re-worked tidbits

These iron remnants have been re-worked and re-tooled into filigreed gems by welder Cal Lane. Take a gander at today's NY Times Real Estate section to read the full story on her metier.

It was too pretty to pass up!

enviro-sanctified

Envirosax's floral patterned grocery bags are reusable and cute enough for a daily handbag! At just $8.50 a pop, get one for all your farmer's market girlfriends too.

Visit www.us.envirosax.com for more of these Australian-inspired goodies.

travelicious

You know how airports only let you take 4oz containers of liquids in your carry-on? Well actually, as I found out last weekend, its only 3.2 oz. Which meant that I had to give up all my precious moisturizers and cleansers to the TSA.

Those guys won't even use them.

Any hoo. A good way to avoid the Attack-of-the-Mini-Toiletry-Snatchers is to use facial cleansing pads instead of a liquid cleanser.

Dickinson Witch Hazel makes pocketable astringent pads that can be easily slipped into luggage. They're also rated one of the safest facial cleansers on the market by Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety.

No more finger-crossing while stuffing your bare necessities into that dang plastic bag.

turkey-ready

Tofurkey? Check. Vegan gravy? Check. Whole wheat pumpkin pie? Check. How can we make T-Day more earth-friendly? Hmmmmm...

Aha! Organic aprons!

American Feast makes a great 100% organic cotton apron for $14. Find hemp aprons in cool colors at Ecomall.com. Naturally, hemp is anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. Take that salmonella!

like a san francisco risotto

Using petroleum products to clean up spilled petroleum? I hear a Scooby-Doo, "Urngh?"
When you think about it, our hair is one of the best natural oil-absorbers around. Bay Area salons are contributing hair to help make woven hair pads to soak up the bunker oil in the bay.

Second part of the sustainable solution is adding the soaked hair pads to a compost pile with oyster mushrooms. The fungi will eat and absorb oil until it is broken down into hydrocarbon.

Go get a haircut, and contribute that shizz. Matter of Trust is the mastermind behind this sustainable solution. Even the SF Chronicle thinks its great! Click here for the whole story.

FUNGIII!

Barney's NY Green-idays

Simon Doonan et al create a green wonderland in Barneys New York's holiday windows. The Manhattan mecca is not only stocking the flossiest Balenciaga bag, but a thousand-can strong recycled Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Raindeer sculpture.

Some argue it is a fantasy that purchasing environmentally-friendly apparel will have an effect on climate change. To that, I say "duh".

My goal is to spend my hard earned cash consciously, and on products which support a greener solution. If I apply this to clothing, grocery shopping, transportation, even energy consumption I like to believe this will make one-one millionth of a difference. Better than doing nuthin.

The Oil Spill At Home

Safe to say, I haven't much felt like writing about fashion recently. The Cosco Busan's 58,000 gallons of oil that were spilled into my beloved San Francisco Bay last week have tainted both the ecosystem and our spirit.

Being born, raised, and currently residing in the Bay Area, this disaster is truly touching to me personally and the long term effects are gravely disturbing prospects. Quite simply, it breaks my heart.

For more information on the SF Bay Area oil spill and how to join me as a cleanup volunteer, click on Baykeeper.org.

high strung

Aoki Traci Lyric Jean
$198

south pacific chic

Bahay Bags creates woven handbags and clutches made from natural weaves such as raffia, pandan, sabutan, bamboo, and buntal. All Bahay products are hand-woven and inspired by the natural, vibrant aesthetic of the Philippines. The line has received attention from Daily Candy and Lucky magazine, among others.

Allyson Vivid Rain clutch
Sale $70

sweet handbag o mine

All recycled leather, all the time. Vancouver style.


Junco by Ashley Watson
$250-ish


It looks like a brownie! I have dibs on this one.

boo! green your halloween

Consider carving an organic pumpkin this Halloween! Blue House Farm in Pescadero Calif. grows these and much more available through their CSA. While you're at it, check out the nearby Half Moon Bay annual Pumpkin Festival! Its well worth the drive.

Save the guts!

Baked pumpkin seed recipe:

Preheat oven to 250 F.
Rinse pumpkin seeds. Use your fingers to remove all the pulp.
Drain pumpkin seeds and discard pulp.
Spread out on paper towels on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.
Line a baking sheet with non-stick foil.

Toss pumpkin seeds in olive oil, butter, or spray with cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, cayenne pepper, or your choice of seasonings. Toss to coat.

Bake about 1 hour, tossing every 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown.

from about.com

julianne moore designs: lutz & patmos exclusive

Fall 2007 brings the luminous Julianne Moore to the atelier of designers Tina Lutz and Marcia Patmos. Lutz & Patmos' eponymous line has impeccable credentials and has managed to fly under mainstream's radar while garnering accolades in TIME magazine's Coolest Inventions of 2002, projects with Yves Behar, and was selected as a top ten finalist for the 2005 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award.

