Archive for the ‘Green Thoughts Green Words Green Actions’ Category

A counter-example, if that wasn’t clear. Image via Art in Liverpool. Sorry.

Lots of interesting links in fashion news this week:

The Wall Street Journal tells us about a new cable channel with a Home Shopping Network premise, but featuring handmade housewares and indie designers, and informs us that there is a huge market out there waiting to be tapped.

At the same time, consumers are increasingly hungry for independent designs. In part, brand fatigue is to blame. Big fashion labels sell the same products the world over, diminishing their logos’ cachet. Their designers work on collections a year or more in advance of the clothes’ appearance in stores and rarely—if ever—meet the people who eventually buy them. Moreover, many consumers lost faith in luxury brands after watching prices soar during the boom, then plummet during the crash in the fall of 2008. The slashed sales prices raised questions about the true value of branded goods.

[...]  Now, even the huge brands are striving to establish authenticity—sometimes trying a bit too hard. British authorities recently banned Louis Vuitton ads that showed an artisan laboring on a bag, saying the ads suggested, falsely, that its bags are handmade.

The article gives a shoutout to CT’s own Trish Ginter, co-founder of the indie designer showcase Smashing Darling, and designer at Frock in Chester.

The Business of Fashion had more to add on Louis Vuitton:

A month earlier, Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of LVMH [Louis Vuitton's parent company], told investors at the luxury group’s annual shareholders meeting in Paris of his plan to take a 49 percent stake in Edun, the sustainable clothing label founded by Bono and Ali Hewson. “LVMH shares the vision and ethical values of Edun, a pioneer in ethical apparel, and its founders,” he said later. “LVMH is committed to advancing both the social and environmental aspects of sustainable development, which plays an intrinsic role in the development of our brands.”

The BoF article also discussed the struggle to balance good design, profitability, and sustainability:

Stella McCartney became known as a chic designer label that’s convincingly green, not as a green designer label that is convincingly chic. Speaking to The Business of Fashion, McCartney was clear about her priorities: “Obviously, I don’t use any animals which has a huge impact on the planet. But my first job is to make desirable, luxurious, beautiful clothing for women to want to buy. Then I ask myself: can I do this in a more environmental way without sacrificing design? If I can, then there is no reason not to. I think that women buy my product because they like how it looks, feels, fits and being sustainable is an added extra bonus.”

This emphasis on desirability and design may come as no surprise from a graduate of London fashion college Central St. Martins. But interestingly Ali Hewson, who founded Edun primarily as a means to do good, sees it no differently. She told BoF: “In the fashion business desirability is sustainability! This point has taught us over the years that we must produce quality clothes. Fit must be right, design details correct.”

Julie Gilhart, influential fashion director at Barneys New York, and an early proponent of sustainable fashion, sums it up bluntly: “Consumers respond to good design. Design and desirability must come first.” When deciding whether to spend on fashion, the consumer looks, above all, for good design. Ecological or ethical considerations are still very much secondary.

You can see Julie Gilhart riff on design and sustainability in this video.

You can also read my thoughts on these subjects in two previous posts, here and here.

I’m lately obsessed with the concept of multi-function, convertible clothing.  I think it’s a trend that will be a major boon to sustainability, allowing people to pare down the number of pieces in their wardrobe, while still being versatile enough to suit a number of different social and professional situations.

Check out this very thorough article about Chinese brand JNBY, which just opened a boutique in NYC.

Some may have a hard time ferreting out the standout pieces in what at first glance is a dim sum of shapeless, and soulless, gray, black, taupe and navy body casings suspended from fixtures that look like outsize swing sets. But on closer inspection, the loose-fitting clothes, in sizes 1 to 5 (3 is a medium), are audacious indeed, shifting shape, mood and proportion like an army of soft-skinned Transformers. Their mutability suggests a no-commitment approach to dressing that has parallels in contemporary home design; the clothes are the fashion equivalent of a cleverly constructed sectional that can be pushed, piled, tugged or folded into myriad shapes and configurations.

Image via StyleSpy

In the middle ages, among the upper classes, widows and women of a certain age would retire from public life, take vows and join a sisterhood of nuns, leaving the color and activity of public life to younger women.

These days, it seems to be the younger women who are more comfortable dressing in uniform, and it is the older women who have the confidence and love of life which they express through fashion.  This has been my observation through numerous social events I’ve attended in the last couple of years, where the older ladies are displaying some fabulous, individually styled ensembles, and the bright young things are dressed like mall mannequins.

The pattern held true on Thursday night, June 10, when I attended an evening of fashion shows at the inaugural StyleWeek Providence, in downtown Providence, Rhode Island.  (You can read more about the StyleWeek Providence organization in my article over at The Mercurial.  Unfortunately I had to cut my StyleWeek experience short one day, because of unforeseen events.  I had planned to work backstage at the Wednesday night shows, but I was unable to get into Providence early enough.  So you’ll just have to be satisfied with the view from the audience.)

