Reinventing the Banana | PORT magazine. Five Earth alumni helped represent their countries at the recent United Nations climate summit in Cancun. According to weed management professor Ramon Léon: “Our ultimate commitment is not to produce professionals but to help students become agents of change, to have a positive impact in their own communities.”
Oscar Arreola, a Guatemalan who graduated in 1993, plans to join an international aid agency when he completes his doctoral studies in sustainability at Michigan State University. “Those four years at Earth gave me technical training, reinforced my principles and human values.” “I can’t keep knowledge to myself. I have to bring it back to others”“It instilled in me a strong commitment to work for the betterment of society and the protection of natural resources,” he says. I think I can speak for almost all my former classmates. They are my friends today. Fashion guide I: Slow Fashion - news. We're wearing more clothes, more often and throwing them away. Wardrobes don't even last a year. But fast fashion is being challenged by a slow down: less quantity, more quality.
As £3 jeans and $1 t-shirts have become a reality, it's become very easy to buy and dispose and buy again. In the UK, 3 jeans are sold per second. That's 1.4 pair per person per year. And this is for an item made to last for decades (and made with, on average, a pound- or about a half kilogram- of chemicals). But today even supermarkets sell clothing and nothing is made to last for decades, let alone an entire season. In 1997 the average woman in the UK bought 19 items of clothing per year, by 2007 that number was up to 34. A revolving carousel of clothes Consumers are simply buying into what is being offered by "fast fashion" retailers such as Old Navy, Target and Wal-Mart in the US and H&M, Zara, Primark and Peacocks in the UK and Europe.
A remedy for fast: Slow Fashion Clothes to Keep & Share In the cradle of Slow. Looking good in green: The basics of sustainable fashion. Think outside organic cotton and bamboo when it comes to sustainable fashion. Scarf made form recycled plastic bottle polyester, by A Lot To Say, $40. Photograph by: Dave Sidaway , The Gazette It's vegan, eco-friendly, fair-trade, made locally -- and proceeds help impoverished children! The latest do-gooder fashion companies are certainly setting some high standards. Toms Shoes, based in Santa Monica, Calif., is giving away a pair of shoes to a needy child for every pair purchased.
Meanwhile, Paris's yearly Ethical Fashion Show, a trade event featuring conferences, workshops and runway shows centred on ecological and social matters, is touring cities such as New York, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin and Milan through next year. The sustainable-fashion movement is blowing up like a big green balloon, with innovative companies finally adding corporate responsibility to the bottom line. They also need to think about what ultimately happens to their clothes after they've finished with them. Going green. A craft approach to men's fashion. The craft fair Origin London is the perfect opportunity to pepper your wardrobe with one off pieces that you won't find on the high street or in any designer bouqtiue. BY David Nicholls | 15 September 2010 My first experience of a craft fair was as a child in the early 1980s when I was dragged along to our church bazaar. And quite frankly, what the ladies of the Star of the Sea parish couldn't do with an empty egg carton, a strip of velvet and a glue gun wasn't worth knowing.
A lot has changed since then. Somehow, craft has become cool. Of course, traditional craft skills have always played an important role in fashion, from the hand-stitched leatherwork at Hermes to Missoni's intricate knits. But perhaps it is worth a rethink. An unlikely thing struck me as I was looking through the preview material. Kealwork My first stop will be to the stand of the artist and felt maker Barbara Keal who lives and works in Lewes, East Sussex. 'Slow fashion' is a must-have ... and not just for this season | Business | The Observer. The credit crunch has put paid to high times on the high street, but retailers are reporting the rise of 'slow fashion' as consumers think harder about what they buy.
Fast fashion, its antithesis, has had the clothing industry in its thrall for much of this decade, with customers seduced by cheap versions of styles that had graced the catwalks of Milan and Paris weeks previously. But with disposable incomes on the wane, even clothes at disposable prices are losing their appeal; the new must-haves are 'made to last' or, better still, 'made in Britain.' Internet fashion retailer Adili is at the forefront of the 'slow fashion' movement.
In fashion-speak, it sells products that are 'trans-seasonal' and made to be kept, with all materials organic, recycled or fair trade. 'Slow fashion is not just about responding to trends,' says Adili chief executive Adam Smith. 'It is a mentality that involves thinking about provenance and buying something that won't look unfashionable after one season.'
Slow fashion: forever yours | Fashion. In fashion, a new era can dawn very slowly. Designers might change the trends every six months, but genuine shifts in the collective fashion consciousness take a while to settle. Now, a new sartorial era is upon us and our wardrobes have most certainly played a part in a quiet revolution. The concept of fast fashion – the hunger for a cheap Saturday night top that gets bought, worn once or twice and swiftly dumped – is fast fading.