Sheesh! The ladies know how to work it.

Back to Ms. Moore. The fire-locked patron saint of Greenwich Village has helped create the Everyday Cardigan with a vintage feel and inspired by Julianne's own favorite cardigan.

$30 of each sweater sold will go to Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance. This unfortunate genetic disease is like having autism, epilepsy, and kidney disease all at once.

Visit www.tsalliance.org to give your support. Purchase the Everyday Cardigan online at www.lutzandpatmos.com.

blame canada

Canucks Passenger Pigeon have mastered the effortless, sexy, comfortable, niche dress. Enough sass and decolletage for Friday night on the town; tailored for a board meeting or chatting around the water cooler.

Using all natural textiles isn't enough for these girls. Noooo. Designers Heather Schibli and Wendy Traas renamed their label in homage to the extinct passenger pigeon . They also support various conservation organizations;

Sustainable Cotton Project
Pesticide Action Network of North America
Organic Trade Association
Ecochoices

So, if we manage to reverse global warming, do as South Park did and blame Canada.

chuck taylor, meet your match

No Sweat
Olive High-top
$42 - on sale $37

Yeah, Chucks are cool. They're cool when they're fresh out of the box, even cooler when they've walked through beer and put out a few cigarettes. They're kind of like punk-pearl-earrings; they never go out of style.

Good thing there's always room to improve on a classic. No Sweat flips the switch on the iconic high-top sneaks with a 100% fair trade, union made version.

No Sweat's first and foremost objective is to provide quality working conditions and a decent living wage for the garment workers, "We believe the only way to protect
workers anywhere is to defend workers’ rights everywhere." Coming soon, environmentally friendly and organic merchandise.

Longer, Thicker, Fuller, Greener, Lashes.

Ecco Bella $13.95

Mascara's origins were concocted by cosmetic alchemists whose names we still see in Sephora; Rimmel, Maybelline, and good ol' Helena Rubenstein. At its genesis, mascara was used as a coal-vasoline combo or as a cake of colorant and carnuba wax. Modern mascara production has evolved to include solvents, shellac, and lacquer to the mix.

Ecco Bella has come to the rescue with their all natural black and brown mascara. It lengthens and thickens as well as any Lancome product and is fantastic for sensitive eyes.

Total 360

360 Vodka is possibly the most environmentally friendly booze on the market. The spirit's Quadruple Distillation process is exceptionally energy efficient and is filtered five times. Sound impressive? Da.

According to the company website, 360 has conserved a veritable laundry list of resources in their packaging and labeling:

26 million tons of BTU
36 trees
1,715 lbs of solid waste
2,924 average miles by car
3,345 lbs of greenhouse gas
15,337 gallons of water.

Spasibo 360.

Parisian Valhalla

Norse fashionista Leila Hafzi was one of two designers featured in Paris' Ethical Fashion Show last weekend. Her creations are so ephemeral and mermaid-like, I nearly expected a model to fling her hair back and break into "A Whole New World".

that's class

Next time you're hosting a swishy to-do, you might wanna consider custom letterpress invitations. This one from Studio Olivine is printed on handmade paper using soy based ink, each card is hand fed through the letter press. Each is lovingly created one at a time with meticulous attention to detail and design.

Their boxed notes are equally adorable with a touch of whimsy.

paris hosts: ethical fashion show

ETHICAL FASHION SHOW® 2007, 4ème Édition
du 11 au 14 OCTOBRE
au Tapis Rouge 67, rue du Faubourg St-Martin Paris (Xe)

Now the REAL fun begins! Four days of runway shows will cover the most au courant and avant garde in sustainable fashion. The firestarters include Veja, Tudo Bom, Ethos, Article 23, Makabu, et des nombreuses autres coming from every continent (sauf Antarctica).Rencontrez les exposants 2007.

Can you FEEL it?!

Lotus Moondance

Sliding into Lotus Moon's detox bath equates a day at the spa, chez toi! Their website literally lists the contents of this bath for eight paragraphs. Read all about it here: http://www.smbessentials.com/item--Organic-Seaweed-Detox-Bath-24-oz--seadetox


Organic Seaweed Detox Bath $36
$36

www.smbessentials.com

Life Less Ordinary

The Life Imagined stationary company is tucked into a tiny town east of Santa Cruz, likely surrounded by organic vegetable farms and far off the beaten path. Their products range from eco & animal-friendly handbags, rooster flasks, to greeting cards of Saint Paris Hilton.


Set of 6
$24


My favorite is the art-deco wasp flask.
$35

Le Mur Vegetal et Stella McC

J'adore Patrick Blanc. The French botanist has garnered press for his creations known as "vertical vegetal walls", installed on the faces of offices buildings and inside the homes of hoity-toity aristocrats.



