Green Chic #7 Sample Sale!!

OK, what I wouldn't do to get my hands on that amazing Vivienne Westwood design!!! I am a particular fan of a splash of red set off of baby-blue/turquoise. If I were to get these shoes, they would definitely be the focal point of an outfit. The splash of color against a neutral or black look. yum.

And, as you may know from my previous post about the melissa shoe, they are green. Of course, you know they're vegan, but also made from recycled plastic...and the shoes themselves can be recycled into new pairs (when you're done with 'em). Guiltless shopping: minimal carbon footprint (with a rather cute foot), and sale prices!

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Green Chic #6 Loomstate, Rogan, and Target

Picture above from Loomstate fall08, not for Target.

Beloved hipster denimwear designer, Rogan, has an all organic line called Loomstate. After his great success with his Organic Capsule Go-International line at Target, he has signed on for seconds at the giant retailer.  From April 19-May 22nd, there will be a guest appearance at Target of all organic pieces from Loomstate.  I'm loving that green goods are becoming more affordable for the masses, as green and organic products are often prohibitively expensive.

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I've been AWOL with 'Keep it Green'

Yes, I know, I haven't kept up with my posts this week, but with very good reason. I have been on set styling Melissa Mansfield, the host of 'Keep It Green' on  Equator HD.  We shot the whole season this week, and I have to say, it was a lot of fun. Great crew, gorgeous host, and the guests were actually quite fascinating. My favorite was Van Jones from Green For All, an organization he founded to build an "inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty".  His idea to to unite those who need work with work that needs to get done: such as customizing buildings for better energy efficiency, installing solar panels, wind power, etc. He calls them 'green collar jobs', and the field is growing fast. I mean, just look at us in the fashion world, we have become obsessed with eco-chic. I even picked up a new magazine yesterday called Boho, that is printed entirely on recycled paper, and features eco-fashions.

Van Jones' book is out now: Green Collar Economy. I know I'll be picking up a copy!

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Stylists Diary: Keep It Green

Every once in a while I get to style a project that I feel is worth mentioning. Last week, I styled the host of Keep It Green, Melissa Mansfield (Wednesdays 8pm, on Equator HD). I was actually very excited to get to work on a project whose values are so close to my heart. In one of the shows, she visits Dress For Success, a charity that was founded in New York in 1997 to help disadvantaged women acquire the tools they need to start successful careers. Namely, they will outfit women with a suit for a job interview, and give them additional attire once they land the job.

The fact is that how you dress is a form of communication to those around you. It says how you feel about yourself, and who you aspire to be. The unfortunate truth is that with prices as they are, it  may be hard for some to dress as the person they would like to be, thus paradoxically making it hard to get the job that would afford them the wardrobe. 

Learn how you can donate your season's past castaways here. And yeah, there is probably one near you, with 85 affiliates in the US, Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the UK.

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Green Chic #5

With all this talk of 'going green' and 'organic fashions', I sometimes get worried that we will all have to dress in cream colored burlap sacks made out of hemp. But there are actually a lot of options out there that are quite stylish.  I recently discovered Stewart + Brown, who have the requisite amount of organic cotton t-shirts and sweat pants, but also delve into some more fashionable options. I personally love some of their knitwear, as the patterns are just gorgeous. I'm sure the feel of the fabric is lovely too...they even have a cashmere section...yum! Sure, it's not exactly Barneys Coop yet, but it sure is getting there. I have pulled pics of some of my fave looks from their site. The sweater above is to die for, and the woven dress below is super cute (and in my fave fashion color: Grey!).  I even discovered some hoodies that are kinda dope.

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Green Chic #5

New meaning to 'juicy couture'....meet the 'juice bag'

It's all well and good to wear organic cotton...but when you can enjoy the comforts of modern living, such as an ipod or a cellphone without plugging into an electrical outlet, how genius is that?

As you may or may not know, there has existed once upon a time a very workable electric car (the movie Who Killed the Electric Car literally made me cry...no joke), and solar panel technology has been around for years and years. I think we can all dream of a utopian home completely off the grid...maybe with a watermill off a river, windmills, organic gardening, and yes, solar power. ahhhhhhhhhh.

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't have one of these homes yet, and as fashionable as 'green' is, people don't seem to be ready yet for that sort of change. But hey, why not start with a solar paneled beach tote? Spend all day baking in the sun, and listening to tunes. Or hell, why not this crazy solar paneled bikini? It even has a USB drinks cooler. Fantastic... if you don't like

swimming, and you love the babes on Bladerunner. 

You could also do the backpack if you are hiking and want to charge your GPS...could come in handy...and maybe ruin plot points for treacherous lost-in-the-woods survivor movies. Or else, perhaps you want the messenger bag, to keep your cellphone juiced for all your business meetings. 

Granted, the technology is not yet there to power a large device such as a laptop with one of these bags. It can't store up quite enough power at a time...but one day...one day....

Hey, let's face it, we all run around with a bag full of devices: iPod, cellphone, PDA, GPS, digital camera...and we all panic when the little red battery light goes on...this no longer has to effect us. AND we can burn less coal. Who's in?

