CFDA/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge Winners Impressed With Collections At NY Fashion Week

Showing a love for socially and environmentally friendly design and manufacturing practices, the winners of the second annual Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge gave an impressive display of sustainable fashions during this New York Fashion Week.

Marcia Patmos collection at New York Fashion Week 2012. Photo courtesy of ecouterre.com.

The collections of this year’s three winning fashion designers – Marcia Patmos, John Bartlett, and Johnson Hartig – were presented at Milk Studios to a full audience, including fashion editors and buyers.

As a winner of the fashion challenge, Marcia Patmos reflected on her experience, saying, “I’ve been really interested in the eco-friendly design process for a long time. I think it started when I worked for the Gap because we were producing such large volumes of things, so I really start thinking about it. I started to try to get them to do organic cotton tee shirts and use recyclable packaging.

“I always try to think of new ways to incorporate sustainability and I had a new idea this year which was to try to use discontinued end-stock service yarns, and to just not even create anything new. You know each piece will be slightly different, but it won’t matter because it’s part of the design and all.

“Also as a designer I was interested in the technical things and ways to put things together. It’s a challenge and it’s a fun challenge just to think of a better way of doing anything. It’s so exciting to be a winner and such an honor, and also to possibly inspire more people to be involved in this movement.

“It can’t all just be about being organic, it has to be something that people will want anyway. It’s an added value and something that they will feel good about when they are buying something.”

Patmos’ inspiration for this collection was early 20th century Native American design. Her materials included vegetable-tanned leather, animal-friendly faux fur, lightweight woven linens, silk-cotton blends, domestically milled cottons, as well as discontinued and mill-end leftovers, which are commonly discarded by manufacturers because of insufficient yard lengths.

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Eco-Fashion Getting Noticed during Berlin Fashion Week

Photo courtesy of People Tree.

If you’re in Berlin within the next few days and into eco-fashion, then you have the opportunity for some fun and education. Berlin Fashion Week is underway, and this year there’s a strong presence of eco-designers and brands focusing on high-end styles. THEKEY.TO - an international event for green fashion, sustainable lifestyles, and culture - will be at the Heeresbäckerei on Köpenickerstr in Berlin, with active events from tomorrow until Jan. 23.

“The sustainable philosophy of the event is reflected in the selection of brands, event furniture, fresh organic catering, and the tradeshow architecture,” said a statement by Gereon Pilz van der Grinten, one of the founders of THEKEY.TO.

Among the sustainable brands that will be featured at the event will be: Van Markoviec, Knowledge Cotton Apparel, Studio Jux, Milch, Itsus, Banuq, Komodo, and People Tree. The event will also feature new up-and-coming Berlin-based brands, including: Slowmo, Pamoyo, and Isabell de Hillerin.

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Mimi the Sardine Gives Kids a New Grownup Way to Carry Lunch

Lunch sacks photo courtesy of Mimi the Sardine.

Little kids are always in a rush to grow up. It’s why they are always getting into their parents closets and playing dress up. This idea played in Pia Anderson’s mind when she decided to design preschool age lines of lunch bags, with a grownup feel, but still a young and practical twist.

“We gear to this age group of messy eaters. It’s where we are trying to make a difference,” said Ms. Anderson, founder and CEO of Mimi the Sardine, a provider of eco-friendly accessories and houseware.

Last month, the company launched its latest creation, a gender-neutral line of lunch sacks, to complement its long existing purse-style lunchbugs.

“The lunch sacks are more of a brown bag style. They’re a little more traditional for the boys,” said Ms. Anderson. And, while the design cut of the lunch sacks might appeal more to the boys, the print designs provide something for everyone’s tastes, with the availability of the five following prints: planes, frogs, trucks, ladybugs, and flowers.

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What’s Hot For Spring - Basic Colors With a Little Print Mixed In, Says Fashion Expert

Ashley Tisdale wearing Eco-Ganik’s popular stripe racerback shirt.

LOS ANGELES- Spring is here and women are shopping. The trend this year is having a lot of basic color pieces in your wardrobe, with a few prints to mix and match, says Hoda Mallone, design director of the eco-conscious design house Eco-Ganik.

One of the hottest items the design house featured this year was a black and white stripe racerback tank top, made from recycled polyester. “It’s a really nice fabric. It has a nice feel and it breathes unlike traditional polyester,” said Ms. Mallone, who added, “It was probably one of our best sellers. A lot of celebrates wore it.”

The design house’s current celebrity following includes such high profile names as Nikki Hilton, Ashley Tisdale, Jessica Alba, Ann Hathaway, and Selena Gomez.

Eco-Ganik gets a lot of the influence for its fashion lines from the array of California cultures ranging from Hollywood sophistication to the Santa Monica and Venice Beach scenes. “It’s very cool seeing all these different kinds of girls. They inspire us a lot,” said Ms. Mallone, who describes the design house’s style as “contemporary for sure, with some vintage inspiration; a little hippie-chic mixed with street-girl.”

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Vintage Blue Evolves Into an Eco-Fashion Boutique, While Keeping Its Retro-Sports Style

Photo courtesy of Vintage Blue.

PHILADELPHIA- The classic 1940s baseball-inspired fashion boutique Vintage Blue is in the process of launching its current product lines and developing those in the works to exclusively use eco-friendly materials, according to Liza Goncalves and Michelle D’Avella, the company’s co-owners.

The boutique’s product lines are currently tee shirts and totes. Ms. Goncalves talked about the company’s tee shirts, explaining that they are “now 100 percent organic cotton and we use non-toxic, water-based dyes for the printing on our products.”

The boutique is also in the process to designing a green line of dresses, sweat suits, and hoodies, all with a vintage theme inspired by its exclusive licensing of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League brand. Currently, the company expects to roll out this new line in the Spring of 2010, according to Ms. D’Avella.

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