After checking in and receiving my press pass, I was ushered into the bar at Hotel Providence, named Aspire and advertised in an appropriately artsy-handwriting font.  A table bearing several now-ubiquitous cupcake tiers greeted us before we stepped into the bar proper.  The decor, like most of the attendees of the show, was clad in unimaginative black, with ’80s contemporary square furniture and architecture, and moody lighting opposite big windows looking out onto a garden patio.

I settled into a corner with my seltzer and cranberry juice for some prime time people watching.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today is Etsy’s 5th birthday!  That’s a long time in internet years….  I’m having a surprise sale to celebrate!

Most items are $5 off, even clearance.
All vintage blouses are just $5!
For one day only.

Happy Birthday, Etsy!

Click on the Shop link above, or the Etsy button on the left to get to my shop.

Image via Gingerbread Jewelry.

Great column from the New Statesman, a UK perspective on sustainable fashion.

Although I am wary of any kind of ethical consumption that encourages you simply to buy differently rather than less, it’s pointless to expect people to stop shopping. Even in the thick of economic gloom, we will restock our wardrobes. So, to rescue our planet from further degradation, we need innovative ethical retailers on the high street.

We can no longer ignore the fashion industry’s track record. The UK market alone produces two million tonnes of waste each year, 3.1 million tonnes of CO2 and 70 million tonnes of waste water, according to Defra. In the battle for land to grow more food, there is concern that crops such as cotton are taking up valuable space. UN figures show that we need to increase food production by 70 per cent by 2050. On top of this, scandals about conditions for textile workers occur regularly, exposed by NGOs such as Labour Behind the Label.

[...] we must not forget the importance of desirable clothes. For smaller ethical retailers to gain a presence on the high street, they will need to leave behind clichéd staples such as shapeless hemp tunics and make clothes that people want to wear.

Links mine.

Also read my rant on a similar thread here.

Via the News-Times, Danbury’s crack information team (who can’t even get the name of the store correct in the headline).

DANBURY — After more than four years as an empty shell, the former Filene’s store at Danbury Fair mall will have an occupant.

Forever 21, a national clothing retailer with a smaller store at the mall, has submitted plans with the city to take over more than 77,000 square feet of space.

The company is expected to spend more than $2.3 million to renovate the space, according to documents submitted to Danbury’s building department. The store now occupies about 5,000 square feet elsewhere in the mall.

Filtering past the middle school name-calling and bickering in the comments on the web site, I was appalled to find someone actually thanking Forever 21 for "bringing much needed jobs to the area", as well as some other truly misguided economic analysis.

I was compelled to write a letter to the editors, which I usually refrain from doing with newspapers of such low caliber.

I’m reproducing it here, in a slightly expanded form, and with links.

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo (c) Rinze van Brug; via LinhardtDesign.com/blog

Meet Summer Rayne Oakes [...] fashion model, eco activist, environmental scholar, host of Discovery Network’s Planet Green, and author of Style, Naturally. Oakes will speak about her passionate support for sustainable development, sustainable design, and environmental activism. Following the talk, her book will be available for purchase and signing. In addition, Lisa Linhardt will be on hand to host a trunk show of her latest eco-friendly jewelry, as well as the jewelry and home décor designs of a.d. schwarz. Both designers are in the forefront of the sustainable design movement.

via AldrichArt.org; links added.

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT 06877
Tel 203.438.4519

www.aldrichart.org

Sunday, May 2
3 to 5 pm

member · FREE
non-member · $10.00
cornell alumni · $5.00

From the people who brought us One Laptop per Child, we now have a solution to the demoralizing experience that is underwear shopping. (Demoralizing for me anyway, because all I want are cotton bikini briefs that cover my entire rear, with no lace/cutouts/bling, etc, and the only kind I can afford is totally made in sweatshops. I am penitent.)

Pact sustainable undies for ladies and gents – sustainable materials, sustainable construction, and donations to effective organizations.

This link will also be available in the Eco Shopping Links tab.

 Please come and see me at Earthstock Connecticut, taking place on the campus of Tunxis Community College, my alma mater (ok, one of them), on Sunday, May 2, from 10-4.  There will be lots of great food, cool exhibits, and family friendly events. 

10% of all sales will be donated to the Tunxis Sustainable Energy Fund, to be used for implementing sustainable energy in TCC’s facilities.

More information here.

Head on over to Danbury’s indie news magazine, The Mercurial, for my reporting on the Mother Earth Fashion Show that took place in Bethel, CT on April 12.

As a local designer and fashion blogger, I looked forward to an injection of style and conscience into the closets of my fellow Danbury-metro dwellers.  I dressed for the evening in my usual mix of high and low style, new and vintage, mass market and indie designer.  My hair was newly trimmed by Tiffany of Tease Salon at Martin’s in Danbury, and colored, incidentally, by Jackie at A New Beginning.  My eyelids were enshrouded in brown shadow by Ecco Bella plant based cosmetics, available at Chamomile on Newtown Road.  I layered a black tuxedo jacket over my pink wrap sweater by Grace Napoleon, a featured designer for the event, and dark jeans.  Gray spectator-mary jane-hybrid oxfords finished the look.

This tree-hugging fashionista went the extra eco mile and rode the number 2 HART bus from Main Street, Danbury to the front door of the Stony Hill Inn, with time to spare.