Most women, and a good proportion of men, enjoy looking good. But fashion is ever changing and we are frequently prompted to buy new clothing to fit in with fresh designs that are trendy and modern. And, with amazing clothes now being so accessible and affordable, we often fail to realise that these brilliant outfits were created at the expense of our natural resources – or worse; we fail to care.
Lately, the fashion industry has responded well to environmental concerns and “Green Theory” has swept over the fashion world! Eco-friendly fashion designers are now proving themselves by overcoming the hurdles of incorporating environmentally beneficial materials into artistic inspiration coupled with wear-ability, practicality, and actual execution.
Green Fashion Shows
In January 2010, Sao Paulo’s summer fashion week was eco-themed to highlight water conservation, recycling, alternative sources of energy, and a plan to plant 7,800 trees. The fashion week highlights included garments made from recycled plastic, waste paper and other nature-friendly garments.
The Los Angeles 2007 October fashion show focussed on sustainability and eco-friendly fashions and designers, while the show itself was sponsored by Mercedes Benz to promote clean-diesel technology. In New York, known for its inherent big-city pollution, a portion of the proceeds from the 2005 Fashion Week’s three-day trade show were donated to Al Gore’s Climate Project. The February 2005 event was called “Future Fashion”, and led the way in highlighting bamboo and organic cotton as eco-friendly fabrics.
Across the pond in another famous fashion capital, London, the 2006 Fashion Week was devoted to using organic, fair-trade and recycled materials, from organic lingerie to men’s clothing made from recycled suits.
Green Fashion Designers
Taking a peek behind the curtains at the shows, we’ve found thirteen innovative and environmentally conscious fashion designers from around the world who show that they can successfully marry their love of the environment with their passion for clothing:
1. Canada’s Lara Stephenson designs women’s basics—such as dresses, tops, cardigans and t-shirts—out of soy, bamboo, and organic cotton.
2. Sweden’s Anja Hynynen creatively uses dyed wool, hemp, cotton, silk and linen to create her high-fashion garments.
3. USA designer Raquel Allegra cleverly creates near-transparent gowns, caftans and tunics by shredding and stretching reclaimed shirts from Los Angeles County Jail! Can someone say ‘wow’?
4. Jane Palmer (co-creator of Noon Solar bags) uses a low-impact alternative to toxic fabric treatments. She is also the founder of the first and only natural-dye production house in the US, which is based in Chicago and launched in January this year.
5. Brooklyn fashionista, Christine Domanic, makes use of vintage components and recycled, organic fabrics to create jewellery by hand at her fully wind-powered home studio.
6. Alyce Santoro’s sonic fabric, which is partly made of recorded cassette tape, was used in two pieces for Deborah Lindquist’s fall/winter 2010 collection. It was used in a corset top made of sonic fabric, hemp silk, and vintage leather, as well as in a bustier dress made of sonic fabric, tie-dyed hemp, tie-dyed denim, and vintage leather. Deborah Lindquist’s designs are designs are popular because she uses sustainable materials like hemp, organic wool, recycled cashmere, vintage silk, and kimonos and have been worn by Gwen Stefani, Paris Hilton, and Charlize Theron.
7. London’s Julie Roebuck designs chic street-wear pieces by using used or surplus garments. Her first designs were made for her final-year project at Chelsea College of Arts and Design. Her most innovative and memorable piece is a dress stitched together from three pairs of unworn pants. She uses rejected items; the unwanted, the faulty, and the discarded—reworking them into brilliant masterpieces.
8. Dandi Maestre is a jewellery designer that is the equivalent of a miracle-worker. She transformed shed antlers into an avant-garde necklace, and driftwood into a chunky cuff. She’s also dyed exotic nuts and carved them into psychedelic rings.
9. Tierra Del Forte is the founder of Del Forte Denim; a line of premium organic denim for women. Also, when the jeans are unfit to see the light of day, Project Rejeaneration will take them back for reuse and renewal.
10. Gary Harvey designed a collection made from 42 pairs of jeans, which were refashioned into a couture dress and showcased at London Fashion Week. He used recycled newspaper, second-hand baseball jackets and wedding gowns as decorations for his show.
11. Linda Loudermilk is definitely an enviro-activist. She creates high fashion out of bamboo, antique lace, and soy and wood pulp. Certain pieces benefit StopGlobalWarming.org and the Global Campaign for the Right to Water. She also developed the luxury eco-accreditation stamp.
12. Brooklyn’s Baher Shahpar designs pieces made of organic wool, linen, and even a special silk harvested from discarded cocoons!
13. Sarah Ratty has been a green activist from a very young age, reusing cable-knit sweaters from Oxfam. Her knitwear coat is now in a permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Ratty founded Conscious Earthwear, which recycles post-consumer waste into a streetwear line. She also has a successful luxury line called Ciel, which celebrities such as Sienna Miller and Cate Blanchett have shopped at.
If you are inspired, like me, by these little titbits of eco-information and now feel a sudden urge to shop for green fashion labels but have no clue where to start, fear not – check out the Fashion & Clothing section of the Green Times directory.
Integrating fashion and an environmental conscientiousness is to be commended, especially when it is so easy to adopt a blasé attitude about life in general. What’s more, in the fashion industry, which is seemingly about excess and extravagance, these fashion designers who flout the resource-wasting ethos deserve our support, or at the very least, a nod of recognition.
If you looking for something less expensive than silk, but still very comfortable, you could try with bamboo fabric. Surprisingly, bamboo fabric is natural and very eco-friendly. You don't need to worry for bamboo trees because they regenerate themselves. Bamboo trees are growing very quickly.
Green directory of eco-friendly Australian businesses. This green directory is providing you all details about environmental companies around Australia. Find the green business around your place.
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