I just ran across this video from the eco fashion show that was held a few weeks ago at the Palais de Nations, the UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. (See if you can spot eco models Summer Rayne Oakes and Kate Dillon among the grey-coiffed walkers.)

EcoChic Fashion Geneva brought 2009, the UN’s Year of the Natural Fiber to a close and ushered in 2010 as the Year of Biodiversity, with the show shown above, as well as other events. The clothes above were created by couturiers Thakoon, Diane von Furstenberg, Noir and others, from ecomaterials or local fabrics in a palette of black, cream, and red. Ready to wear collections by Edun, Nixxi, The Battalion, and more were also shown.

But the event wasn’t just about admiring the clothes. Panels on a variety of subjects informed attendees of the various aspects of fashion’s impact on people and the planet. According to Abigail Doan at Ecouterre, the panels explored “..the dearth of affordable environmentally friendly textiles, the absence of government support for students and young designers in developing nations, and the lack of consistency in sustainability standards (or even a shared vocabulary) worldwide.

For more images and info, see Ecouterre.

It is only this year, my 32nd, that I have truly understood the value of the Little Black Dress. Of course I have heard the legend; what woman hasn’t? This mythical raiment could be worn anywhere, tarted out or demurely cover up, achieve figure flattery whether one was surviving on a diet of tropical fruit and raw macadamia nuts or daily chocolate bars and creamy pastas nightly. A frock that would work equally well with flats or heels, could be thrown in a bag and would never wrinkle, and be made of fabric that would dry quickly after a drenching but keep you from perspiring in the blasted sun (and could even hide said dampness when it inevitably made its moist mark). And of course it had to be impossibly chic.

This Little Black Dress from the very specialized boutique, Little Black Dress Shop

Frankly I had more faith that unicorns still existed in some ruddy-mudded and tangled corner of Eastern Europe.

But! I have been around the world and (almost) back again and I’m here to tell you- it’s not a myth. Because I have found my LBD, and it performs all the impossible feats I’ve outlined above. Best of all, my LBD is chic enough to have garnered compliments from a properly snooty concierge in LA, my girlfriends who run the gamut from hippie to haute, my aunt who lived in Europe for ages, and not one, but two stylists!

Nixxi Empire Dress in organic cotton or bamboo voile.

AND it’s ecofriendly! If heaven could be a dress, it would be my Carol Young LBD (top image).

So like a good man, now that I’ve found the perfect dress that suits all temperaments and covers for my transgressions, naturally I am looking for another. If one is great, two is bliss, no? Fellows and dresses do have a bit in common I think, both being indespensible. And so surrounding, my Internet scourings have uncovered some other gowns that might make the cut. Of course you never know until you try them on, wear them around a bit and see how they feel next to your skin. Just like… well I needn’t hit you over the head with it.

Made from organic cotton, this dress by Ryann is deceptively simple; the hem can be short (for pairing with leggings or skinny jeans) or pulled down a bit to wear with bare legs or tights.

The Lindsey dress has a cute mock collar which offsets it’s short length, and a double-layered skirt which is flattering on almost every figure.

Green Girls Global

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

This past week a local in my town contacted me to see if I would be interested in discussing the issues surrounding a potential cellular tower that would be constructed within one mile of my house. Some of us from the town had the chance to voice our concerns to the Connecticut Siting Council, which is the governing body that determines zoning for these towers in our state.

Having written about microwave energy and electromagnetic fields a few years ago, I remembered interviewing Carl Blackman, a research scientist in the Environmental Carcinogenesis Division of the EPA, and asking him about cell phones and cellular base stations in relation to electromagnetic fields and the possible health impact. Blackman was one among quite a few scientists and researchers I interviewed who reiterated the same sentiment: “We just don’t know yet. The science is not in.” The fact that the jury is still out on this vast topic, in a field (pardon the pun) that is ever-expanding, is enough, for some, to warrant grassroots action.

The subject is controversial and highly debated, although the issue is one that people are dealing with world-wide. The fear is that without mobile phones and cell towers covering every inch of land, emergency services will be left without connection, leaving us, “with a hole big enough to drive a hearse through…” as I recently read in a concerned citizen’s letter to the NYTimes. One concern is that the proliferation of these towers and devices has gone largely unmonitored, unregulated, and, according to some scientists, could potentially lead to serious health issues.

The World Health Organization has advised that the “precautionary principle” be enacted as a preemptive move before certainty of harm is verified by science. This essentially means that when any new technology is evolving beyond the scope of scientific research, it is advisable to protect oneself through risk management. So, while some still think that those who discuss this topic with seriousness are delusional and should be stuttering through the park, wearing a tinfoil hat, others, including the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and member countries of the European union feel it is worth serious discussion.

