I was already excited to write about Christine Marchuska’s line for Spring 2009, but this supersexy video put me over the top! If this doesn’t turn you on, well…..I might be a bit concerned :)

Once you’ve recovered, check out the rest of her line at the CMarchuska site, in her lookbook, and below.

I especially love that Christine lives and designs in my fave city in the world; NYC. All her designs are cut and sewn in the Garment District there, making this an American-made, fair-trade product with a low carbon footprint, since so many clothes-making steps are isolated to a small area.

mseries tshirt dress, 100% organic cotton; $100.00

Anna dress in 100% organic cotton, $100.00

Christine dress in 50% modal and 50% cotton, $130.00

I has so much fun attending the Samples for Ecompassion sale last night. Not only did I do a bit of Spring shopping, but I took a chance to interview several ecofashion designers about the clothes they brought for sale and the materials they use to design.

The sale runs through April 5th (noon to 7pm each day) and is located at 2 Great Jones Street (between Broadway and Lafayette) in Manhattan.

Raina Bleyer from Ryann talks about her line. One of my purchases was that awesome Ahimsa vest Raina holds up. Ideal for this Spring.

Restore clothing’s Celeste Lillore. I want one of those drapy tank tops. Seriously awesome.

Nina Valenti of NaturevsFuture; I’m so happy I now own a few pieces of her amazing line!

Allison McGowan of Teich shows us all her new bags (as well as her classics);

Sara Kirsner moved her sustainable fashion line, Doie, from NYC to LA last year, and the first collection from her new city (pictured here) is simply called “Los Angeles.” The images here are just some of the fresh, new designs from Sara, who’s positive vibe and optimistic nature surely fits right in her new hometown.

I have quite a few Doie pieces and I wear them all the time, proving that Doie is as easy-to-throw on (and inexplicably comfy) as it is pretty-pretty! Soft fabrics, great lines, and fun prints- love it! Check out the whole Spring ‘09 collection here.

Joyce Robinson is an artist who has worn many hats (or, actually, purses).  A former opera singer and music teacher, she now brings her soaring voice and strength of character to create the vibrant and fanciful handbags of Brown Paper Bags Gone Wild!

Robinson’s raw medium is the drab brown paper bag and with it she has wrought exuberant and, certainly wild, transformations.  Always anything but plain, her bags are ornamented with beading, feathers, natural fabrics (including linen, cotton, and mud cloth), and paint.  The sturdy bags have been used by her clients as functional handbags, table centerpieces, and artworks for home display.  

Robinson recounts an early memory of her mother curling her hair using torn strips of paper bags.  She has certainly proven that out of an everyday bag one can not only coif a child’s tender curls, but also ignite a Pygmalion-esque spark of the spirit.

Image courtesy of Flickr user B. Balaji

If you drive a car, or even have to take a bus in any sort of major city you know that traffic is a terrible thing. When I went to India I was shocked to see that the streets there are at least three times as packed as the streets of Toronto, not to mention they’re usually smaller streets too. People get into grid locks that are near to impossible to break out of. The last thing that needs to be on the street is more cars. It’s bad enough that somehow the Western countries have been convinced that “hybrids” and environmentally friendly cars are a smart choice. The dumbest bike is still smarter than the smartest car.

Yet still for some reason people are praising the new car that is to be released this July in India. Boasted as the “people’s car” The Nano is said to bring new opportunities for families in the lower income bracket of India. Costing only $2000/USD or apx 1 000 000 rupees because of its lack of airbags, radio, electric windows and other luxuries it is definitely something feasible for these families. Currently the only options for them are bicycles, scooters and walking. With this new “cheap” car nearly anyone will be able to afford a motorized vehicle. And people will buy it. Economists have speculated that this new car will boost India’s car sales by 65%.

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loyale’s spring 2009 collection drifts through the fascinating realm of Wallace Berman, a relatively unknown artist and custodian of talent who laid the foundation for counterculture, trippy hippy expressionism in California. His subtle, short-lived fame stemmed from a hand pressed, uniquely unbound magazine titled Semina, which he produced from1955-1964.

