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

Eco Chick Guide to Life in New Issue of Body & Soul!

I’m a long-time fan and regular reader of Body & Soul magazine and was so excited to see that my book, The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green, was featured in this month’s issue (July/August). The mention came within natural skin care guru Suki Kramer’s list of her favorite things.

If you don’t already read Body & Soul, pick one up; typical issues (and this one too) contain lots of great info about living green, yum local, seasonal recipes (I’m so making the strawberry muffins in this issue), yoga positions, and my favorite, guidance about living a more mindful life. “The Magic of Mistakes” in this issue was really enlightening and really gave me some valuable perspective on past actions.

There’s my book, along with two other great titles, The Green Beauty Guide, by Julie Gabriel and The Virtuous Consumer, by Leslie Garrett

Cameron Diaz and Gisele Bundchen Being Ridiculously Hot (and Green!) in June Vogue

The June issue of Vogue is packed with Green Goodness! I saved it for my flight to London last week and I was so pleased to find so many verdant gems among the regular great-as-usual Vogue content and reporting.

Gorgeous shoot, all sun-drenchy and summery. Here Cameron wears a Hessnatur silk and cotton tank, an Ecote belt and Del Forte organic cotton jeans.

First, Eco Chick Cameron Diaz not only graced the cover, but was featured in an eco fashion spread inside the mag, wearing some of my fave designers, including John Patrick Organic, Stella McCartney, Del Forte, Hessnatur and Olsenhaus, all of which have been featured on this site.

A 3.1 Philip Lim dress in eco-dyed natural silk with an Eco Emporia belt made from recycled fire hose.

Gisele Bundchen looks naturally gorgeous in this 100% organic cotton suit colored with low-impact dye from Loyale.

Though Gisele DID date Mr. Supergreenie Leo DiCaprio for some time, and she has a great green blog, she also seems to have no problem wearing fur or representing some pretty ungreen companies like True Religion jeans and Victoria’s Secret.

However, she is incredibly influential (and is the top-earning model in the world, according to a recent Forbes report) which is great news for Loyale’s Jenny Hwa, who designed the lovely greenblue bikini pictured above on The Body. I’ve been a big fan of Loyale (see Spring ’09 here) for years (featured the line in Plenty when I style edited there) and it’s so great to see a New York-based eco designer like Jenny getting her due in Vogue.

I was especially excited to see that in the travel special of this issue, Vogue highlighted get-in-shape getaways with a green bent (my preferred mode of vacation), including Charym, a local-to-me yoga/hiking/mountain biking spa in my home state of Connecticut. Is that a woman about to go river kayaking in VOGUE? (Not in those boots, though they are superfab, but anyway). Other vacays encourage surfing, organic massages, horseback riding and trail running. Hey, I trail run!

And the last page of Vogue’s June issue features the Fendi Abici bike (only a Benjamin under $6K! What recession?) But it IS Fendi, and this officially means city biking is in, which in an indirect (but important, I’d argue) way bodes well for bike lanes, pedestrian-focused cities, and pushing the car OUT.

Starre Vartan and Eco-chick.com Featured in Glamour's 70th Anniversary Issue!

I am so honored to have been invited to take part in Glamour Magazine’s 70th Anniversary issue, out this month (look for Katie Holmes on the cover of the April issue). To celebrate, they brought together 70 of the most influential women in green, including me! Standing next to me are Jill Fehrenbacher, design blogger extraordinaire (Inhabitat and Inhabitots), and Laurie David (Larry David’s wife, and more importantly, founder of Stopglobalwarming.org). I also got to chat with Christie Brinkley, Alicia Silverstone and Summer Rayne Oakes who were featured too.

We had our picture taken as a group in Central Park and it’s featured over a three-page spread (along with a great article about how far we have come in terms of environmental awareness, and how important women have been in that area.)

Thanks Glamour, for recognizing all these great green women! Check out Ecorazzi’s coverage here, with behind the scenes photos!

Look for the article in this issue!

Eco Chick Third Birthday and Book Party: Fun for All (Species)!!

Eco Chick is three years old! To celebrate her growing up (there are over 900 posts!) as well as the launch of my book, based on the blog, The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green, called for a kid’s themed party of course!

Eco Chick Founder and Editor, Starre Vartan, with Eco Chick Writer Kim Jordan Allen

I didn’t know how I was going to pull it together, but in just two days, the fabulous Kate McGregor, owner of Kaight, my favorite ecoboutique, and Arina Vikdorchik (AKA Arina Greenaholic for her eco party-planning fabulousness) offered me a venue, and some extra time and hands to help, and I HAD to go for it!

Kate McGregor and friend, and party guests!

I will, of course, be FOREVER indebted to Kate McGregegor of Kaight, for not only helping me dress fabulously, as well as GREENly but giving me such an amazing space to have my party. Thank you, thank you, thank you Kate! You are an honorary Eco Chick!

Singer/songwriter LiliAna Rose and art director for The Daily Green, Gloria Dawson

Soon, 360 vodka and Wolaver’s organic beer (both of which I buy, drink at home and serve when I entertain!) hopped on board as sponsors, which made me very happy since I consider them ‘my’ fave brands. Natura organic wines joined in with a delicious Sauvignon Blanc donation, and though I’d hadn’t heard of them yet, I was so glad they came to my party (with their wine!).

Ama the Bartender, and one of the many pooch attendees

Thanks soooo much to 360, Wolaver’s and Natura! A party without booze is no party at all (unless it’s a tea party, but this wasn’t).

