Pioneer green designer Bahar Shahpar isn’t just paying lip service to sustainability and environmental consciousness–she’s built her business empire on it. Bahar Shahpar is a self-taught designer out of Brooklyn, N.Y., with an eclectic background, a flourishing fashion line and an inspiring philosophy. Her iconic design business has been profiled in magazines such as Lucky, NYLON, Domino, ELLE, and Women’s Wear Daily, and she showcased her fashions beside Oscar de la Renta and Lara Miller at the Sundance Festival’s 2008 Eco-Fashion Closet.                                                                               

An innovative and groundbreaking entrepreneur barely out of her twenties, her interest in sustainability is born out of a natural inquisitiveness and a search for facts. Working first as a make-up artist, she gained knowledge regarding the production process and chemical composition of everyday products and decided to dig deeper. “I started researching the manufacturing and agricultural industries and realized how much toxicity and wastefulness is out there. I decided to produce my own line, more as a decision to become a manufacturer and try to tackle some of those challenges of producing responsibly, rather than as a designer.” Shahpar is humble, and fails to champion her sustainable focus as revolutionary—she sees it as logical, rational and fair. Before her eponymous clothing line, Shahpar launched two successful businesses, both with sustainable philosophy as a cornerstone. “My very first business was essentially a multimedia design studio, trying to explore simplicity in urban living. This was before sustainability was a word in our common vernacular. To me, it was about, facing the challenges of living simply, efficiently, honestly, satisfyingly,” Shahpar says. “In big city life, often convenience wins out over authenticity and responsible, healthy choices. Once I realized how many bad choices were being made, it became a no-brainer to me to step up and prove you can manufacture stylish, quality, beautiful items that are competitive with every other mainstream product without sacrificing a responsible manufacturing ethic.”

She did, in fact, step up. This enterprising phenomenon started up Agricult, her very first line. “I learned a lot of lessons about the business of fashion, at a time when organics, sustainability and green fashion were not things anyone had ever heard of, particularly in the fashion world. It was a bit of an uphill battle trying to showcase the designs while staying true to the philosophy behind it,” she explains. “The challenge was balancing the design and the philosophy. I learned that a business isn’t going to succeed if they are only labeling themselves as a green business—you have to be able to be competitive in the mainstream market.”

Although she’s running a sustainable business, she grapples with similar issues and difficulties that most new business owners do. “I face the same challenges many new entrepreneurs face, which is learning to weather a really steep learning curve,” she says. “I’m self-taught. I taught myself through a tough trial and error way about production and what the nuts and bolts of manufacturing a line are. It’s so much more than just design and PR—it’s a product—and product development can be rocky sometimes.” Without a formal education in design or production, she’s learning how to run the business hands-on, fueled by a pure love of design and a passion for learning.

The state of the faltering economy has impacted most small businesses, and Shahpar’s is no exception. But, ever the optimist, she sees a silver lining. “Certainly in this economy, all small businesses are feeling the same thing. You need to have a very unique product and know how to market it in order to be successful. With such a depressed economy, people are spending far less than they used to. But the benefit has been that, for a sustainable designer, I’m focused on providing quality and timeless pieces. Right now, consumers are more apt to lean towards buying something like a piece of my line rather than something bought that goes out of style and is just left in the closet when the fad passes. If they’re going to be spending money, they want it to be on something that’s beautiful, well made and that they’re going to be able to wear for years.”

Shahpar’s line is feminine, modern, and earthy, integrating both elegant and whimsical elements into a progressively stunning design. Stylish, sophisticated, and refined, it’s the remedy for the modern woman with both a social consciousness and a sophisticated taste. Her Spring/Summer 2008 line is eclectic—some pieces have a professional, fitted, tailored aesthetic, several are flowing, loose and Victorian, while others are fun, flirty and fiercely feminine. “It’s fashion-forward. I’m focused on putting design first, by presenting a line that is at once innovative and creative. There’s always a going to be a customer that values aesthetic just as much as substance,” Shahpar observes, “We’re really catering to that customer who wants to be able to find items that are going to be beautiful, fashionable and that don’t make them have to sacrifice.” 

