth Phassions and Costumes. Jensen's costume aesthetic,
meshed with an exotic flavor and offset by eclectic color combinations such
as chartreuse and burgundy, result in distinctive highfasion hemp ensumbles.
Her new Summerian line, modeled and named after mythical goddesses,
incorporates her innovative use of silkcreens on hemp fabric.

Dave Frankel says fashion can provide the perfect vehicle for educating
people about hemp's versatility. "Most people don't know our products are
made of hemp until they look at the tag," Frankel says. "We're helping to
translate a somewhat radical industry to the suitandtie crowd."

[Picture of Two Star Dog jeans, Labyrinth outfit and hemp women's business
suit from BH Designs]