Starre Vartan and Seth Leitman, author of Build Your Own Electric Vehicle, and Tiffany, Tatiana Gelfand and friend.

I am SO proud to say that all my food sponsors come from AMAZING women-owned businesses! Babycakes, which couldn’t be MORE local (it is about 3/4 of a block around the corner from Kaight) made up pretty purple and green vegan cupcakes, vegan and gluten-free banana bread, and brownie bites. They were so amazingly tasty I walked around with the box at one point but was just mostly eating them myself, hee hee. (I am NOT the kind of girl to skip eating awesome treats at my own party!) Babycakes was founded by the retro-cool Erin McKenna- thanks to Erin and her nice-as-could-be staff!

Brian Clark Howard, editor at The Daily Green, AKA DJ SocialPyramid

One of my favorite snacks, Laura’s Wholesome Junkfood, also supplied sweet vegan treats (their oatmeal raisin bitelettes are my fave low-guilt dessert when I’m at home of an evening). Laura’s is such a cool company, started by a doctor (named Laura!) who started her own good-for-you food biz. Thanks Dr. Laura!

Bonnie Hulkower and Emma Grady of Treehugger, and Boho Magazine‘s assistant editor Ashley Kittelsen and Boho fashion editor Margo Helliwell

SweetRiot, whose founder, Sarah Endline, I met years ago at NYC GreenDrinks holiday party, gave us lots of their directly-sourced, fair-trade, dark chocolate covered cocoa nibs in lovely martini glasses (I was so afraid there wouldn’t be enough chocolate!). And they were even nice enough to give me extras to take home after the party in their cute (recyclable, and original art-covered) tins. Thanks Sarah!

Guest, Elizabeth Harrington of Greenopia, and freelance writer Beatrice Aranow

Continuing with the women’s-owned theme, publisher and ecofabulista Gina LaMorte gave us a stack of Boho Magazines for our goody bags (My book is reviewed in the current issue-yay!!); the bags themselves were donated by Whole Foods (where I shop so much I feel like I practically earned those free bags, haha!). The bags are the cool new reusable Sheryl Crowe shoppers and so pretty! John Masters Organics, who makes my fave new haircare products, offered up samples for the goody bags (thanks!)

Arina Vikdorchik and Starre Vartan

I couldn’t have done this without the dogged persistence and unflagging energy of Arina Vikdorchik, who pulled all the nonsense together and made it make sense. Some unvarnished PR- use Arina next time you want to plan a party, green or not!!!

From left to right, Glenn Michael Gordon, Brook Wilensky-Lanford, Christina Rumpf and Rachel Carter, all of Columbia University’s MFA writing program.

From left to right, a friend, Josh Garrett-Davis, and Rob Verger, Columbia nonfiction MFAers

Thanks too, to all of you who came, including the incredibly supportive and loving cast of characters (I mean colleagues!) from Columbia’s University’s School of the Arts nonfiction (and fiction too!) writing program, my agent, Mary Ann Naples (didn’t get a snap of her, darn!!) of The Creative Culture, my publicity team, Emily Fry and Stephen Lee of St. Martin’s (who do a lot with very little!), Brian Clark Howard, my friend, DJ, proofreader for the book, and URTH Guy, my amazing girlfriend Cara Joy, who started off her day at her farm in Vermont gathering eggs and ended up at a book and blog party in the LES, and was indispensible the day-of, helping everything get done, and of course, Danelle Marqui Brown and Kim Jordan Allen, long-time Eco Chick writers, supporters, and fabulous, amazing, inspiring women all-around.

Shane McQuade, CEO of Voltaic systems and Margaret Lydecker, founder of NYC Greendrinks, and Meiling Chen, ecofashion designer

A big shout-out to my friends and colleagues at Greenopia, who are mostly on the West Coast, and whose NYC guidebook (and online listings) are indespensible for navigating this growing green world.

Arina Vikdorchik and Danelle Marqui Brown, Eco Chick writer

Starre Vartan, Michelle Legro, producer and host of Storyville and nonfiction MFA student at Columbia U. and James Yeh, fiction MFA student at Columbia.

Two people who could not attend but to whom I owe debts of gratitude are Dan “Mobius” Sieradski, Eco Chick’s webmaster, who’s single-handedly kept the site running all these years, and my Dad, who has supported the site since its inception, given me great ideas on how to promote it, and encouraged me to keep going with my ideas and aspirations.

Emily Fry and Stephen Lee of St. Martin’s, and Michael Schwarz, writer and animal advocate

Party Guests and a Pooch, and Starre Vartan and ecofashion designer Christine Marchuska in one of her own designs

Party Guests!

E Magazine's Eco Luxe Issue: Eco Fashion Rules!

Recently, I was lucky enough to get to write again for E Magazine (I was a contributing writer there for four years and really got my enviro journalism chops while putting stories together for them each issue); they tapped me to write about my very favorite topic- eco fashion!

The focus of the whole issue is eco luxe, and it takes a hard look at high-end green goods. – Are they for good, or evil? Check the mag out to find what all the writers (including me) had to say about the answer!

The issue is (partially) online, so you should totally check out the stories there, including: Green Living Deluxe: How the Environmental Movement Went Way, Way Upscale, Publisher Doug Moss’ E Word on how wise it is to try and shop our way green, and Hybrid Hype, a critique of SUV hybrids. You’ll have to buy the mag (or even better, subscribe to their paper or online edition) to read the rest, including my article, a sidebar about awesome sustainable shoes, and an interview with eco interior designer to the stars, Kelly LaPlante.

I love the coverage of other ‘luxey’ topics, like green McMansions and Carbon Offsets.