It is Fashion Week in New York and many up and coming designers were concentrating on one thing – sustainable fashion. The Greenshows part of Fashion Week was held during four days this week in Village Green, an environmentally friendly condo in East Village.
Among the designers featured their eco couture was Gary Harvey, who made a fun dress of recycled laundry bags and newspaper pages. Other designs of his featured reclaimed fabric from such items as wedding dress, old t-shirts and jeans, trench coats, scarves, and Army jackets. Harvey said, “Too many garments end up in landfill sites. They are deemed aesthetically redundant and get discarded at the end of the season when there are often years of wear left.” He hoped to give people a different look at how second hand clothing could be recycled and reused.
Vaute Couture, by designer Leanne Hilgart Meyer, uses green material (think soy bean farming waste) to make eco-friendly clothing that is beautiful. Meyer also unveiled her first men’s line.
Designer Samantha Pleet, who won the 2009 Ecco Domani sustainability design award, showed her 2010 collection. It was filled with romantic pieces, which included items made from organic cotton and wool, recycled material, and Chinese mud silk.
C.Marchuska’s designs used sustainable fabric such as hemp silk. Many especially like her fashion line because everything is made in the Garment District in New York City, so you know everything is a fair-trade product and the fact that it is locally made lessens the carbon footprint.
Popomomo also uses hemp blended, low impact fabrics, included recycled hemp denim. Designer Sonja den Elzen presented her urban Theives’ collection using fabrics made of soy, hemp, beeswaxed organic cotton, organic wool, recycled leather, and bamboo.
Fashion week was sponsored by Weleda, a natural beauty company is socially and environmentally conscious. Makeup and hair was provided by DEX New York and John Masters Organics.
Other Sustainable Designer Blogs:
Stella McCartney
Tierra Del Forte
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