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Top Eco Fashion Designers
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Top Eco Fashion Designers
Top Eco Fashion Designers
Fashion Goes Green
Eco-friendly fashion is all the rage these days. The world of fashion is going green. Summer Fashion Week in São Paulo this year had an ecological theme, while the Los Angeles Fashion Week (to be held in October 2008) will be based on the concept of sustainability and eco-friendly fashion and designers. In New York, part of Fashion Week’s profits will go to Al Gore’s Climate Project, and organizers of the London Fashion Week will focus on organic and recycled material through Estethica, an ethical fashion initiative.
The FutureFashion show, part of New York Fashion Week, features clothes that were only made from ecologically friendly materials – bamboo, corn and cotton. Fashion designers such as Diane von Furstenberg and Oscar de la Renta are using fabrics made of interesting and ecologically sound materials like corn fibre and bamboo threads. The India Fashion Week showcased cellulose fibre, a completely eco –friendly material. Many Indian designers - Anita Dongre, Narendra Kumar, Rocky S and Naina Shah, among many more – have been using this fibre. Many designers are also using natural dyes and fabric, as well as eco-friendly accessories.
San Francisco was home to an eco-chic show, too, with designs from EcoGanik, Loomstate and Fabuloid.
Green Designers
Individual designers, too, are beginning to look at the world through green-coloured spectacles…
Take Linda Loudermilk, for instance. She leads the field of sustainable fashion with her “luxury eco” range, that utilizes resources like bamboo, soya, sea cell and saswashi, which is a blend of Japanese paper, herbs, vitamins and amino acids, reputed to be anti allergic as well as anti bacterial. She believes that “eco-glamour” can be “super-cool” with a “slammin’ attitude that stops traffic”. Loudermilk designs clothes for ecologically-aware celebrities like Jane Fonda, Debra Messing and Jennifer Beals.
One of the few Latin designers in Chicago, well known for her unique clothes and hemp hand-painted bags, Ami Melecio supports environmentally responsible practices, using natural cloth made of linen, hemp, organic cotton, soy, bamboo and silk with organic paints and dyes.
Aysia Wright of Greenloop, one of the first eco-fashion retailers to offer aesthetically modern clothing, makes organic t-shirts, soy wrap dresses and recycled rubber handbags. Her customers can look good and feel great, because nothing they buy at Greenloop harms the earth.
Bahar Shahpar from Brooklyn uses only environmentally friendly textiles such as organic wool and linen. Shahpar also uses a unique silk harvested from waste cocoons.
Lynda Grose created Esprit’s Ecollection, the first all-green offering from a big company. Grose is now a part of the Sustainable Cotton Project, which teaches producers about green alternatives.
Marci Zaroff’s organic clothing company, Under the Canopy, offers organic and organic-blend pieces - men's and women's wear, and bed and bath linens.
Eco-style expert, Cornell scientist and model Summer Rayne Oakes only wears clothes made from organic or recycled stuff. Oakes is behind the sustainability newspaper, S4.
Stella McCartney never uses fur or leather in her designs. She promotes a range of all-organic skincare products.
Katharine Hamnett is famous for her slogan t-shirts. Active in the movement to get the cotton industry going green, Hamnett gets her products only from eco-certified suppliers.
Activist Ali Hewson’s range of organic clothing, Edun, is designed by her husband, Rogan Gregory. They insist on fair labour practices, too. Loomstate is another line that uses earth-friendly fabrics and sustainable production processes.
Ex-creative director for Levi Strauss Gary Harvey makes his collections from used wedding dresses, old baseball jackets and jeans, and recycled newspapers.
Ms. Green Jeans, as Tierra Del Forte is known, makes an amazing range of excellent organic denim for women. She even renews and refreshes old jeans!
In recent times, many designers from America and the Continent – from A-Style, Elisa Jimenez, Moral Fervor and Brooklyn Industries, to name a few – now use Inego fibres. These man-made fibres are completely renewable annually. It’s a little more expensive than cotton, but it seems that most people are willing to pay a little extra, if it means a greener earth. Emily Santamore and Melissa Sack from Moral Fervor are selling t-shirts made from this material in New York now.
Eco-Accessorize It!
Many designer around the world are into eco-friendly accessories. The Swiss company Frietag makes cool customized bags from truck tarpaulins, bicycle tires and seatbelts. Haul, in Australia, makes photo albums from number plates, messenger bags from truck inner tubes and bags from billboards. In South Africa, many fun items are made from old soft drink cans. Veja, a French company, makes shoes of natural rubber, vegetable-tanned leather and organic cotton. Avoiding the use of Amazonian wild rubber helps prevent deforestation.
The British designers Doy Bags make bags from reused juice containers, while Native By Native makes them out of recycled plastic packets. Inner tubes and candy wrappers are also used for bags, but some of the most interesting products are made by Worn Again, who designs shoes from t-shirts, military jackets, car seats, parachutes, coffee bags and prison blankets.
Eco Inside
Even underwear goes green, with the online innerwear line, Figleaves, opening a new store, Greenleaves.
Don’t be left out of the eco-fashion movement. If you care about the earth and love style, choose clothes designed by eco-friendly designers. The environment will be grateful!
