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

Chug-a Chug-a Choo Choo: EcoLux Shop Pops Up at Grand Central Terminal, NYC

No commuter wants to add more time to traveling to and fro. But if there ever was a time to get stuck in transit (aside from an ash-cloud shutdown by an Icelandic volcano), then give it up for Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary at Grand Central Terminal.

Grand Central Terminal’s pink-marble Vanderbilt Hall gets a splash of green style as TheGreenShows EcoLux sets up an eco fashion, jewelry, and beauty boutique for EarthFair, Monday, April 19 through Sunday, April 25 (10:00am–7:00pm).

Joann Berman

Reco Jeans

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Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining: Edgy and Sweet Reclaimed Jewelry

While random pieces of metal, bottle caps, nuts and bolts might not be obvious choices for jewelry, they prove to be striking and dramatic when paired with delicate chains and gleaming jewels in UK designer Alessandra Rigillo’s jewelry line, ‘Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining’.

I caught up with Alessandra to talk about her inspiration for transforming such rough, gritty materials into savagely beautiful necklaces, bracelets and earrings that are more than just a little bit rock n’ roll.

SR: Your jewelry is packed with items that are rarely associated with ornamentation: metal scraps, nuts & bolts, electrical wiring, bottle caps. What first inspired you to work with these sorts of materials?

AR: I kept my first bottle top, the one with a bee, because I thought it was too cute to throw away. Around the same time I found old drawings of mine from years ago when I started the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. At that time I wanted to do Jewellery Design but, the school, friends etc…etc…took me on a different path. Here in London, where I moved from Rome in 2002, I discovered the work of Fashion Designers like Traid Re-Made and Junky Styling, that have been producing very interesting garments with recycled material for years. I was fascinated!

I like the challenge of transforming “junk” into beautiful jewellery. My collections aims to inspire people to consume less and to find the “silver lining” in every little thing.

SR: The ‘Nimbus’ line is so sweet and colorful – are those Barbie shoes I spy?!

AR: Yes! They are. I can’t remember exactly why I bought a packet of vintage Barbie shoes on Ebay. The 80’s were the times when you could buy just shoes without the whole outfit. Great! The same shoes in ALL different colours!!!! Things like this make us all want to be Barbie. Decision decision decision..let’s get all of them!!! Girls love Barbie and shoes. The perfect match: a Barbie shoe. The symbol of the little girl inside each of us that still wants to play and have fun.

SR: It’s definitely an unexpected juxtaposition of delicate gold and silver chains, sparkly jewels and objects that are generally considered to be ‘junk’. What other reclaimed objects might we see from you in the future?

AR: At the moment I’m working with used Italian playing cards, jumbo size puzzle pieces, scrap leather, metal mechanical pieces from old sewing machines, vintage chess players….etc…etc… I just wish I had more time!!!

Thanks, Alessandra!

Eco-Luxe Fun at the Go Green Expo

The Eco-Luxe Go Green Expo hit New York recently, showcasing environmentally responsible luxe goodies. The Rouge Tomate restaurant, known for its locally-grown menu and fresh decor, played host to eco-friendly companies, including Tesla Motors, Hydro Flask, Soda Stream, Divine Chocolate, 360 Vodka, and Jane Iredale.

A spirit of innovation was behind both the newcomers and established brands at the expo. Come along for a virtual tour!

Alberto Parada
Green designer Alberto Parada and his environmentally sustainable and socially responsible jewelry shone bright.

A model striking a pose for sustainable style as presented by the Ethical Fashion Show.

Proving cork doesn’t just belong inside a bottle, Nature’s Cork , the US distributor of Pelcor, displayed a cork dress.

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Fall Eco Fashion Accessories: Drama, Color & Recycled Metal

Studs, chains, simple boxy bags, booties and dramatic statement jewelry: all of these things are in for fall 2009, and there are seriously fabulous eco-friendly options for every single trend. Designers like Litter SF, Doloris Petunia and olsen Haus offer up some eye-popping accessories made from recycled, upcycled, organic and otherwise green materials.

