Yotam Solomon is a whole other breed of fashion designer; not only is he committed to designing consciously with existing alternative methods, but he is actively reshaping the fashion manufacturing industry through cradle to cradle innovation.
Despite facing a multitude of challenges and barriers, Solomon is gaining incredible momentum with his mission to detoxify the fashion industry; his big-picture mentality has empowered him to take the visionary step of rejecting the status quo in order to usher in change.
Currently one of the pioneering companies at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), in the burgeoning Cleantech Corridor of Downtown LA, Solomon and his company Revoterial, are setting the stage for the next era of clean manufacturing.
The La Kretz Innovation Campus will bring 60,000 square feet of cleantech innovation and commercialization activities to the Cleantech Corridor.
Yotam grew up in Israel, moving to Los Angeles in 2003. Showing a passion and gift for the arts as a viola prodigy, he went on to study Fashion Design at LA’s Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM).
Upon graduation Yotam took a pattern making position for a menswear line and continued to work on product development with large companies and brands. He also launched his eponymous label in 2007, at the tender age of 20.
Having witnessed the potential impact of his products on a multitude of levels, Yotam aims to inspire and encourage public awareness of social and environmental issues through his collections.
As a person, I go through a lot of learning stages and sometimes I find information that I really want to share. I like to express it through fashion; I think it’s a wonderful medium and at the end of the day, it’s art that we get to wear, so what’s more fun than that?
The Yotam Solomon Ready-to-Wear, Footwear and Accessories collections focus on environmentally friendly production and natural materials, with low impact glues, and natural dies; everything is sourced and manufactured here in the US.
Yotam’s fashion is sold internationally and worn by the likes of Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian, Stacey Keibler and Sandra Bullock.
Items from the Yotam Solomon collection; drawing inspiration from social and environmental issues.
Due to his exposure to the inner workings of the fashion industry, Yotam became increasingly conscious of the negative aspects of large-scale manufacturing.
This knowledge continues to drive him to push the boundaries and challenge the current system.
When you see the giant factories manufacturing mostly with harmful and toxic materials, you think to yourself, "this can’t be?" But more than just thinking about it, I really had to do something about it.
People can make profits by creating renewable materials.
For me it’s really about making cradle to cradle solutions, period. If it won’t make sense for us in 50 years time, what’s the point of making it now? That’s my biggest design and core business value.
Yotam recognizes how the industry is essentially stuck in a time warp, operating in a way in which change is long overdue.
During the industrial revolution, we created a lot of wrongful ideology using materials that would eventually harm us, but nobody knew back then, and the problem now is that we became dependent and haven’t moved away from that yet; we are still working with the same old materials.
Over the last eight years he observed what was going on and made a commitment to creating non-toxic solutions. One of his ongoing missions is to educate people about the issues, in order to minimize confusion and misinformation.
My biggest issue with large corporations is that they always focus on recycling and they don’t understand how recycling works; recycling is not enough.
Sustainability has represented a gap between technology innovation and top executives, not allowing true clean and green manufacturing into the marketplace.
Clean manufacturing is a system where you don’t have waste; where you get your money for your own products back, to do full cycling ability.
Recycling and renewability are two different things; recycling something means that you can use a specific amount of products again. An example for that are plastics. Grade 1 - 4 can only be recycled between 30-40%, which means that 60 or 70% is always wasted, ending up in landfills or the ocean.
Renewabilty means a product is natural and can be fully recycled. One of the things that upsets me is that we don’t have the right terminology; we don’t have the right vocabulary, language or jargon to really scale up and let people understand how these metrics can affect this giant industry.
I want to focus on renewability, which is what clean manufacturing is all about; a closed loop, and a triple bottom-line balancing Profit, People, and Planet.
Yotam founded Revoterial in 2012. The Los Angeles-based material development company is in the process of pioneering seismic change within the fashion manufacturing industry.
Currently owning exclusive rights to dozens of university and institution patents, the company is introducing sustainable raw-material, processing, and finishing technologies that are fully integrated into existing manufacturing standards.
Yotam explains,
We are, in a way, a research and development company. We are going to be initiating product development so we are very R&D focused, and we are producing healthy products for generations to come.
We have quite a few things that we’re working on right now at Revoterial; our premier technology is called Silxt, which is based on low cost bulk silk, that’s based on the fiber silk, not on the yarn.
We are able to transform it into composite materials to replace products like plastics rubbers and foams, for fashion manufacturing because they have the correct metrics for what we need in this specific industry.