Berman had an exceptional knack for drawing artistic talent from the likes of drifters, interested spectators and petty criminals whose new found penchant came to life within the pages of this underground magazine. It wasn’t just ne’er-do-wells that gravitated to Berman; artists like Jean Cocteau and Cameron revered him, writers like Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski were buoyed by him and actors such as Dennis Hopper were encouraged under his trusted eye to pick up side hobbies like photography. With distribution as small as it was, Semina satiated a growing number of outsider artists’ need for uninhibited expression and encouraged the conception of West Coast surrealism.

This visceral and close knit artistic domain curated within the pages of Semina inspired loyale’s first abstract floral print fashioned into pleat oriented blouses and dresses. Berman’s bohemian and commune inspired lifestyle lead to ruffle bikinis, volume in sleeves and distinctive silhouettes that serve as a wearable translation of the blossoming artist within.

You can shop Loyale’s Spring Collection here.

I’m so honored to be one of the five judges for the Boys and Girls Club’s Be Great, Be Green competition, which encouraged Torch Club members (ages 11-13) to come up with an original project to green their communities. I’ll share the Top Five entries with you here- and let me know who YOU think should win the grand prize ($2500)! Sponsoring organization, the Staples Foundation both provided the prize and surveyed all the Torch Club members about their top environmental concerns (nationally, the kids were concerned with global warming and pollution; locally recycling topped the list- smart kids!).

The official winner will be announced on Friday, so I’ll update this post then. In no particular order, here are the five top entries (hundreds of kids participated); the Torch Club members were asked to come up with creative ways to improve their local environment. Warning: I cried several times reading through the long descriptions of the project while voting (I was on an Amtrak from Boston to NYC- quite embarassing), but I couldn’t help it, these kids are INSPIRING!

Torch Club Name/Location: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Kalamazoo Torch Club; Kalamazoo, MI
Project Name: Clean Kids/Fresh Air Initiative
Recognizing laundry detergent as one of the greatest needs for community families, Torch Club members decided to make their own laundry detergent and bottle it using recycled containers. Several recipes were researched and tested and the final version cost $.38/gallon, well under the price of the majority of brand names. The profits made from detergent sales will be used to care for a fruit orchard and pine tree farm.

This is just extremely practical, and so smart in these economic times. And those huge plastic laundry containers are so wasteful! Hopefully these kids learned what a scam a lot of the stuff (especially toxic cleaning products) are; expensive and unhealthy!

I love seeing kids put their hands in compost! Get messy! Play with worms! Yeah!

Torch Club Name/Location: Boys & Girls Clubs of Emerald Valley Torch Club; Eugene, OR
Project Name: The Miracle of Worms, Lessons through Vermiculture
This project allowed Torch Club members to use what they learned through previous national projects and take recycling to the next level. They introduced composting to the Club and introduced vermiculture (composting with worms) to its members. The Torch Club was responsible for the constant care of the worms and used worm debris as a nutrient-rich fertilizer for dirt used for plants, flowers, fruit trees and garden vegetables. Selling this enriched dirt demonstrated how Torch Club members are recycling to sustain their community’s environment.

I just love the idea of kids learning about vermiculture! I grew up playing with worms- every kid should have the pleasure of their slippery wriggliness, and watching them make rich earth from compost is a great lesson that nothing is wasted in nature.

Torch Club Name/Location: The Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver Torch Club; Denver, CO
Project Name: Recycling Program
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Denver created a project that demonstrated the importance and impact a recycling program could have both within their club and throughout the Denver community. Torch Club members created flyers with information on what types of materials could be recycled and where fellow members could easily find recycling bins. They also posted statistics about pollution and trash build-up and their negative effect on the environment. In an effort to reduce the amount of trash in their community, Torch Club members designated different parts of their neighborhood each week to receive a trash pick-up.

The part I liked best about this one is that the kids talked to lots of folks in their community (including other kids!) about why recycling really matters. That takes guts!

This ferret was fed with fresh organic produce grown by the kids in The Caring People Alliance

Torch Club Name/Location: The Caring People Alliance in Philadelphia, an affiliate of Boys & Girls Clubs of America; Philadelphia, PA
Project Name: “The Caring Garden Project”
The Caring People Alliance Torch Club is being recognized for their “Caring Garden” project, which involved growing a vegetation garden to demonstrate how the earth can be used to produce products that benefit others. With the help of their local community, Torch Club members designed and created raised garden beds that produced an assortment of vegetables that were fed to animals in the Club’s Caring Paws Program, which teaches kids about treating and caring for small animals.

