Peace, Love, and Green Tee
By Kim Lachance
Jeff Toolan is talking about shipping pregnant baboons from Texas to Cornell University, where, upon
arrival, his fellow lab coats induced labor then euthanized their newborns solely for their adrenal glands, all in the name of immunocytochemistry – specifically the study of premature birth in primates. And I thought I’d driven to Little Tokyo to chat with him about his eco fashion line.
“Baby baboons are cute and more or less hairless and look an awful lot like human babies,” Jeff tells me from across a lump of unfolded, never-worn T-shirts heaped on his desk. It was his first semester at Cornell, he says, and he was barely 16.
The University of Geneva Fulbright scholar is now 28 and all-American Abercrombie model material (a handsome polyglot genius with a personality and a sense of fashion). He credits what he new age-ily calls a “consciousness wakeup, no – more like a breakdown” in a sterile lab for his quantum leap from animal-testing child prodigy to human rights activism to the gray matter behind his latest brainchild, multeepurpose Clothing Co. It’s an on-the-up eco-fashion house that sells trendy organic “cause tees” online, then donates a percentage of the sales to mostly local grassroots charities. One of those is Chrysalis, a job-training center for the homeless on skid row, just two blocks from Jeff’s office.
The Ithaca native’s U-turn from Ivory Tower golden boy (while at UCLA, he assisted poly sci professor Steven Spiegel, President Clinton’s advisor to the Middle East; he’s one of the youngest ever International Human Rights Consortium fellows; he sits on the Los Angeles World Affairs Council ... and the impressive list goes on) to freshman Tinseltown green couture entrepreneur makes a little more (slightly more) sense when you consider his vision for multeepurpose.
The concept is simple, thankfully much simpler than the finer points of fetal primate endocrinology. It boils down to two words: Effortless Activism, also the name of yet another global humanitarian project Jeff has his hands in.
Basically, you buy one of Jeff’s good-cause shirts, designed by local artists and stitched sweatshop-free at American Apparel’s “sustainable” L.A. Warehouse Street factory (the huge pink “Legalize L.A.” building), and approximately 20 percent of your 30-some-odd-dollars benefit a charity related to the cause you’ll effortlessly draw attention to in your role as walking billboard. So you feel good having made a “difference” (or a dent) in this mad world by merely pulling a soft, snug organic cotton-blend over your head and stepping out the door. And it’s better than sending cash to Sally Struthers; your selfish self gets something out of it – a durable, high-quality, fashionable conversation piece that doubles as a shirt.
multeepurpose tees, which Jeff claims were worn by the likes of Charlie Sheen and his PAs months before the GAP (Red) began its affair with parenthetical descriptors (like someone I know), are an easy alternative for would-be eco/human/animal/pick-a-cause crusaders who like to sit back and complain but aren’t willing to dodge rubber bullets or eat tear gas outside the Federal Building.
Backseat do-gooders can choose from cause categories like human rights, animal rights, eco-awareness, civil liberties, and “urgent.” I haven’t figured that last one out yet, though it seems to be a catchall for anti-genocide and various fringe initiatives. Jeff gave me a classy freedom of speech V-neck that quotes (closely paraphrases) Voltaire in white calligraphy on black cotton: “I may disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.” I also picked up two colorful crewnecks with all 30 articles of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights splashed across their fronts, forming the smiling face of Mahatma Gandhi.
Jeff’s favorite tee is an oft-imitated “Post No Bills” vintage wash number that condemns muzzling our First Amendment rights, which sold like hash cakes at 35 North American cities on the summer 2007 Warped Tour. Some other standout (and some odd) multeepurpose message designs include: “Guide Dogs Rock!” “I Carry My Own Chopsticks,” and “Made With 100 Percent Real Fat,” an anti-trans-fat/anti-silicone tank top and “salute to boobies as nature intended them.” All are made with eco-friendly organic cottons, inks, and dyes, and strictly no petroleum-based carcinogenic microfibers like ever-popular flocking and velvet.
Being literally up to your (crew or V-) neck in a cause du jour isn’t enough anymore for the modern, green-washed mass-market consumer. Just looking the part is good, especially in this vainglorious town, but using your capitalist pig buying power to effect change in your own community is even better.?
multeepurpose Clothing Co., 269 S. San Pedro St., L.A., (877) 4MULTEE. multeepurpose.com.
Published: 09/24/2008
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