This week, Blanc contributed an enormous curtain of vines and living greenery to Stella McCartney's Spring 2008 Paris runway show. After the show, the gorgeous living mass will be donated to a low-income housing project in the banlieu of Boulogne. The joint effort is designed to promote ecology at a street level.


Oh yeah. Stella McCartney's collection wasn't half bad either.

patty cake

$98 Chypre organic perfume

Old world yet modern and new-school. All Patyka's frangrances and body care products are certified organic by Eco-Cert and Cosmetique Charte Cosmebio, and are close to heavenly.

The Chypre fragrance captures the exoticism of ylang ylang with a touch of geranium in a refined apothecary-style bottle. Gotta be careful about what you spray near your lymph nodes. At the one-and-only baptism I've ever attended I broke out in hives after wearing a perfume gone bad.

Patyka's products do not contain silicone, petroleum, PEG, sulfates, parabens, or phenoxyethanol. They also grow and extract all their own organic materials! Green thumbs, they have.

Online at www.patyka.com and www.luileiny.com

LLL: libellule loves loudermilk

Yeah yeah, I know ponchos are soo 2003. Somehow, Linda Loudermilk has reintroduced the concept with this poncho/cape from her Fall 2007 collection. Embroidered flames on organic wool makes a solid elemental matchup.

Its reeaall small, but go to www.lindaloudermilk.com for the full sized image.

recogniizze!

Fair trade front page in today's New York Times, fo sheeze:



Fair Trade in Bloom
By ANDREW DOWNIE
Published: October 2, 2007

VARGINHA, Brazil — Rafael de Paiva was skeptical at first. If he wanted a “fair trade” certification for his coffee crop, the Brazilian farmer would have to adhere to a long list of rules on pesticides, farming techniques, recycling and other matters. He even had to show that his children were enrolled in school.

“I thought, ‘This is difficult,’” recalled the humble farmer. But the 20 percent premium he recently received for his first fair trade harvest made the effort worthwhile, Mr. Paiva said, adding, it “helped us create a decent living.”

More farmers are likely to receive such offers, as importers and retailers rush to meet a growing demand from consumers and activists to adhere to stricter environmental and social standards.

Mr. Paiva’s beans will be in the store-brand coffee sold by Sam’s Club, the warehouse chain of Wal-Mart Stores. Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and Starbucks already sell some fair trade coffee.

“We see a real momentum now with big companies and institutions switching to fair trade,” said Paul Rice, president and chief executive of TransFair USA, the only independent fair trade certifier in the United States.

The International Fair Trade Association, an umbrella group of organizations in more than 70 countries, defines fair trade as reflecting “concern for the social, economic and environmental well-being of marginalized small producers” and does “not maximize profit at their expense.”

According to Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International, a group of fair trade certifiers, consumers spent approximately $2.2 billion on certified products in 2006, a 42 percent increase over the previous year, benefiting over seven million people in developing countries.

Like consumer awareness of organic products a decade ago, fair trade awareness is growing. In 2006, 27 percent of Americans said they were aware of the certification, up from 12 percent in 2004, according to a study by the New-York based National Coffee Association.

Fair trade products that have experienced the biggest jump in demand include coffee, cocoa and cotton, according to the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations.

Dozens of other products, including tea, pineapples, wine and flowers, are certified by organizations that visit farmers to verify that they are meeting the many criteria that bar, among other things, the use of child labor and harmful chemicals.

There is no governmental standard for fair trade certification, the same situation as with “organic” until a few years ago. Some fair trade produce also carries the organic label, but most does not. One important difference is the focus of the labels: organic refers to how food is cultivated, while fair trade is primarily concerned with the condition of the farmer and his laborers.

Big chains are marketing fair trade coffee to varying degrees. All the espresso served at the 5,400 Dunkin’ Donuts stores in the United States, for example, is fair trade. All McDonald’s stores in New England sell only fair trade coffee. And in 2006, Starbucks bought 50 percent more fair trade coffee than in 2005.

Fair trade produce remains a minuscule percentage of world trade, but it is growing. Only 3.3 percent of coffee sold in the United States in 2006 was certified fair trade, but that was more than eight times the level in 2001, according to TransFair USA.

Although Sam’s Club already sells seven fair trade imports, including coffee, this will be the first time it has put its Member’s Mark label on a fair trade product, which Mr. Rice of TransFair called “a statement of their commitment to fair trade.”

He added, “The impact in terms of volume and the impact in terms of the farmers and their families is quite dramatic.”

Michael Ellgass, the director of house brands for Sam’s Club, said the company could afford to pay fair trade’s premium because it has reduced the number of middlemen.