In Europe, some governments have set exposure standards below those of the standardizing agencies, in order to try to protect their citizens. In India, towers were recently banned from school and residential areas to protect people following studies that showed potential harm to the brain. The United States Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, Section 704(a) removes environmental considerations from the tower siting process, which denies citizens the opportunity to protest based on ecological concerns (zoning) or health issues.

In 2006, the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF,) the largest union of first responders in North America, passed a resolution banning cellular towers from firehouses until more research is done, because firefighters were suffering from ill health. Internationally, the concern regarding the exponential proliferation of wireless devices and base stations to support them has provoked scientific studies and prompted legislators to err on the side of caution when it comes to regulations. Many scientists are discussing the potential impact on DNA, neurological function, and human health while others study migratory birds and the reproduction patterns of all animal populations in the vicinity of strong electromagnetic fields.

In my town, in NW Connecticut, we are currently experiencing the battle. The cellular tower has been proposed to be on Route 7, a scenic highway that runs parallel with the Appalachian Trail. The AT park manager has sent a letter in response to the proposed tower stating that they had no problem with it, so long as Cellco/Verizon makes the tower look like a tree and plants 25 white pines along the trail.

The tower site is also within one mile of two schools and is next door to the largest employer of the town. The site abuts a friend’s property. Both he and his wife are cancer survivors and fear the tower could affect their health. At the public hearing, where town members were allowed to voice their opinions to the siting commission (who ultimately decides whether the tower goes up or not,) people expressed various concerns:

“property values go down,” “endangered animals can be affected by the tower and the electromagnetic fields generated,” “children are more vulnerable, since their bodies are still developing,” “we desperately need this tower for the fire department.”

Members of the fire department were present and there was a tangible tension between those concerned about the environment and those who need the communication, first and foremost. The fire chief didn’t seem overly upset by the whole thing, he just said he needs the tower (I guess being a volunteer, he isn’t part of the union of IAFF who determined the towers to be a sufficient risk.)

There is an undertone to the side for the tower of “If you can’t see or smell or taste anything wrong, what’s the problem?” If you don’t have a geiger counter, you don’t know how much radiation is present. If you don’t have a gaussmeter, you cannot measure electromagnetic fields, so the intangibility of “damage” is palpable to those for the tower. The reality is, however, that some feel the tower would leave the firefighters and first responders as the most vulnerable, since they would be closest to the exposure for longer durations.

We all have cell phones. I don’t use mine unless I have to. I will call someone to let them know I am on my way, or that my car broke down, or that I am lost. But if I really want to talk to someone, a land line works fine. I understand that this technology has changed the way first responders can work and function. Perhaps there is a way for them to maintain their connections without putting up massive electromagnetic “trees,” every few feet, all the way from Jersey to Oakland.

One of the folks in our town (one of the few to want the tower) has a child that suffers from life-threatening allergies. To her, it is a matter of life or death that the tower go up. The thing is, her son is alive and well and in his teens now; she just worries. There is too much worry these days. Maybe the immediacy of all the Wi-Fi, high-tech, “Crackberry,” electro-polluting fog we are inundated with day-in and day-out actually amps us up, generating ‘the worry.’ We are hyper-connected, virtually present, and globally positioned, but there are more people on anti-depressants and other mind-altering drugs than ever.

It is funny how the marketing for cellphones is either totally mindless drivel (insert teenager texting, “omg, like brb”) or fear-based paranoia (insert anxious mom, “do you know where your child is???”) There is always a reason for the latest techno gadget, no matter how preposterous or important it might seem. The synchronized speed is hot and it sells. Then there is the icon of all icons in the iPhone. This uber sexy do-it-all is cool, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t need it.

These days, slowing down has to be a matter of choice. Less might be better than more.

Though I’m lucky to live in a city with its own faction of designers (Cologne’s Chic Belgique), boutique shopping isn’t exactly eco friendly … local, yes, but the designers still have to import non-organic textiles from around the world. So I was happy last summer to finally stumble into a shop in Cologne that shared my ideals (as evidenced in their motto: fair. organic. charity).

BGreen carries all those brands you cross-pond Amis know well… Stewart & Brown, Loomstate, and the like. But they’ve also got supercute kids stuff from the Dutch brand imps&elfs and fairly made shoes from the French brand, Veja.

It’s also a small shop, as you can see below, but it’s a step in the right direction. As the owner Andrea Imgenberg told me, it’s a shame that Germany – with its enormous carbon-reduction goals and incredible research into renewable energy – doesn’t have more of this stuff. But the emphasis here is on technology, not textiles. Right now, anyway. I have a feeling, though, that all of that will be changing.