The full description of this one made me cry on the Amtrak (in public) when I was reading through the judging materials. This urban group not only made a beautiful community garden, but then they fed themselves AND rescued animals with it! Sniff!

The Edgewater Torch Club kids assembling the monofilament recycling bins

Torch Club Name/Location: Edgewater Boys & Girls Club of Volusia/Flagler Counties;
Edgewater, FL
Project Name: “Monofilament Recovery and Recycling”
The “Monofilament Recovery and Recycling” project included researching the dangers of monofilament (a thin string made from a single fiber used for fishing) to humans, birds, and other animals. In response to their findings, the Club developed a recycling program, which consisted of creating monofilament collection bins and distributed them throughout the community, in particular to fishermen in the area, for an easy way to dispose recycled items. The project successfully raised awareness around the danger of monofilament and will result in long-term benefits to wildlife and their community for years to come.

So thoughtful and region-specific! A great idea that will save animals far into the future (birds and other animals eat monofiliment (fishing wire), or it strangles them.

The bins that were installed by club members for recycling the monofilament

Emily Worden

I’ve known the lovely and talented Emily Worden (that’s her, above!) for years now; she is one of the super-progressive, fabulously positive and creative women I have met while living in southern Connecticut. Not only is she a music-loving ecofashionista who has long made her own (damn cool) clothes and sister of environmental lawyer, Jessica Worden, but she throws incredibly parties with said sister (I’m proud to have attended Wordenstocks in both ‘04 AND ‘06).

Oh, and she’s the ecopreneur behind Elemental Threads, where you can design your own bag! I have a pouch already, and am trying to decide what larger bag would stand me in good stead for all the travelling I do.

The blank bag choices

It works like this: you pick out a bag style from those above, then choose your fabric, from the extremely HUGE collection Emily has available on her site. There are so many choices, and there are organic cotton (I got one of those) and bamboo options to choose from, as well as some vintage and conventional fabrics.

Pretty bags!!!

But that’s not all! LOL. You ALSO get to pick your zipper color and inside lining color- which is where the Type A in me gets really happy, because you can get exactly what you want! How often does that happen these days? LOVE IT!

The Round Wristlette

The Large Tote

The Ring Pouch

Emily and a local seamstress handcraft each bag from Emily’s homebase in Connecticut, so they’re certainly fair-trade (unless Emily works herself too hard!) and American-made.

Emily also makes these Glass Bead necklaces which I have one of, in a black and white pattern. I get tons of compliments on it every time I wear it!

And you can even offset your purchase with eThread’s offset program. Emily told me:

eThreads will be offering customers the option to purchase carbon offsets to reduce the CO2 emissions produced with each order. The concept is very neat, customers can choose between one of
eight different projects and they see how much CO2 pounds their donation will buy. It is a new web application called ShopGreen, which is produced by GreenWorld, a business seeking to work with other
businesses by reducing their carbon footprint.

Some of Emily’s designer creations: these are already made and aren’t part of the design-yourself bags above, and sure are gorgeous!

Brett Dennen is my favorite artist of 2009 (so far); his lyrics speak to me about many things, including the beauty of life, appreciating each day, and retaining perspective on love. I’ve been listening to his three albums, “So Much More”, “Hope for the Hopeless” and his first, which is self-titled, on repeat for a month.

I really think he is the voice of this generation, of change, of everything I care about. Please listen. Brett is proof that art still matters (and maybe is one of the few things that does, or ever did).

I’ve been putting together some Spring fashion stories, and Brett’s songs, about consumerism, and how we connect to the rest of the world, are not only humorous, sad and point-making, but they’re damn catchy too. I hope you enjoy as much as I did! (The first video is funny, and Mandy Moore is in it. The second video made me cry though, so be forewarned!)

(This is why I prefer to buy from independent designers, who know the people who make their clothes, and know they don’t pollute the Earth in their production).

Read the lyrics for both songs After the Jump!

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