Hemp. It conjures up a few images, doesn't it?
Scratchy shirts. Hippies. Pot.
It's a four-letter word to many, and to others an environmentally sound alternative to the likes of cotton.
It's long-lasting, durable, farming it uses no pesticides and requires less water than cotton, and it's versatile, says Bobby Wood, owner of Equinox, a hemp clothing store on North Fourth Avenue.
Wood, who calls himself Bobby D, has been wearing hemp for several years, even washing his face with it (he also carries hemp toiletries). And he's keen to address some of those notorious associations we mentioned above.
First off, the scratchy shirts. A lot of the hemp clothes Wood sells are blends of 55 percent hemp and 45 percent cotton. "Otherwise, they'd be like a potato sack," he concedes.
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Next, the hippies. Yes, many of his customers are the original counterculture lovers, people of a certain age and who are loyal to the product. But he also gets a younger crowd, college students who're simply curious.
As for the pot-smoking, that's a misconception Wood has to battle all the time. "People come in saying, 'Have you got a smoke?' They think I have pipes and stuff, and I'm like, 'This is a hemp store, not a smoke store.' "
The problem with hemp is it looks similar to the marijuana plant. But Wood and other hemp supporters argue that it's so low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive ingredient found in marijuana, that there's no way you can get high from it.
Because of the drug association, hemp is banned from being grown in the United States. That means Wood's suppliers — brands like Seedless Clothing Co., Satori Movement and Island Hemp Wear — have to import the hemp, mainly from Europe, and make the clothes here.
"The weird thing is the U.S. is the No. 1 importer of hemp products, but we can't grow it," he says.
He opened Equinox on East Speedway in 2003, on the advice of some friends. He'd been doing odd jobs, he says, working in fast-food joints and for swimming pool companies.
A dedicated vegetarian — near-vegan, in fact, he just can't bring himself to give up cheese — he'd been getting into healthy eating and wearing natural fibers, including hemp.
The first store on Speedway went reasonably well, he says, until a break-in last Thanksgiving that "wiped me out."
Wood had been keeping an eye on Fourth Avenue locations, and this one came up last December. Although it's a smaller space, he says it's much more high-profile.
Hemp has "so many uses," says Wood, 30, quiet spoken and far from being a pushy salesman.
And a look around his store proves the product's versatility. The feel of the clothes is surf-dude casual (Wood is a keen skateboarder). There are hemp shorts, hemp jeans, hemp bags, hemp Hawaiian shirts, hemp yoga gear and cute floral dresses, hemp beanie hats (and hemp yarn if you're inclined to knit one yourself), hemp shoes, hemp necklaces and hemp toe-rings.
The aforementioned toiletries, from Sydney, Australia, are made with organic hemp seed oil.
He reckons 70 percent of what he carries is hemp-based. The rest are accessories or made from other natural fibers, like the baby-soft 100 percent bamboo T-shirts, for example.
Trouble is, Tucson is a small market. Wood admits the store would probably do better in a larger city, like Phoenix.
He says he'll give the venture till the end of the year, then review it. He's tempted to take the business online, and he's also interested in designing his own hemp clothes.
Till then, in his own quiet, self-effacing way, he's waving the hemp flag as trendily as he can.
Quick Take
Equinox Hemp Clothing
611 N. Fourth Ave., 325-2724
What: Hemp and natural clothing, jewelry, toiletries, snowboards and skateboards
Price range: $2 to $120
Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; noon-4 p.m. Sundays