Shahpar produces locally in New York using only ecologically friendly materials and responsible labor practices, while minimizing waste and energy consumption. She uses vintage trims, natural buttons, and unbleached organic cotton linings. Her fabrics are soft to the touch, and luxurious. She carefully evaluates her materials according to the processes applied to cultivation and finishing. “It is much more limiting—most designers don’t have to choose from the more restricted palate of materials that we do as sustainable designers,” she says, “but progress is being made, and supplier sare offering more choices. There’s a lot of extended capacity.”

For years, niche consumers with a sustainable focus might have been pigeonholed into the Birkenstock-and-granola genre, a small segment of society that took an active role in minimizing their impact on the earth. In today’s marketplace, however, the sustainable consumer extends far beyond those boundaries and defies conventional sterotypes. “For years, environmentalism was limited to a certain type of activist individual living a certain type of lifestyle. And now, environmentalism isn’t just limited to an activist type of person–it’s young professionals, doctors, lawyers, fashionistas and suburban moms. Everyone’s starting to realize that their actions have a universal impact. You don’t have to be passionate about science, or the environment–it’s become about the quality of life. It’s important to provide products that can be positive alternatives to mainstream or destructive manufacturing, at every level.”

Shahpar started her career in sustainable fashion long before the corporate giants jumped on the green bandwagon and before the media sunk their teeth into the consumer trend. Sustainability has transitioned from a little-known buzzword to a true presence within our lexicon. “The attention and interest in green business was bound to happen. What’s really starting to happen is that the immediate effects are being seen. The natural attention in the media and increased consumer awareness are mostly due to very physical effects being visible. It’s about time that people start to see what’s happening in their backyard, within their lifetime. That change is important – if we don’t address it soon, the detrimental effects are going to be far greater.”

But how did sustainability move from occupying a niche lifestyle to the mainstream consumer? “All the different points of exposure these last couple years have cumulatively created a snowball effect. [People] see it in magazines ranging from Oprah to InStyle to Lucky. Whether its Fox news or your local television channel, Planet Green or the Sundance Channel, people are getting it from a lot of different access points. I think that’s why universally these realties are becoming a lot more familiar to people.”

With Shahpar’s unparalleled success in sustainable fashion and her infectious passion, it’s not a stretch to envision her running a sprawling global enterprise one day. Wildly successful yet modest about her accomplishments, she reflects on her future and the future of her line. “I hope to be able to adapt to the marketplace. I have a customer in mind and I hope to continue to listen to her needs and desires and be able to respond to them. I have a classic, tailored, comfort aesthetic with a modern feel. I hope to continue designing the line, to grow it, and expand it to include a lot of other options.”

Sustainable and green businesses have come a long way in the past decade, evolving from a neglected niche to an impressive and burgeoning market lavished with unprecedented media attention and consumer appeal. The sustainable business statistics are astounding: $265 billion, 1.6 million people, and 5% growth per annum. For a sector that was close to zero only a decade ago, these numbers certainly reflect the boom the green industry has seen. In a study co-authoredby the government adviser on climate change, Robin Smale, and a fellow in Climate Policy at Oxford University, Cameron Hepburn, research suggests global commerce could receive a $1 trillion boost from sustainable business over the next five years. 

With such remarkable growth and industry maturation, it’s tempting to speculate on the impact of the green industry on mainstream manufacturing. Shahpar hopes for the eventual merging of mainstream and sustainable commerce. “As an industry, as a whole, what I’d really like to see happen is a break down of barriers between green and other—the delineations of green business versus regular business. I don’t think there should be those labels, and that’s what we’re all working towards. We’re defining ourselves as green businesses now simply to serve as examples and as answers to critics that say it can’t be done, and that it can’t be done successfully. Hopefully we’ll see wonderful progress and increased success in the next few years and few seasons. Hopefully, what that will do is encourage the other manufacturers to adopt these practices. Ultimately, if we are to continue to be economically prosperous, every business will have to adapt in some way. All of these things we see as being limited to the green industry are just going to become common sense for every business in terms of manufacturing practice.”         

For more information please visit: www.baharshahpar.com

Photos Provided by Bahar Shahpar