Silxt is a farmed material; the cocoons are grown in a very simple farm method, the worms only nourish on mulberry tree leaves. It’s a very simple farming method that can be done anywhere on the globe, which in turn, helps to revive the natural farming landscape.
With Silxt we can create fully-assembled products like shoes, bags, and phone cases. Using a single material that can be directly adhered, and is naturally waterproofing, eliminates many harmful chemicals and simplifies the entire process.
Incredibly enough, there is also a price advantage, with first material analysis showing competitive price savings compared to conventionally used materials.
We have multiple projects that are coming up in more material spaces and projects that include micro-technology and nano-technology as well, so we will be able to engineer materials into different products by modifying and engineering the nano scale and molecular formation of materials.
Working at this level means that Revoterial will be able to affect change across many fields: from the appearance to the functionality and performance of many products.
Revoterial currently has technology projects that are both in lab and factory scales. All of our development projects focus on cradle to cradle orientation, price competitive solutions, and direct integration into existing assembly lines. We initially help domestic companies source materials and then support local manufacturing in the US and all western regions; an industry sector we lost decades ago.
Yotam's goal is to bring full-scale manufacturing back to the United States, with a projected timeline of just three years.
Another challenge that he has encountered is, of course, finding and securing funding.
We are looking at many different technologies and really focusing on scalability and getting funding is not as easy as it may seem.
A lot of people are very skeptical; I learned that some of the hardest fundraising projects in the world became some of the most successful projects, but nobody believes you at first.
The technology is out there but it’s about getting the funding to make it all happen. Surprisingly there are a multitude of existing technologies. Usually it’s in the medical space for material development but not for fashion. It’s interesting to me because there’s so much need in fashion for these types of projects.
What it seems to boil down to is whether people care or not, and whether they can see value in the change. People are all-too-often dismissive of this kind of development, even thought it’s incredibly fundamental.
There is a baffling irony about the way we are socially programmed to care more about our cars and homes than our personal effects, even though we wear them next to our skin.
The number one question I get is: what’s wrong with fashion now? They just don’t understand what goes into it. It’s the number one misunderstanding when I start talking, they say: well, why do you need to change that?
Members of the LACI team are currently located at the temporary facility on Hewitt Street.
As one of the successfully nominated LACI portfolio companies, Revoterial is provided with a wealth of support and business resources that include help finding grants and investor connections. Run by the Mayor’s office, it is an integral part of a greater vision to build LA’s green economy.
One of the things I like the most about LACI is they bring some amazing talent as far as the CEOs, Product Developers and Executives that have experience.
We are developing milestones for when we bring manufacturing back here, and offer interesting incentives for companies like New Balance or Columbia, to actually open factories in the US, and more specifically Los Angeles, as we have the harbor and the city itself offers different resources as well.
I think that LACI as a full-scale incubator provides great resources; it's very helpful for me as a new clean-tech business to have that backing and the opportunities that come with that.
Yotam chats with incubator colleague, Jon Edward Miller, Chief Product Officer at Hive Lighting.
When questioned if Revoterial is regarded differently, due to its fashion focus, Yotam explains that there is a valuable exchange of knowledge and experience between him and his LACI colleagues.
For me coming from fashion I do bring a very specific insight to the table, that a lot of professionals in finance or the Cleantech sector don’t necessarily have an understanding for. A lot of people appreciate that it’s a tough industry and that I was able to have a successful business in this industry, and that I’m maintaining everything.
So far I’ve been able to help different companies with different connections and resources as well.
I’m really happy that I have all of this acquired knowledge so far and hopefully I can have a lot more in the next few years.
Pioneering a revolutionary kind of sustainable design thinking, Solomon has proven his ability to make sizable waves in short space of time.
Acting in awareness of both the short and long-term impact of his work, he strives to promote greater understanding and appreciation for kinder design and cleaner manufacturing processes.
I hope we can create solutions that revolutionize some aspects of fashion, but even if we change one or two materials it would be a dramatic change.
I really hope to create things that will use natural technologies, change how manufacturing is done here in the US, provide healthy solutions for manufacturing, and at the end of the day, help raise awareness and allow people to be more innovative when it comes to eco-friendly practices.
To find out more visit Revoterial.com
Creative Direction & Writing: Jennie McGuirk
Photography: Betsy Winchell
Studio Lighting Courtesy : Hive Lighting
With special thanks to the LA Cleantech Incubator