Coffee usually passes from farmers through roasters, packers, traders, shippers and warehouses before arriving in stores. But Sam’s Club will buy shelf-ready merchandise directly from Café Bom Dia, the roaster here in Brazil’s lush coffee country.

“We are cutting a number of steps out of the process by working directly with the farmer,” Mr. Ellgass said.

Some critics of fair trade say that working with thousands of small farmers makes strict adherence to fair trade rules difficult.

Others argue that fair trade coffee is as exploitive as the conventional kind, especially in countries that produce the highest-quality beans — like Colombia, Ethiopia and Guatemala. Fair trade farmers there are barely paid more than their counterparts in Brazil, though their crops become gourmet brands, selling for a hefty markup, said Geoff Watts, vice president for coffee at Chicago’s Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea, a coffee importer.

But in Brazil, a nation with little top-grade coffee, the partnership between small producers and big retailers is a better blend, Mr. Watts said.

Fair trade coffee farmers in Brazil are paid at least $1.29 a pound, compared with the current market rate of roughly $1.05 per pound, said Sydney Marques de Paiva, president of Café Bom Dia.

Most coffee farmers are organized into cooperatives, and some of that premium finances community projects like schools or potable water.

Like most of his cooperative’s 3,000-odd members — and three-quarters of coffee growers worldwide — Mr. Paiva, the coffee farmer (no relation to Mr. Marques de Paiva), farms less than 25 acres of land. He produces around 200 132-pound sacks for the co-op, with 70 percent of that sold as fair trade to Café Bom Dia.

The company would buy more if there were more of a market for fair trade coffee, it said.

The fair trade crop brought Mr. Paiva about 258 reais ($139) a sack, compared with about 230 reais for the sacks that were not fair trade. For the latest crop, that meant an additional 3,920 reais ($2,116) for him, a huge sum here in the impoverished mountains of Minas.

“It’s been great for us,” Mr. Paiva said with a huge, toothless grin. “I call the people from the co-op my family now.”

Mr. Ellgass, the Sam’s Club executive, said the chain hoped to expand its fair trade goods.

So do Brazil’s farmers. “Everybody is doing their best to come up to standard so we can sell our coffee as fair trade,” said Conceição Peres da Costa, one of the co-op’s growers. “Everybody wants to earn as much as he can.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/business/worldbusiness/02trade.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

www.transfairusa.org

herbes de provence

Lavender is one of my favorite things, period. Earthy, delicate, lingering in the back of my nose, its scent is an instant reminder of Provence. Whoever said that scent is the closest sense tied to memory was onto something.


Lavender Eggling
$12
A little lavender eggling will bring you one step closer to France.

At www.branch.com

london calling

ESTHETICA is UK Fashion Week's response to the sustainable style movement. Designers are selected according to three criteria; fair trade, organic production, and usage of recyclable materials. On the platform are designers AgainNYC, Ciel, BlueBretzel, Davina Hawthorne, Element23, my fave Enamore, Fifi Bijoux, From Somewhere, Gary Harvey Creative, EJF, Hetty Rose, Intoxica, Junkey Styling, Katharine Hamnett, Makepiece, Mumo, Noir, Nature vs. Future, People Tree, Samant Chauhan, Shyam Narayan Prasad, Sonya Kashmiri, Terra Plana, Veja, and Viridis Luxe.


From Somewhere


Mumo runway show


Kimiko by Hetty Rose

puppies are adorable

Tikuna by Hush Puppies
$172

The Harmony collection by Hush Puppies uses hemp, jute, bamboo, natural rubber and recycled foam with protective manufacturing practices and recycled packaging. To boot, any company that uses basset hounds in their ads deserves a second look.

www.hushpuppies.com

Basset Hound Rescue
www.bassethoundrescue.com

esque-isite

Esque's Root Light $525

This table lamp reminds me of octopus tentacles rather than roots, but meh? Tomaytoes, tomahtoes. Esque creators and glass blowers Justin Parker and Andi Kovel make custom pieces for clients including Lenny Kravitz, Jim Dine, Kiki Smith, Eva Ziesel and Robert Rauschenburg. Check out their new fish bowls on the set of Sex in the City, and in every suite at the Tribeca Grand Hotel.

www.esquedesign.com

deal orno deal

ORNO's sculpted earrings are reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture. Earthy and fluid with just enough structure and clean lines.


$42
Black Walnut Earrings


Available at www.etsy.com and www.sodafine.com.

NY Fashion Week Wrap-Up

Behnaz Sarafpour certifiably stole the show at New York's Olympus Fashion Week. She introduced her Spring 2008 collection filled with organic cotton and natural dyes. One step for style, one giant leap for sustainable style!

Behnaz Sarafpour


Behnaz Sarafpour


Behnaz Sarafpour


Noir


Noir


Rag & Bone


Rag & Bone


Rag & Bone


Rag & Bone