Green Options

Founder of Blades Natural Beauty, Jessa Blades is a natural makeup artist who works on photo shoots and fashion shows, helps brides looks their best on their big day and provides natural beauty consultation to a variety of clientele in New York City.  Last month she worked with celebrity makeup artist, Rose-Marie Swift at Fashion Week and is featured this month in Glamour magazine’s 70^th anniversary issue along with 69 other female eco-achievers.  She also works with Teens Turning Green and Project Green Prom. 

She believes we don’t have to sacrifice health for beauty and is intimately in-the-know about products that perform, yet won’t pollute our bodies.  “People are outraged when it comes to animal testing for cosmetics and I’m against it, but what about human testing?  Companies have been testing their products on women for years!!” 

While eco-fashion is becoming more mainstream with an increasing number of environmentally conscious designers serving up sustainable styles and earth-friendly frocks, the runways are typically reserved for regaling the glitz and glam of overly indulgent attire.

But this week, Vancouver turns the spotlight on sustainability with its first ever eco-focused fashion night, Friday, November 7th, 2008.

Vancouver Fashion Week, a hotbed of haute couture and leading west coast designers, is one of the premier purveyors of popular pageantry, unveiling some of the world’s most sought after styles and trends.  This year, VFW is showing its support for the environment with a dedicated evening for designers to promote their leading edge sustainable artistry and eco-conscious craftmanship.  From eco luxury, showcasing the art of organic handmade silk, to the unique beauty of recycled fabrics like cashmere and wool, an impressive range of techniques and designs will be featured.

Very recently we shared the green kick off for NY Fashion Week with the opening event hosted by BeEcoChic, that in my view has BeEcoMe a fabulous place to read up on resources. For more fashion week updates, see stunning eco-collective EKO LAB (collection snapshots shown below)

which Inhabitat predicted would become the hottest in eco chic this fall together with collaborative ekovaruhuset. The beautiful lines emerged on the runways this week.

Rocking the world of traditional eco-apparel, Linda Loudermilk forgoes hemp for high fashion.  Referred to as the “Green Queen” and self-proclaimed “Earth Warrior”, she leads the high-end “green” fashion movement with her  meticulously created runway looks. This year her Fall collection is a mix of rocker chic and refined classics.   

With stringent fair trade practices and extensively researched textiles she trademarked the term “Luxury Eco” to describe her line before the concept was known to the masses.  Her pieces are created in Los Angeles with fabrics like seacell (seaweed bonded to wood pulp), sasawashi (Japanese leaves), bamboo and organic cotton.

Introducing her denim line last Spring, she was the first to bring sasawashi denim to the fashion marketplace.  Linda indicates that it takes one pound of pesticides to make one traditional pair of jeans and she was determined to introduce a better alternative.