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

H&M’s Spring 2011 Conscious Collection: Eco Fashion Breezes into April

H&M is making good on its promise to continue expanding their commitment to using sustainable fabrics. Their upcoming Spring, 2011 collection, Conscious Collection is the follow-up for Spring 2010′s Garden Collection. Utilizing organic cotton, Tencel, and recycled polyester, the all-white collection means that it will work with everything from denim to silks.

“It’s no longer just about organic cotton. The possibilities for creating a complete fashion statement with eco smarter materials are huge now. By designing recurring Conscious Collections we have the opportunity to show in a variety of ways what’s possible using more sustainable fabrics,” says Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M head of design. “Shades of white are the season’s biggest fashion trend. White creates a romantic feeling with lace and broderie anglaise, but it is also the basic color in a sporty, relaxed style and in a preppy tailored look for men.”

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Robin Wilson, Interior Decorator to the Kennedys and Clintons, Shares Her Secrets

We’d all like to think of ourselves as informed, happy and healthy consumers. We’ve made changes to our diets accordingly by avoiding genetically-modified foods, aspartame-laced beverages and some of us have even transitioned to the wonders of a meat-free world. We shop with reusable bags, fill up our water bottles, avoid plastic like the plague, purchase beauty products made free of chemicals and we’re now filling up our closets with American designers that are making affordable and sustainable fashion their mantra.

Somehow though, many of us have neglected our homes along the way. We’ve failed to apply those same beliefs to the very place where we spend most of our time. We pull together a vegetarian dinner in a toxic kitchen. We put a new pair of eco-friendly shoes in a room painted with harmful toxins. We place our new, Bobble water bottle on a counter recently cleaned with chemicals.  We take showers with natural products while we’re surrounded by toxic materials. It’s nonsensical! Many of our homes are simply not reflecting our beliefs and world views.

In an effort to cleanse our eco-systems, I headed straight to the one and only, Robin Wilson, founder of Robin Wilson Home, for both simple and bigger-budgeted tips on how to make all of our homes healthy and non-toxic . She’s a nationally recognized eco-friendly interior designer, who creates beautiful, healthy spaces for residential and commercial clients.  Robin boasts a client list which includes the Kennedys and the Clintons, and she is the author of Kennedy Green House. She is also the first woman to license her name to eco-friendly kitchen cabinetry, which is sold at 500 Holiday Kitchen dealers nationwide. I’d say she’s qualified to help de-toxify our homes. Wouldn’t you?
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Video: Princeton’s Student Eco Fashion Competition

I had lots of fun judging the first-ever Princeton Eco Fashion Competition back in May; and now there’s a great video that gives the winner, and second- and third-place designers a chance to speak about their designs. Check it out!

For more on Princeton’s Eco Fashion Competition, check out my judges’ coverage here.
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Lara Miller: Eco Fashion’s Quick Change Artist

Eco Fashion designer Lara Miller is an Eco Chick fave; her supermodern, often convertible, sensuously romantic, yet travel-friendly designs are deceptively simple but always on point.

Lara says she didn’t plan her designs for the travelling types (though they suit us so well), but that her ideas come from a playful, fun place that happens to result in highly variable separates (think dresses that can be worn three ways, or trousers that have adjustable hems):

I graduated from a very conceptual design program at the School of the Art Institute where I researched Eadweard Muybridge images and architectual theory by Gregg Lynn. I was fascinated with the idea of animation and gestures in every day life, especially when getting dressed. I wanted to give the wearer a relationship to their pieces and allow them to be more individual. As my line and I have grown up, the functionality has really become key.

The Fern Flip wrap in recycled cotton
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Artful Undergarments: Rio Wrenn’s R.A.W. Eco Lingerie Collection

Portland, Oregon based textile designer Rio Wrenn has a unique vision for lingerie, combining modern eco friendly materials and dying techniques, antique constructions and ethical manufacturing to create her line, R.A.W. “I started R.A.W. in 2007, which is inspired by vintage undergarments ranging from the 1800′s to the 1950′s to modern day,” says Rio. Her collection of corsets, bras and undies has a special look, and with the Summer and Autumn 2010 trend of exposed undergarments, she’s right on target with perfect base layers for style mavens and lingerie fans alike.

And not only is Rio a conscious creator of unique pieces, she’s an advocate for women’s bodies and all the curves that go with them, and explained that her corsets aren’t meant to be restrictive or to reshape a body (she’s a fan of hips especially). “Corsets are actually very therapeutic, they make you stand up straight! I think people have a bad vision of corsets, but I don’t make them to be oppressive, they should be comfortable and supportive,” she says.

Each piece in R.A.W.’s collection is also a work of art and are handmade in Portland. Rio is a visual artist, but found that fine art was often out of reach to many people; fashion is a way to take a creative project and make it more accessible, wearable and affordable, she says.
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