At the same time, they held discussions on issues like migration, xenophobia, and the role of media. and the whole event took place with just a smidgen of a carbon footprint from the hundreds in attendance, thanks mostly to the festival’s insistence that everyone contribute to the cooking, the cleaning, the tent-building.

In the months leading up to this year’s gathering – scheduled for mid-August, members of the collective have also set up a bike tour from Belgrade through Bulgaria and down the Black Sea coast – all in hopes of lowering the impact of those people from around Europe who are making the trip.

For more info on the Ecotopia concept, which has been going on for fifteen years, have a look at their website. Hope to see you there in August!

Photos (c) Pedalofilo, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

For anyone else who digs on books that examine how PR shapes public perception, Will Allen’s new book, The War on Bugs is the latest in a genre that includes The Best War Ever and Toxic Sludge is Good for You. Instead of the now-tired observation that much of our food supply harms our bodies and destroys the land, Allen looks at the historical connection between advertising and agriculture and how toxins were marketed and sold to farmers to create The War on Bugs. (Fans of The Lorax might be surprised to see how else Dr. Suess put his talents to work — shilling for DDT and Standard Oil — before he spoke for the trees.)

Here’s an excerpt from a Q&A with Will Allen that I did for Chelsea Green.

BG: You’re an organic farmer, but you’re also an ex-Marine – and you were arrested and sentenced to a year in jail during the early 70s for civil rights and antiwar activism. That’s not a one-track life. Were there noticeable turning points for you?

WA: A turning point for me came during my time in the Marine Corps when I was dispossessed of the belief that as Marines we were protecting democracy, liberty, and freedom. I learned we were mostly protecting corporations. Some of our military actions while I was a Marine were in Lebanon, Cuba, and Vietnam. In Lebanon, we protected American corporations in the mid-East and mid-East allies, no matter how corrupt. In Cuba, we protected American businesses, a dictator, the ruling class that fled to Miami after the Revolution, and the Mafia drug cartels. In Vietnam we protected business interests, rice interests, illegal drug interests – the opium trade – and religious interests. We installed a Catholic president in a nation where 95% of the population was Buddhist and were shocked when he was assassinated. By 1963, I was protesting the Vietnam War in Chicago rallies and campus teach-ins.

…

BG: Do you see any similarities in the way that wars are spun and sold to the American public and the ways that toxic chemicals are spun and sold to American farmers?

WA: Advertising agencies made a quantum leap during the First World War. They did contract work for the government to sell the war and recruitment work for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. The country was isolationist at the time and not interested in getting into another of Europe’s seemingly endless string of wars. Advertisers were able to get enlistments up and the public to buy war bonds. The themes were: a “can do attitude”, (such as, if America enters the war we will win it), a patriotic obligation, and protecting the civil rights of occupied countries.

When the same advertising agencies sold chemicals to farmers and householders, their pitches were similar. We are at war, be patriotic, and “a can do attitude.” That attitude encouraged such boasts as “. . .We can grow more than any other farmers in the world”, which led to the common belief that American farmers are feeding the world.

BG: On the flip side, do you see similarities in your resistance – resistance to war and resistance to toxic chemicals?

WA: I think that when someone becomes as anti-war as I am, then whatever one does – whether it is organic farming or something else – the irrationality and injustice of war is never far from their consciousness. While farm wars and military wars are of a different scale, many of the chemical and mining corporations that make fertilizer and pesticides are also manufacturers of bombs, and other military hardware and software. I think the sooner we can stop the chemical and genetic war on the farms, and the mindset that we are at war with nature, the better we will be as a species. In a sense, it is hard to not think of the war every time I fire up a tractor or pump or generator or heater that runs on gas or diesel from war zones around the world, especially Iraq. For that reason, we are looking at all the alternatives to fossil fuels for moving vehicles and for stationary heaters and generators.

War is not what is going on at Cedar Circle Organic Farm (in East Thetford, Vermont). We have struggles with pests, including woodchucks, voles, birds, worms, fungi, insects and weeds. We develop and copy strategies that are softer, non poisonous, and often very effective, and sometimes those adopted strategies are not effective. It is a process. We don’t have all the answers, but we have a lot more now than when we started in the 1960s.

Two years ago, my husband and I were invited to a presentation by one of Germany’s top Climate Change Researchers at The Wuppertal Institute in Berlin. I forget the presenter’s name now but remember bits and pieces of what he said … mainly those things I’d never heard before.

Like that the way the climate has been changing over the last century – carbon emissions related or not (he was being diplomatic because the audience was strictly American and this was before global warming became a topic the Administration talked about) – would result first in an intense warm weather cycle throughout Europe that would occur for about a decade. The hot weather would result in fires, deadly heat waves, and devastated crops.