Jewelry trends for fall 2009 bring in the drama with big, bold, shiny statement pieces. Doloris Petunia creates stunning custom statement necklaces (pictured above) made from pieces of old or broken jewelry – you can even send in your own, so dig through that junk drawer and put those sentimental bits of metal, beads and jewels to good use.

When it comes to handbags, studs and simple boxy shapes are in. Roccobarocco’s black studded hobo in polished eco-leather is perfect as an everyday bag, while TEICH clutches – which come in an array of eye-popping colors and are made of responsibly sourced leather – are the perfect complement to your favorite LBD.

More great trends after the jump!

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Back to the Future: Arteco

Technomontage

Western Pennsylvania artist Stewart Webb has updated vintage Art Deco design with a thoroughly future-forward “eco” ethos.  His “technomontage” jewelry and objects for the home are crafted using repurposed high tech materials.  If the towering skyscraper, the glint of a fast-moving train, or the sleek veneer of an automobile were once absorbed by Art Deco design, Webb’s point of focus is the technology of today’s generation: hardware for computers and electronics, and the products of the aerospace and military industries.  These modern-day technological parts come together in jewelry, clocks, sculpture, and light fixtures that simulate traditional decorative materials, such as pearls, gemstones, enamels, and precious metals.  Whereas Art Deco’s structured forms and materials once celebrated a forward march of confident progress and the might of the machine-age, Webb’s artwork represents a more critical look at the double edged sword of the impact of modern technology on the environment and our society.  With so many creative initiatives focused on organic materials, Webb’s art lends perspective on mitigating the environmental damage of technology.

Thinking in Reverse

“Demanufacturing”, or taking things apart, is an integral part of Webb’s creative process.  Webb, who is dyslexic, believes it contributes to his proclivity for doing things in reverse.  He also has always been curious about the mechanics of how things work.  Webb sees a need for taking responsibility for our technological footprint on the environment, and, as he put it in a recent interview “getting back to something that nature can cope with”.  In a world where the majority of us, for example, use a computer as well as travel in cars and planes, there is a need for better solutions for disposing of technological waste that usually ends up in landfills or is incinerated.  Yet, as Webb knows well, thinking backward in order to dissassemble technology “in an intense going back to nature” is seemingly without end or dissolution.  Webb’s deconstruction of technology into a decorative, repurposed artform certainly questions our ability to “undo” technology as well as the fine line between creation and destruction in our orientation toward the direction of true progress.

The creative potential of thinking retrogressively has also informed the thinking of other contemporary artists, such as the Dutch Ursus Wehrli’s “Tidying up art” projects.  Wehrli’s “tidying” of the materials and visual forms of modern art reflects a similar fascination with origins and psychological reversals.  A temporal idea of a turn in direction, and even an unscrewing, is pervasive in creative efforts to green our habits and safeguard our natural resources by taking a step backward to go forward.

Human Versus Machine

Webb notes that whereas electronics are simply either “on or off”, our human condition is a state of grey.”  People are much more complex since we can be just fractionally more or less alive.  Donning a bit of Arteco jewelry certainly seems to turn on the bad-ass Terminator cyborg or more friendly R2D2 robot inside of us.  Turn on, as in flipping a switch, is the right word to describe the kind of synergy implied by wearing on our bodies techie bits that were once plugged in, zapped, and otherwise activated.

Webb’s description of his design in terms of biomechanics further reveals his humanism.  He likens the structured, regimented shapes of Art Deco, which he employs, to the steady heartbeat of the body.  He also relates the circuitry and creativity of the brain to the tech materials he manipulates, which, under magnification, reveal ever-expansive, geometric fractals.  A consideration of the physical relationship between living beings and machines is also evident in his observation on shelf life: “biological things wear out, mechanical things don’t.”

Like Polish Art Deco painter Tamara de Lempicka’s (1898-1980) paintings of machine-like babes of yesterday, Arteco engages in a new relationship to technology for T-Ec[h]-o-Chicks of today.

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