Eco-Chick · The modern girl's guide to living green & fabulous.

TOMS Wedges: Now Perfect for Autumn Too

If you regularly ready Eco Chick, you know that I’m a huge fan of TOMS shoes, the company famous for the ‘buy a pair and a child in need gets a pair of shoes too’ (they recently dropped their millionth pair!).

Their program is called One for One and it’s a simple idea that makes a tremendous difference for the kids who aren’t able to go to school unless they are wearing shoes. Shoes also protect kids in developing countries from getting soil-transmitted diseases, or cuts or sores on their feet.

The new wedges are available in (my fave) ash, cranberry, and black for $69, and unlike the summer styles, have a fabric-covered wedge instead of an espadrille style, making this version perfect for Autumn and Spring.

Eco Chic Weekly – October 20, 2008

Green Girls Global shows off the gorgeous jewelry made from antique and reclaimed glass by artist Laura Bergman.

Eco Chick dishes about four of the season’s sexiest sustainable shoes!

Victoria Everman reviews the effective, affordable, and artistic oral care line from Radius.

Safia Minney shares her eco style tips with Greenmystyle.com.

Fashion, Evolved. blogs about poverty and fashion for Blog Action Day.

GreenGirls.tv presents their weekly video wrap up.

Green Cotton reports on her recent trip to Belize!

Get a glimpse of the highlights from the European fashion weeks on DC Goodwill Fashions!

Green Gretchen got engaged and tells us all about conflict free diamonds!

Fig+Sage gives us the scoop about Saffron Rouge, the new organic line by

Autumn Eco Style Preview 1

Autumn is my absolute favorite time for buying clothes (one word: layers!!). I’m practically craving the cool days, cold nights and swirling leaves as I pant my way through August. One way I deal with my chilly-weather craving is to pour over possible outfits and how new additions will fit in with my slowly growing and carefully curated selection of ecofashions. My closet is due for a very serious overhaul in about a month, and so as I traverse the sustainable style sites, I’ll be sharing my favorite finds with you, dear readers.

Doie has long been one of my fave lines, run by the super-positive Sara Kirsner (who recently moved to LA so she could be closer to where they make her gorg clothes). Below are some previews from her autumn/winter 2008 line.

The ever-beautiful Summer Rayne Oakes models for Doie’s A/W 2008 collection of bamboo and sustainable wool pieces.

Eco Chick readers can use the code: Daily08 to get 50% off anything on the site (even sale items).

Simple, and very, very flattering cardi that would be a great staple; a little bit something more than just a plain black version, the grey stripe adds interest and graphic charm.

A colorful blouse that innocently, but definitely requires that you not be ignored.

The lining on this hoodie means it can go from weekend-with-jeans wear to relaxed-day-at the office were it worn over a sweet dress. The barely revealed pattern would make for an easy entree into the trend of mixing patterns with patterns- I envision a pretty boho flower print with this star-pattern.

Sara picked vintage buttons for this limited-run coat.

What could be prettier than a coat that’s lined with a fun pattern? (same coat as shown above)

Don't Be A Turkey: Get Your Thanksgiving Feast Green

Originally posted on The Huffington Post on November 14th, 2007

Photo from Channel14.com.

In 1621 the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians stuffed their faces in an autumn harvest feast–the first Thanksgiving. Although Historians aren’t certain of the menu, it’s safe to say the pilgrims weren’t gobbling up pesticide-smothered potatoes and antibiotic-infused turkey.

Fast forward nearly four centuries, and this Thursday the majority of American’s will sit down to a copious table of factory-produced food. With few exceptions, 178 million plus turkeys will come from animal factories, while the vast majority of our fruits, vegetables; even vino will travel hundreds of miles from foreign farm factories. Such processing plants are reported to have few regulations and less regard for environmental best practice.

While raising turkeys in an industrial setting, or growing corn in a pesticide patch might make our food cheaper and available to a large number of consumers, factory farming comes with serious negative consequences for mother earth–clear cutting, dead zones, water wastage, methane-farting cattle, the list goes on. According to a 2006 study by the University of Chicago*, industrialized livestock produces more greenhouse gas emissions than global transportation.

Such studies come at a time when meat consumption, having quadrupled in the last 50 years, reaches an all-time high. The Worldwatch Institute claims global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of for-food fowl has flown (try saying that ten times) from a stable 4.2 billion to blasphemous 15.7 billion.

Unlike the wild birds the Pilgrims ate, factory turkeys need antibiotics to stay alive, let alone healthy. Excuse me for being graphic, but the majority of factory-raised animals are reported to live so closely packed together that they have to defecate on each other. Such close-quarters create a cesspool of nasty, even deadly bacteria. I could go on and on.

Now, I’m not saying you should serve tofurkey this Thanksgiving. Although conventional meat production causes deforestation, polluted waterways and greenhouse gas blabidy-blah, I won’t insist you replace the traditional Turkey with a slab of coagulated soybean cake–that would be gross and grossly hypocritical.

Perhaps hypocritical is an understatement considering I can barely go three weeks, perhaps even three days, without vivid fantasies of red meat bbq. Many lonely nights I have resembled the McDonald’s Hamburgler, tip-toeing to the kitchen to gobble a few helpings of red-meat leftovers–ones I had so earnestly tried to refuse at dinner.

Confessions aside, there are a several environmental consequences to consider before we stuff-our-gobs this Thanksgiving day. And although I am not ready to hit up the tofurkey just yet, I sincerely hope to find a way/ask my mom to replace this years Franken-food feast with local and organic produce. In addition to spiking the apple cider, join me this Thanksgiving by following these three simple green food tips:

For the tips, keep reading……

More »

If You Must Dryclean….

My little pile of separated drycleaning materials

I do have some clothes that need drycleaning and as I’m getting ready for Autumn, I’ve been making sure my sweaters and wool pants from last Winter are ready to go. You never know when you’re going to wake up in the morning with frost on the window (I can’t wait!). Besides seeking out and patronizing PERC-free or wet-drying cleaners, (sometimes called ‘organic’ cleaners) as they use fewer harmful chemicals, there are other ways you can make your drycleaning process less wasteful. For more information on why to avoid PERC, and a lowdown on the various types of alternative cleaning available, go here.

As I was organizing my closet, I had a bunch of the plastic hanger bags, paper hanger covers, and of course, hangers piling up on the floor. What to do? Well, I pulled them all apart, making little obsessive piles of the various components:

-The paper bits were folded and added to my paper recycling.

-The plastic bags were tied off on the ends, tightly (since they have that hole there for the hangars to go through), and will be used for garbage bags.

-The twisty ties go into my kitchen drawer where I will used them for everything from keeping my tomato plants held up to attaching my cat’s tail to her leg (just kidding!).

-The hangers will go back to the cleaners so they can reuse them, since I would never hang my clothes on them in my closet. Not only do they ruin the shoulders of your shirts, but have you ever seen the scene in Mommy Dearest with the wire hangers? My grandma raised me, and she had similar, though less-violent feelings about such hangers. Using them would result in my grams turning over in her grave.

-The plastic clothespin thingies and/or safety pins that keep skirts on the hangar also go back to the cleaners for reuse.

Don’t just throw a wad of plastic, paper and wire hangar into the garbage, reuse and recycle! Of course, if you can avoid drycleaning (by buying clothes that don’t need to be) in the first place, that’s the best way to go.