It sounded exactly like what happened during the summer of 2003, when I’d first lived on the continent. In Portugal, forest fires raged and in France, hundreds died from heat stroke. Though the weather hasn’t been exactly deadly warm here in Germany since then, last summer proved murderous in Italy, Croatia, Spain, and Greece, with temps over 100 degrees for days on end which produced forest fires and droughts. An early spring and mild winter meant a potato shortage (!) up here though and some seriously confused birds who returned from their southern migration early.

This expert presenter then said that the heat would be followed by an intense cold weather cycle that would prove equally, if not more devastating, as the Gulf Stream changed and pushed Arctic air down into Germany. And I’ve got to say – after a winter visit to Wisconsin, where temps dipped to -20 with a much lower wind chill, I’m so hoping that this prediction doesn’t prove true…

What’s a bit eerie, though, is that a third prediction he made, one I thought impossible, has proven twice in the last two years to be true. Prior to 2005, Europe had never seen nor experienced a hurricane. But as part of the warmer weather, Germany’s just lived through its second in two years (the first ever to make landfall on Europe was in 2005, a Category 1 that hit the Azores Islands).

Hurricane Emma started on Friday and with winds of up to 120 km/hour (that’s about 70 mph), it’s not nearly as bad as those that make landfall in the US annually. And Germany’s Baltic and North Sea coasts, including the port city of Hamburg, are barricaded against sea storms nicely, with storm walls and a series of locks and floodplains that have been successful in preventing surge damage. But the rest of the country certainly isn’t prepared for storms like this, as was shown Saturday. The country kept up business as usual – Cologners visiting the daily vegetable market, where veggies were literally flying off the shelves and travelers hopping high-speed trains that were hit by falling trees.

As someone who evacuated Hurricane Andrew just a day before it hit, I realize that Germany’s been pretty lucky to not have incurred the serious damages Florida faces every year. But if this is a sign of things to come (and if it proves Mr. Wuppertal Institute’s predictions true), I may be in need of a new home soon….

If you’re looking for super-comfy, but also sexy (and who isn’t? I feel like when I look appealing to the opposite sex, I’m invariably uncomfortable), check out Viridis Luxe‘s new Spring line. Viridis uses a luxurious hemp-cashmere blend for knits, and hemp-silk for their jersey shirts, as well as bamboo for the T’s. All this and the site explains succinctly the truth (and facts) behind hemp fabric too. A particularly ‘treehugging’ excerpt:

Currently 40% of the global timber harvest is used for paper products. If hemp is cultivated on only 12% of the European landmass, it will meet the ENTIRE WORLD DEMAND for paper and completely eradicate the need to cut trees for paper. One acre of hemp produces as much pulp for paper as four acres of trees. The average tree grows for 30-40 years before it can be harvested for paper products, compared to hemp, which can be harvested in 3-4 months

Hemp is an amazing low-impact fiber that’s super-tough and lasts forever, and needs no pesticides and herbicides. Hemp contains almost none of the active ingredient, THC that makes its cousin, marijuana, a drug, yet the short-sighted U.S. government is still outlawing the plant from being grown in American soil, so right now most hemp fiber comes from Canada and other countries whose governments recognize an eco-friendly crop when they see it.

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We all know riding your bike instead of driving is not only eco-friendly, but good for our butts and legs (and hearts!) too! But to really make a dent in how many global warming gases you produce, you have to ride your bike for more than just recreation, and treat it as a vehicle, and integrate it into your life.

I ride my bike all over my seaside Connecticut town, as do plenty of other folks, the difference being that I don’t ever dress like a ‘biker’. I hate the spandex, helmets, and stupid bootie-shoes that Americans seem to think they need to ride a bike around town or on the streets. (Yeah, I know, helmets will save your skull, but you know what? I’m old enough that I don’t have to wear one, so I don’t. They’re ugly and mess up my hair. So sue me.)

A great example of a great warmer weather bike ensemble!

Turns out, I’m not as iconoclastic as I’d like to think I am. European ladies in cities like Amsterdam, Paris, and Copenhagen regularly ride their bikes, looking as chic as ever. Women wear whatever they would normally wear (read: really chic outfits and heels, jewelry, and even makeup!) to hop on their bikes to get around town. The site, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, documents this style phenomenon. Love it!

I ride in skirts and tights with knee-high boots in the winter to go to the library, sundresses with bare feet or flip flops in the summer to ride to my local beach, and my cute bags get thrown in the basket in front of me. Just make sure your bike has fenders so you don’t get dust and mud all over your adorable outfits!