It’s widely known that Stella McCartney doesn’t use fur in her collections. Less touted, perhaps, is the vegan designer’s rejection of leather. In a new video from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, timed to coincide with New York Fashion Week, McCartney explains why she shed the use of animal skins. Leather isn’t a by-product of the meat industry, she says, but an important co-product that contributes directly to the ills of factory farming. But although PETA planned to run the public service announcement in taxis across Manhattan, fashion’s tastemakers will not, in fact, be schooled by McCartney between shows.

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KCD wants to revolutionize the runway, and you can watch it all unfold on your laptop or iPad. The public-relations powerhouse, which manages high-end labels such as Gucci, Versace, Alexander McQueen, Alexander Wang, Chanel, and Diane von Furstenberg, announced Monday that it will produce a number of fashion shows in a purely digital format. Coming on the heels of a recent show date “crisis”—a result of Milan pushing back the dates for its September shows—KCD is pitching the invitation-only Internet platform as an alternative to the increasingly crowded schedules that pull editors and store buyers in multiple, often opposing, directions. (Cue the usual gripes about aching feet.) Set to launch during New York Fashion Week, Digital Fashion Shows will debut with Prabal Gurung’s inaugural ICB collection on February 15, although his signature label will appear more conventionally on the catwalk.

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Read the rest of Eco-Fashion Galore at Global Green’s 2011 Gorgeous & Green Gala

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Read the rest of Anti-Apartheid Leader Launches Maiyet, a Luxury Label That Spurs Conscious Consumption

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Read the rest of Nike, Hurley, Otis College’s “Considered” Art Show Celebrates Next Generation of Sustainable Design

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Photos by British Vogue

Issey Miyake was all abloom at Paris Fashion Week on Sunday with Yoshiyuki Miyamae’s official coming-out as lead designer, a gambit to rejuvenate a brand that has struggled to remain relevant in recent years. His Spring 2012 collection was a palette cleanser, with wispy, lighter-than-air silhouettes that were a stark departure from Miyake’s chunkier, almost ponderous forms. Like Miyake, however, Miyamae attended closely to the provenance of his materials, most of which were sourced and then stitched in Japan. The collection was conceived, after all, in the aftermath of the earthquake-and-tsunami disaster in March, with a theme of hope and growth that reflects the fashion house’s aspirations for its homeland.

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“I have always loved the Mao cap, though I hate violent revolution.” Thus spake legendary British designer Vivienne Westwood, who cites China as the key inspiration behind her Spring/Summer 2012 Gold Label collection at Paris Fashion Week on Friday. Coupled with oversized 17th century corsetry, the Berbers of North Africa, and desertification as a result of climate change, and you have an idiosyncratic panoply of cobweb knits, tablecloth-lace wedding gowns, stiff brocade jackets, and ticking-stripe bedspread dresses that could only have sprung from the mind of the Godmother of Punk herself. But back to the Chinese. “I hope their traditional wisdom and experience from a culture going back to Confucius may help us to save the planet,” she says.

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Londoners can hardly be called prudes, but a dress made from 3,000 protruding cow nipples—not yak, as People.co.uk erroneously reported—had Fashion Week attendees clutching at their pearls like disapproving dowagers. Designed by Liverpool-born designer Rachel Freire, who fashioned the nipples into disarmingly genteel rosettes, the floor-length gown has raised the ire of the British public, politicians, and animal-rights groups alike, who have branded it “inappropriate and disturbing,” “absolutely grotesque,” “sickening and repulsive,” and a “runaway freak show,” according to the gossip website.

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Read the rest of 6 Hot Trends at New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012

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No matter how talented the photographer, stills can never do a runway show justice—they’re meant to be experienced, swinging steps, insouciant expressions and all. Nowhere is this more evident than Leanne Marshall’s Spring/Summer 2012 presentation at New York Fashion Week. The Season 5 Project Runway winner delivered a technicolor explosion of frocks that, in a word, rocked. Get up close and personal with the eco-chic collection from our front-row POV and listen in as Marshall spills some of her green design secrets.

+ Spring/Summer 2012

+ Leanne Marshall

Originally published Sept. 21, 2011.

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Read the rest of Justin Gignac’s “Waste Cubes” Illustrate NY Fashion Week’s Trashy Side

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Read the rest of 11 Hot Green Designers at New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2012

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Read the rest of EDUN Launches “Pioneers” Project to Showcase Men of Style, Substance (Including TOMS’s Blake Mycoskie!) at New York Fashion Week

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Photos by Amanda Coen for Ecouterre

Earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns, stock-market crashes; is it any wonder that Suzanne Rae yearns for simpler times? Showcasing her Spring/Summer 2012 collection at New York Fashion Week on Monday, the Brooklyn designer delivered a convergence of bikinis, playsuits, and fluttery gowns—constructed from organic cotton, recycled hemp, raw silk, and even raffia—on a platform that was more boardwalk than runway. Her nostalgia for the past was apparent: Paired with tai-chi flats and Tumbleweeds sunglasses made in San Diego from remnant woods, Rae’s beachy, laid-back looks ushered a rare moment of calm amidst the tumult.

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Photos by Yuka Yoneda for Ecouterre

Imagine for a moment, if you will, that the Stepford Wives hired the Merry Pranksters from the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as their personal stylists. The result would bear more than a passing resemblance to Chris Benz’s Spring/Summer 2012, which debuted at Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week on Monday. With their gently teased Elizabeth Taylor hair, boxy shoulder pads, and psychedelic ’60s-inspired threads, Benz’s beauties were a screwball combo of Jackie O. meets Karen O. We also spotted some of Benz’s celebrity fans rally their support for the flamingo-haired Prince of Color, one of the few designers who manufactures almost exclusively in the United States.

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Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra had one thing in mind when they started designing their Spring/Summer 2012 collection and that was romance. With their ice-blue Grecian gowns and Georgia O’Keefe-inspired floral prints, we, for one, were wooed completely. Watch their new styles in action in our exclusive video above, and hear what the always stylish-in-plaid designers had to say about their perfectly draped creations.

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Photos by Don Brodie for Ecouterre

Suno’s Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty have never shied from clashing, prismatic prints that almost appear etched in fabric. At their inaugural runway show at New York Fashion Week, however, the mood was noticeably more subdued, although the pared-back tack had an equally strong impact. For Spring/Summer 2012, Suno played up its trademark African-inspired patterns, which Osterweis and Beatty reduced to stark black-and-white line drawings. Enlivened with muted pops of buttercup, teal, and mustard, along with glints of metallic red, the overarching feel was one of elevated construction meets ethnic, with buttoned-up collars and unexpected back details to round out the ladylike silhouettes.

+ Suno

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Read the rest of Announcing the Winners of the Second Annual CFDA/Lexus Eco-Fashion Challenge

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Read the rest of Duro Olowu’s Spring 2012 Line Delivers Optimism Through Adversity at New York Fashion Week

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Read the rest of EDUN Offers Africa With an Edge at Spring 2012 New York Fashion Week (Video)

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Read the rest of Mara Hoffman’s Spring 2012 Collection Brings the Tropics to New York Fashion Week

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Read the rest of Leanne Marshall’s Spring 2012 Line Offers Girlish Sophistication at New York Fashion Week

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