In its place we have slow fashion, the pre-eminence of terminally stylish designs with lasting appeal: trenchcoats and quiet handbags, camel coats and classic trouser shapes. "The economy has led people to be more considered about the way they spend money on clothes – it's neither wise nor a good look to spend money on something that you'll wear a couple of times before it falls apart or you tire of it – so that means either simple wardrobe builders or really special pieces," says Anita Borzyszkowska, vice-president of global PR for Gap. The ‘green’ man: does eco-fashion really matter to shoppers? - news. Once upon a time, ecologically correct clothing was hopelessly linked to hippies and vegans and no retailer saw any need to carry such clothes. Eco-clothing meant strange looking, homemade garb that looked like organic bread. In the 1990’s, there was a passing fad for messenger bags made of used tires or automobile seat covers.
“Green” fashion was a novelty rather than a necessity, in the mind of most consumers. But with the increase in concerns over the state of the environment, many are embracing the idea of responsible consumption. Elsewhere, brands like Bamford and Sons, Rogan Gregory, who launched Loomstate with Scott Hahn, and John Patrick Organic are all bringing eco-chic to major retailers like Barneys New York. In a 2001 survey, 6 percent of respondents said they were interested in buying apparel, footwear, and accessories that is “ecologically friendly.” Now, more and more major brands are getting on the green bandwagon. Sustainable fashion brings unique challenges. The global fashion and textile market has increasingly been influenced by green buzzwords such as 'organic', 'fair trade' and 'sustainable', with the market for ethical and environmentally-friendly fashion growing despite many challenges.
Assessing the size of this sub-sector is a tricky business, given there is no international standard about what is green and what is not green. But it is safe to assume that sustainable or environmental textile and clothing production and sales are growing robustly, albeit from a small base. According to a 2009 study by the Mintel International research group, the UK ethical textiles market has quadrupled since 2004, with a 2009 value estimated at GBP175m. But that is still a small amount - less than 1% of the market - reflecting the inherent challenges required to produce sustainable clothing. He points to the growth in organic cotton (his organisation used to be called the Organic Exchange, when it focused on organic inputs). By Emma Jackson. Men Dress for (Retail) Success. Vancouver and Victoria “most sustainable” cities in Canada: survey. Greendex: Survey of Sustainable Consumption.
What Is the Greendex? You've heard about it for years now—everyone’s interested in being green. But do you really know how your personal choices are adding up? What about the choices of your fellow citizens? What behaviors are people adopting globally that have a positive impact on environmental sustainability? What has changed—and what hasn’t—in the past few years? This is the fifth time that National Geographic has partnered with GlobeScan to develop an international research approach to measure and monitor consumer progress toward environmentally sustainable consumption. Why? This quantitative consumer study of 18,000 consumers in a total of 18 countries (14 in 2008, 17 in 2009 through 2012) asked about such behavior as energy use and conservation, transportation choices, food sources, the relative use of green products versus conventional products, attitudes toward the environment and sustainability, and knowledge of environmental issues.
Overall Results. Fair-trade shopping is a challenge. I didn't do it for an article. I did it because the diet and exercise program worked, because it was spring and because my lefty conscience kicked in: I decided to renew my wardrobe a la fair trade. What followed was an enraging, often ridiculous journey that ended at a boutique on Mount Royal Ave., where I was trying to find shoes. All the cast and props were in place: salespeople dressed like boho-alterno-stereotypes, Green Day's American Idiot blaring on the sound system, and a shoe in my hand, a Cat.
Cats are made by Caterpillar. Attached to the shoe was a little pamphlet assuring me that the shoe had the durability of the great tractors and bulldozers that the same company manufactures. Made in the U. S. of A.! Though "Made in China" (Taiwan, Indonesia, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean "Made by 9-year-olds in a sweatshop," you cannot assume it doesn't.
I logged more than 400 web pages. Take the shoes I wear, a pair of cheapish desert boots made by Daoust. Or take Roots. 2011: Green fashion increasingly catching on. Green%20consumer_laroche%20et%20al. BioFach 2011: Green fashion increasingly catching on - BioFach / Vivaness - - Organic-Market.Info - Onlinemagazine for organic trade. Growth is impressive - green fashion is on the road to success. BioFach documents in a detailed PR how the natural textile sector, from farmer to retailer, profits from the increasing demand for ecological correct clothing. Even though growth still takes place on a low level, the trend for ecological clothing is clear - this development is also confirmed by market researchers. The third textile area at BioFach from 16 to 19 February 2011 will be a platform for the natural textiles industry again and help to promote the sector even further with daily fashion shows. (Picture: The Fashion Show on the BioFach in Nuremberg: Always an attraction for exhibitors and visitors) Organic cotton is the material of the hour and the most significant indication of the growing market.
In Great Britain will have trebled by 2012 according to market estimates. At BioFach. “Green fashion doesn’t look less smart just because it’s top of the eco class. (Pictures: BioFach and Organic-Market.Info)