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Green Chic #4

Burning Torch

Hey guys, you know I am on the lookout for all things Green. In a world where it's so easy to obsessively buy designer lines from Target (ahem), I gotta keep my eye out for the little people who are trying to do it right. Designer Karyn Craven started Burning Torch in 1999 in Los Angeles. She is devoted to eco-responsibility, using recycled vintage materials and organic products.

I definitely prefer her fall/winter 2008 line to her summer 2008...but then, I feel in fashion, there is always more room for exploration in layering in the colder months. I love to see her sensibility in texture...from fabrics to patters, there is always a coziness to her pieces. It's a very victorian girly aesthetic a la Anthropologie....Altho, she is much higher end, having graced the floors of Barneys NY.

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Green Chic #3

The Melissa shoe

Gals...summer is here...hot days, but the odd rain shower and those pesky guys hosing down the sidewalks make the Jelly Shoe the perfect trend. Yes, yet another style from the by-gone days of the 80's has found it's way out of fashion-purgatory and back into the lime-light.

Just about every designer has a version, Marc Jacobs , Cesare Paciotti, even Fendi (to name a few). But those designers are just dabbling....the place to go for all your Jelly shoe needs is Melissa.

Melissa is a Brazil based company whose ethos is firmly rooted in environmental and economic sustainability.  All their shoes are fabricated in such a way that they can be recycled into a brand new pair (customers in Brazil can drop their used shoes off!). The manufacturing process makes use of all it's own residues, thus leaving practically zero waste on the environment, and Melissa employs 20,000 people in 12 vertically integrated factories.

Now lets get down to the fashion...creative director, Edson Matsuo is always in pursuit of new ideas in the realm of plastics technology and design. So far he's had a great result with the innovation of MELFLEX, a material that molds easily and comfortably to the foot, as well as being highly recyclable. On top of that Melissa has been collaborating with great designers and artists for years: Campana Brothers, Judy Blame (with his punk styling), Karim Rashid, Alexandre Herchcovitch, and this year Vivienne Westwood (due out in the fall)!

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Green Chic #2

So...the weather in NYC this week hit the high 90's...walking the streets is like battling a sludge of heat. Comedian Lewis Black once made fun of New Yorkers who leave the house with a two liter bottle of water in a sling 'as if they were going to cross the Sahara'...well, sorry Lewis, but on days like today, hydration is not a bad idea. Especially if you are waiting on the F line platform for more than 10 minutes.

In my daily life, I see a lot of plastic water bottles get used up. There are always loads of them on shoots for the crew...but they end up being so wastefull. At the end of one day we could fill two trashbags. Mostly because no one can remember which one was theirs, and so they open another one. Besides the obvious landfill issue, studies have shown that toxic chemicals leach into your water as these small bottles are shipped across country through hot and cold conditions. Rumor has it Sheryl Crow is so sure that it caused her breast cancer, that she refuses to drink plastic bottled water ever again.

Green Chic solution? Carry your own reusable bottle. I am a big fan of the Sigg bottle.  I have several designs in different sizes. The small one fits in my smaller handbag, the medium fits in my big totes, and the large bottle was great at the beach last weekend. They are made of light aluminum, with a non-leaching coating inside. As a fashion bonus, they have a plethora of designs to choose from, so you can match your outfit if you like (and there will never be any question as to whose bottle is whose). They are available online, or you can buy them at Whole Foods Market.

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Green Chic #1

For waaayyyy too long, going green or organic was stigmatized as being a 'hippie treehugger'...and as we all know, it's been decades since 'hippie' was cool.

Thankfully, the tides have changed, perhaps in part due to uber-geek Al Gore, and Green has become chic. Instead of "this seasons must-have", it's "this decades must-do".

It seems that every other day I come across another solution to what ails us. In america that amounts to a huge change of habit. For us, everything is disposable....even some of our income. So step one is to look at allll our waste, and see how we can minimize it.

Last season's 'it' bag was the 'I'm not a plastic bag' bag. Kudos to designer Anya Hindmarch for making it stylish. It brought to our attention how much landfills are consumed by plastic bags, which take 1000 years to degrade. San Francisco is actually considering banning them, which in that city alone 'would save 450,000 gallons of oil a year and remove the need to send 1,400 tons of debris now sent annually to landfills' says Ross Mirkarimi.

I think that is a fantastic idea...but we also need really fantastic replacement solutions. Now, the canvas bag can be really cute, but lets face it, I often forget to grab it on my way out the door. Or what if I am dropping by the grocers on the way home from work (as I so often am wont to do)? Well, fear not, it's been taken care of. I absolutely adore my Envirosax. A series of chic nylon bags that roll up into tiny balls. They are sturdy enough to carry the heaviest loads, but fold up so small that you can fit several into your handbag. I usually keep a couple in there, because you never know when you are gonna need to buy something. And because Green is now in fashion, you better believe they are cute and modern.

So what are you waiting for? You can shop for them here.

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