Green Fashion Spotlight on Mainstream Brands like Banana Republic, Nike, and H&M Organics
Many mainstream brands with savvy designers are releasing environmentally conscious organic lines for fall. Displayed above from left to right:
Many mainstream brands with savvy designers are releasing environmentally conscious organic lines for fall. Displayed above from left to right:
This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.
Another example of the speed at which the green promotional products industry is changing is the second generation of the Organic Spa tote from the manufacturer Gemline.
Like many of the wonderful bags from this manufacturer, this tote is made from 100% certified organic cotton fabric and azo-free dyes.
However look at the front of the tote. This material originally was made of bamboo, it is now made from woven jute.
Why? We suspect a few reasons. Jute may be less expensive and it also makes for a more supple bag that is a bit lighter, easier to carry and easier to place embroidery or silk screening on.
The main point I want to make is that the time between Organic Spa Tote I and Organic Spa Tote II was less than 6 months. This normally would not happen with promotional items, but I have seen it in eco-friendly items again and again.
It’s raining zucchini! Well, maybe not literally, but it can feel that way at this time in the summer, when home gardens, farmer’s markets and fresh produce aisles abound with these versatile and prolific veggies.
There is something kind of funny about these little green monsters. It could just be the word ‘zucchini’, which by the way has its roots in the very food-associated Italian language. ‘Zucca’ is the Italian word for squash. Not to get bogged down in an etymology thing . . . the point is that zucchini has been party to many silly jokes, such as:
Check out the new Eco Fashion World site. EFW knows, “just like the first industrial revolution started in the fashion industry, so will the second that leads us to sustainability.” —Cradle to Cradle, Michael Braungart and William McDonough. EFW realizes that we are all linked, from “New York to New Delhi, Paris to Pakistan, Brazil to Bangladesh, Vancouver to Vietnam, by the very strings of our garments.”
The Eco Fashion World glossary is an exemplary resource! Take a look. The site is filled with inspiring green styles, expert advice and brilliant budding blogs.“Get the scoop on sustainable style, browse our unique and quickly expanding eco fashion guide and get inspired by the true visionaries in our magazine.” Shown here on the cover is a Lelia Hafzi gown design.
This is a story that will likely make you hungry, inspired, and hopefully thinking a little broader than you started. This is a story of passion and mystery, with a twist at the end. This is about an ice cream that uses no dairy, yet tastes as good as, if not better than its milk based counterparts. And you won’t want to choose it because you can’t have dairy, you’ll just like it because it’s good. Or so that’s what the folks behind Coconut Bliss are aiming for. Now I know, you’re saying, coconut based, that sounds (insert gushing or repulsed adjectives here)
Hang on.
Coconut Bliss makes all the standard flavors you’d expect and far beyond, from Vanilla Island to Chocolate Hazelnut Fudge, with some Strawberry Lemon Love thrown in for good measure. The flavor, when it hits your tongue, is distinctly focused on the flavor at hand. Coconut sits very much in the background, nearly undetected. It’s more the messenger rather than the flag bearer. They use very clean ingredients, all organic, and skip insulin spiking sugar for its more even keeled cousin, agave nectar.
Aside from being dubbed the Green Diva, I’ve also been called the salad queen (these may actually be different variations on the same title!). Since my earliest memories of food, salads have been and remain a favorite staple in my world. I was somewhat of a natural vegetarian, gagging on most meat and thus being extremely particular about what meat I managed to stuff down as a child, I always gravitated towards any type of vegetable.
This time of year, us salad-lovers are in heaven. The fresh, crisp and colorful bounty beckons the creation of all kinds of fresh veggie meals.
I’ve become an unofficial expert on making meals out of salads. I can be extremely happy with a large bowl filled with lettuce and a variety of other food groups that make up a healthy combination all mixed up. In fact, I have a special hand-crafted wooden bowl that was given to me when I attended ‘farm camp’ in Vermont last year, that I love to make these salad meals in.
While there are several million ways to create a core group of salad meals, I’m going to pick just two that I’m currently rotating through the menu these days.
Thea and Sami is based in Brisbane, Australia, creating fashions and accessories out of natural materials and earth-friendly inks. They have begun adding some certified organic fabrics to their collection, including this handprinted “Iron Flowers” design in turquoise on white or grey on black on organic linen. The fabric is 142 cm wide (56″) and costs $A38.50 per metre.
This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.
Managing or starting up an eco spa? Trying to “green” your fitness center? Launching a new green hotel? Then this may be for you.
Pro Towels has released a new line of towels made from bamboo. They are lovely and great for any spa or water related business with a green agenda.
Bamboo as a woven material is popping up more and more in the industry. I would say it feels closer to silk than cotton and is being used in bags, totes, shirts, the usual suspects.
The Pro Towel Bamboo Collection advertises itself as a 35”x60”, heavyweight, twill hemmed and looped finished towel of 100% bamboo. Colors available are Sandalwood, Ivory, Leaf Green and Pure White.
I love basil, and I even worked on a basil farm in college. One of my favorite basil recipes is pesto, and my children love it too! We make it from organic pesto we grow in our garden, and we eat it on baguettes, crackers, pasta, pizza, etc. It is really easy to make if you have a blender, but be careful to stop and stir often. You can easily burn up the motor on your blender if you are not patient.
Pulverize in a blender:
CORE TRUTHS
A Book Review
Have you ever been challenged by someone about why to buy organic produce? If you’re like me, you can rattle off some good solid answers pretty quickly, but when they demand scientific reasoning you might not be able to cite research studies so readily.
The Organic Center has done this homework for us!
Their mission statement reads, ‘To generate credible, peer reviewed scientific information and communicate the verifiable benefits of organic farming and products to society.’
And they’ve done an excellent job of it so far. This non-profit was founded in 2002 by leaders in the organic food industry. Among their extremely impressive list of Board Members is Dr. Andrew Weil. I would encourage you to go and see this list of power-house organic industry experts and scientists.
Listed high among its goals, is to disseminate information and promote awareness and understanding to the general public about the benefits of organic agriculture.
One of the ways in which they’re achieving this goal is through Core Truths: Serving up the Science Behind Organic Agriculture. It is based on a compilation of research and is boiled down to some simple and easy-to-understand (or convey as it were) facts.
Here are 5 ’core truths’ or reasons to buy organic foods:
Once again, I must give credit to the wonderful Kim of fabric blog True Up for introducing me to an eco-friendlier fabric. The Andover Vegetable Dyes collection of cottons isn’t made from organic cotton, but it addresses the other side of the green fabric equation: the materials used in dyeing.
Leslie here at Crafting A Green World has talked to us about non-toxic dyeing using natural materials. This collection is a larger scale equivalent of Leslie using her landlady’s plums to cook up some pretty fabric.
The collection is carried by Z&S Fabrics and Strawberry Patches, and the latter of which has some background information about the collection that is not found on Andover’s website.
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