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

Ecofashion in E Magazine

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by Starre Vartan · 09/16/07

This gorgeous image was shot by Eric Striffler at solar-powered, carbon-free Project Greenhouse, Long Island, NY with clothes by naturevsfuture.

This month’s issue of E Magazine includes a feature on all things ecofashion, so if you have any lingering questions about why you should care about the fabrics you wear on your body every day, check it out!

There’s an overview of the ecofashion revolution featuring interviews with some of my favorite designers like Carol Young and Bahar Shaphar, and ecofashion blogger and designer Jill Danyelle. There’s a sidebar on creative recycling of odd stuff into accessories, and an in-depth look at the lives of the people who grow cotton outside the US, and what they stand to gain (and lose) by growing the stuff.

accessories, car, carbon, clothes, cotton, design, designer, designers, ecofashion, fabric, fabrics, farm, Fashion, interview, Long Island, magazine, Recycling

If You Must Dryclean….

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by Starre Vartan · 09/03/07

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.

autumn, bags, cleaning, clothes, epa, farm, garbage, mom, Organic, paper, Plants, plastic, plastic bags, recycle, Recycling, reuse, waste

Toggery Collection by Kate D'Arcy

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by Starre Vartan · 08/22/07

Kate D’Arcy with some of her Fall designs

Designer Kate D’Arcy, 26, is a new up and coming ecofashion designer, and I was lucky enough to get to check out her line in person last week. Kate’s debut line for her label Toggery, is made up of basics with flair, and as you can see from the pictures, tons of color too! All fabrics are super-soft, and for autumn I particularly loved the organic cotton fleece cropped jacket (not shown below) and the soft and comfy cowl-necked dresses. Her designs look great and are flattering to the female figure, yet all the pieces I checked out seemed versatile enough so that I could see wearing them to work and for hanging out on the weekend.

Kate says that she wants to make clothes for people who are from all walks of life, including but not limited to treehuggers and environmentalists. She says that by creating a line of fashions that are both fun, affordable and gorgeous, even non-eco chicks will want to pick up her stuff, just because it looks great. It’s that kind of attitude that is bringing ecofashion out of the ‘green’ corner, and will get lots of people into organic cotton whether they do it on purpose or not!

Kate uses organic cotton and sustainable dyes, and all her fabric is made, dyed and sewn in her home state of Pennsylvania, which I think is super-impressive since fewer resources are used to ship fabric around (reducing Toggery’s carbon footprint). Also, by having her designs sewn in the U.S. D’Arcy is supporting American seastresses, who are paid a fair wage.

Check this page for info on where to buy Toggery near you!

autumn, car, carbon, carbon footprint, clothes, corn, cotton, design, designer, dress, dyes, eating, ecofashion, fabric, fabrics, fall, farm, Fashion, Home, Organic, organic cotton, pictures, resources, sustainable, Toggery, treehugger

Eco-Chick Does Mountain Jam

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by Brianne Goodspeed · 05/31/07

With festival season upon us, my friend, Amy, called a few weeks ago to tell me that I was going to meet her and her friends at Radio Woodstock’s Mountain Jam in Hunter, New York on the first weekend in June.

I’d already seen the lineup (with Gov’t Mule and Phil Lesh & Friends headlining) and would have gone for Michael Franti and Ozomatli alone, except that I now spend my Friday and Saturday nights squinting over IPCC reports, wondering if apocalypse is upon us or merely looming. At some point during George Bush’s tenure, I got incalculably old.

Ozomatli

Amy told me that if I didn’t meet her in New York, she was going to come to my home and kidnap me. I knew she wasn’t kidding. I met Amy ten years ago when we were both Americorps volunteers working and traveling through the Deep South for ten months. We spent the first nine months in mutual antipathy, as we worked side by side in Little Rock, Charleston, and the mountains of eastern Tennessee. I wondered why this Philly girl was so obnoxious—she never stopped singing—and she wondered (out loud) why New Englanders were so uptight. Then, I think it was on a balmy evening in July when we both went to pay our respects at Duane Allman’s grave in Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery that Amy and I finally discovered we had more in common than we realized.

I was 19. She was 20. And during our final month in Dixie, we raised hell.

So, when she called a few weeks ago, I didn’t actually take much convincing. It seemed fitting that a show produced by guitar legend Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers and Gov’t Mule), would reunite a pair of (now old) friends. I hustled up a Prius, hosed down the cooler, and told Amy that I would meet her there, adding that I had to do some work by reporting back for Eco-Chick on the environmental vendors and the festival’s green initiatives. Now in its third year, Mountain Jam is partnering with Community Energy, which will donate wind energy credits to offset 100% of the electricity used at the show, and Rock the Earth will be on hand to educate show-goers about environmental issues.

Amy just laughed. “Uh-huh. Well, if you get to meet Michael Franti, you’re taking me with you. I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll take all my clothes off. I’ll get naked right there.”

So Mountain Jam is this weekend and tickets, as of right now, are still available. Stay tuned for Eco-Chick dispatches, and if you see me there, give me a holler. I’ll be the blue-eyed girl with the notebook and the naked friend.

book, Bush, car, clothes, community, Easter, Eco-Chick, electric, electricity, Energy, farm, Home, prius, produce, spa, travel, wood

Etsy's handmade goodies

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by Courtney Tenz · 05/30/07

A few weeks ago, while strolling through a farmer’s market in Amsterdam, I came upon a stall selling these purses …

I chatted with the seller for a bit and he explained the process his partner went through making these. The idea was simple, really … recycled munitions pouches from the army surplus store were made to look pretty with ’60s and ’70s era material leftover from Scandinavian home goods stores.

I bought one, he handed me his card, and lo and behold – my unique Amsterdam find is also available online at Etsy. At first, I was sad to know that I’m probably not the only one carrying a Katrina Kaye handbag. But then I checked out the Etsy shop and discovered it’s filled with handmade goodies!

Basically, Etsy’s a creative community. Artists from 84 different countries use this platform to sell all sorts of clothing and housewares and just about anything else that can be hand made, including baby clothes, bathing goodies, journals, furniture, and Ts.

In addition to all the unique creations on sale, they’ve also got a group of sellers who call themselves Etsy for Animals and donate part of their profits to various animal rescue charities. It’s all so inspiring. I think I’ve found my ideal place for serious internet shopping.

Animals, Baby, baby clothes, bags, bath, car, charities, clothes, clothing, community, Etsy, farm, farmer's market, fur, Furniture, handbags, Handmade, Home, purses, recycle, recycled, Shopping