Sally V. Fox

Born: 1955

Country of Birth: USA

Nationality: USA

Ethnicity: White

University of California Riverside MSc Entomology/Integrated Pest Management 1981; California State Polytechnic University BSc Biology, minor in Entomology 1979

"“I had this whole vision that the world wanted handmade items out of dog hair, so when the dog died, they’d still have something special from it,” (vogue.con); “I’m not anti-color," she says, “[but] can’t we use colors responsibly, where, when we dye things, we clean them up?. . .If you start with brown cotton, you can dye it black with 80% less dye and it’s darker black than anyone ever got.” (vogue.com); “If I had a wish, it would be that I was funded by some foundations somewhere, that I could do the the microbiological work of identifying how to get these colors to shift. If it has the right environment, you can get blues, you can get pinks,” she says. “There’s no reason in the world that somebody couldn’t study this and figure out how to make these color shifts using enzymes or using a fermentation process in the manufacturing of the fabric.” (vogue.com); "People didn't think it was possible to improve the quality of the brown and green cotton so that it could be spun. So because they thought it was impossible, they didn't really work on it," Sally says. "When I started my work, I was an entomologist, and I hadn't read all the plant books saying you couldn't do it. So I was blessed with ignorance, and thus went on. I also loved to spin those cottons!"(invention.si.edu); "It took me eight years of hard work to get to the point where there is a field of [cotton plants] that are all the same color of brown, and all the same height, and farmable (sic)...I started with plants that were all different heights...So a lot of what I breed is not just color, but farmability (sic)."(invention.si.edu); "What is critical is to retain an openness and a questioning approach to life in general...I never really planned to be an inventor, but my attitude toward life has always been inventive." (invention.si.edu); “Later, I worked for a cotton breeder for a summer,” Sally continued. “He had all white cotton and the breeding was very boring. But he had a bag of short staple brown cotton, just a bunch of brown cotton full of seeds. It was the first time I had ever seen colored cotton and I fell in love with it. He said there was no market for it. But I was in my twenties, so I said, ‘Why don’t we make a market for it?’ He said to go for it and I did. I went through all those seeds and hand-spun the cotton connected to every single one. I decided which ones were the easiest ones to spin and I planted those. That was the beginning.” (etsy.com); "

— Sally V. Fox

Field of Study: Cotton Breeder

Institution/Corporation: Vreseis Ltd; Viriditas Farm

Degrees & Memberships: None found

Awards: 1993 United Nations Programmed Award; 1992 Edison Award for Environmental Achievement, American Manufacturing Association; Green Award, Green Housekeeping Magazine; 1993 IFOAM-Organics International Organic Cotton Recognition Award; 1994 Discover Award for Technological Innovation-Environmental Category, Discover Magazine; 2018 The Sustie Award, Ecological Farming Association; 1996 Golden Eagle Award, US Congress; Corporate Conscious Award, The Council on Economic Priorities

Achievements: cotton breeder who breeds naturally colored varieties of cotton; inventor of FoxFibre & founder of Natural Cotton Colors Inc (1989) breeds pest-resistant plants; has created 2 naturally colored cottons & launched Foxfibre Colorganics; also has received a utility patent for the flame resistant properties she discovered and bred in Coyote and Buffalo Fox Fibre®;