Have you ever wondered what the fast fashion we love is actually made of? Have you debated about buying one couch over another, but couldn’t understand the wildly differing prices of what appeared to be similar products? Do you go into a muddle when you see various acronyms such as GOTS and PET? These questions are precisely the kind that guest speaker Patty Grossman, co-founder of O Ecotextiles, will explore when she visits the University of Nebraska Oct. 1-3, 2013. Grossman’s public lecture at 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, October 2, 2013, is titled Green Textiles: from Conception to Consumption, and will be held in room 11 on the lower level of the Home Economics Building, on east campus. The Department of Textiles, Merchandising & Fashion Design in the College of Education and Human Sciences is hosting Ms. Grossman. Wendy Weiss, Professor of Textile Design, received funding support from the UNL Faculty Senate Convocations Committee to help underwrite the events associated with her visit.

As CEO of “O Ecotextiles”, http://www.oecotextiles.com, Patty Grossman raised $1.5 million from angel investors to produce the first collection of Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certified interiors fabrics. GOTS is a new and stringent third party certification assuring lack of toxicity in the production process and in the fabric final product. The result of three years of research and development, O Ecotextiles’ collection has garnered impressive kudos including the House and Garden award for “Best Merchandise” at the collection’s very first trade show, Decorex, in London, September 2007. The 2008 Sundance Film Festival chose fabrics from the O Ecotextiles line for its VIP lounge. London’s Sunday Telegraph called the founders eco-heroes. “O Ecotextiles” was chosen as one of the Top Ten Green Products of 2008 by the oracle of the green building industry, Environmental Building News and Built Green.

Prior to her work with O Ecotextiles, Ms. Grossman was Executive Director of Cascadia Revolving Fund, in Seattle, Washington. Under her leadership Cascadia was judged the winner of the Excellence in Microenterprise Development Award the first year the title was awarded. She accepted the prize from President and Mrs. Clinton in 1997. Patty Grossman holds an A.B. from Smith College in philosophy (mathematical logic) and an MBA in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In addition to her talk on October 2, Ms. Grossman will visit classes with undergraduate and graduate students across campus. For complete schedule details, please contact Wendy Weiss at 402-472-2911. All events are free and open to the public.