Several North Carolina textile mills have formed a partnership and created a clothing brand of sustainable products called Collection.

Molly Hemstreet owns one of the factories that is part of the Collection collaboration and has more than 40 employees. Hemstreet told the Ignatian Solidarity Network that the brand is about "creating a movement."

Collection includes shirts, hats and backpacks made by different partners. The movement operates on the principles of ethical labor, using recycled fabrics or cotton from U.S. farming associations, and a partnership between factories and suppliers. 

Molly Hemstreet | YouTube

"The products are just one part of what we see as a cultural change in the consumption patterns," Hemstreet said. "We want to build up a real revolutionary alternative to the current fashion industry."

Opportunity Threads is a Collection-associated factory founded by Hemstreet. She said workers at the factory are not only paid a living wage, but receive money from the factory's surplus profit if there is one at the end of each year.  

Employees who meet the criteria can also opt to become part of its ownership, which is achieved by investing $25 per paycheck until their buy-in amount is reached. Currently there are six employees who've become partial owners. 

This is far out of the norm of global textile companies that put profit over people, which means workers are typically paid under the living wage and work long hours in unsafe conditions, Hemstreet said. 

The manufactures associated with Collection have a goal to mold the textile industry into a "local circular economy." Opportunity Threads and other associated factories in North Carolina aim to both prioritize being environmentally friendly and treating their workers well.