Ecouterre

Photo by Wallpaper

A political statement about climate change was the last thing on Karl Lagerfeld’s mind when he trotted Chanel’s Fall/Winter 2010 collection in front of a giant, 265-ton glacier in Paris on Tuesday. (He counts the Ice Hotel in Sweden, not drowning polar bears, as his inspiration.) But can an iceberg be just an iceberg in these post-COP15 times? “Have you felt any warming this winter?” Lagerfeld asked reporters after the show. “Maybe that’s all nonsense, who knows.” Et tu, Karl?

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Photo by Richard Harbaugh/A.M.P.A.S.

As Hollywood’s biggest night unfolded, the only thing more anticipated than the parade of glittering gowns at the Kodak Theatre were the winners themselves. (And even that is debatable.) Here are three Oscar attendees who chose to wear their politics on their sleeves by going green on the red carpet at the 82nd Academy Awards.

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Photo by jemsweb

U.C. Berkeley researchers have developed energy-harvesting nanofibers that could be woven into clothing and used to power small electronics with a shake of your bon-bon. (GreenerDesign)

Is H&M trying to save face, literally? The beleaguered fast-fashion giant has just announced the launch of a line of certified-organic skincare products. (FocusOnStyle)

Get your vegan shoe on with this roundup of cruelty-free kicks, including some fetching foot adornments from Olsenhaus. …

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Could picking up sustainable clothing be as easy as cruising the dairy aisle? Maybe if Tesco has something to do with it. The British grocery-and-retail giant has tapped designers Orsola de Castro and Filippo Ricci of From Somewhere to develop a limited line of recycled clothing for its Florence & Fred label.

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If you’re sad that the global camaraderie at the Olympics has come to an end, don’t fret: The World Cup is fast approaching. To add to the excitement, with about 100 days left until the first match, Nike has unveiled its 2010 World Cup kits—or uniforms, for those unfamiliar with soccer jargon. The best part: They’re made from discarded plastic bottles, harvested from landfills in Japan and Taiwan, that were melted down into yarn and then spun into fabric.

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Busy bees will make way for vampy bats at Ada Zanditon’s first solo runway show at London Fashion Week on Tuesday. “Echolocation,” Zanditon tells British Vogue, will explore the mysterious inhabitants of this “sultry nocturnal world.” (Vogue)

Organic cotton production may have jumped 20 percent this past year, but it’s no reason to get cocky. The …

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At the Deux FM runway show during New York Fashion Week’s the GreenShows, fans of the cheesy model reality show America’s Next Top Model were treated to a fun surprise as two finalists from Cycle 13 (the “petite” season) walked the runway: Laura Kirkpatrick and Jennifer An, who placed second and third, respectively. (Nicole Fox took the season’s top honor, in case you weren’t paying attention.)

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Tradition, meet technology. One Indian designer has taken the sari (or saree), the time-honored garment of South Asian women, into the digital age with the creation of the world’s first “singing sari.” The “Swaramadhuri,” which literally translates as “singing silk sari,” as envisioned by P. Mohan, comes equipped with eight embedded microspeakers on its border. On the loose edge of the fabric, which is usually draped over …

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Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

New York Fashion Week and the 21st Winter Olympic Games may be jostling for the same real estate on your calendar, but they go together like, well, six-inch stilettos and bobsled racing. Not so, perhaps, for the Rodarte sisters, who have promising careers in activewear if they ever tire of being fashion’s darlings du jour. In a crossover event of epic proportions, Laura and Kate Mulleavy have designed a collection of custom knitwear for a New York Times Magazine photo essay featuring the likes of freestyle skier Emily Cook, snowboarder Shaun White, and figure skater Johnny Weir.

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The Uniform Project’s Sheena Matheiken is splashing out for New York Fashion Week—or in her own words, “seven days of fierce”—in a big way. As under-the-tent hysteria shifts into full throttle, the sartorial chameleon has hooked up with seven New York-based ethical designers (Study NY, Bahar Shahpar, SANS, Scully, Helena Fredriksson, and Suno) to put their own twist on the little black dress she has worn for the past nine months.

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You say eco-friendly, we say sustainable. Let’s call the whole thing off? Hang on to your lexicons, my moniker-mincing friends, because Made-By, a U.K.-based nonprofit that works to improve environmental and social standards in the fashion industry, wants to clear the air surrounding this new fashion vocabulary that’s been foisted upon us “Part of the problem is that there is often no established usage in the fashion industry for some of these new terms,” says Pamela Daniels, a spokeswoman for the organization. “Many of these words are not even defined in the dictionary yet.”

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Photo by AP

Livia Firth isn’t the only spouse of an Oscar nominee who’ll be decked out in green for the red carpet. Suzy Amis Cameron (actress and wife of James) picked Jillian Granz, a Michigan State University senior majoring in apparel and textile design, as the winner of her first “Red Carpet Green Dress” contest. The competition, which launched in December, required designers to conceive a gown made from natural, organic, or recycled fabrics. Granz’s winning proposal: A zero-waste dress made from Ahimsa or “peace” silk, derived from cocoons without killing the silkworms inside.

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Photo by Tina Fineberg/New York Times

Hello, goodbye: For its last fling at Bryant Park, New York Fashion Week will be carbon neutral for the first time. (TreeHugger)

EcoSalon’s Amy DuFault wants certain newspaper journalists (coughvanessafriedmancough) to know that splitting hairs over the definition of eco-fashion serves no one. (EcoSalon)

How do we love thee, lyocell? Let designer Julia Roebuck count the ways in iambic pentameter. (Upcycle Fashion)

A …

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With iconoclast designer Alexander McQueen’s untimely passing, fashion has lost one of her favorite sons. While McQueen only flirted with repurposed and sustainable materials (cases in point, his trashion-esque Fall 2009 show and the organic cotton scarf he designed in support of Yann-Arthus Betrand’s Home), his mind was always making such daring, provocative leaps that we can only speculate how he would have reinvented himself next. He will be missed.

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Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images

With all the scandals tainting clothing retailers recently, could simply not shopping for clothes solve all our woes? Making an appearance on BBC News this morning, British fashion designer (and one of our favorite dames) Vivienne Westwood encouraged viewers to give up shopping for at least six months—unless they absolutely had to—to keep our landfills from filling up. Do you agree?

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Photo by duncharris

Turn those blue jeans green—or at least maintain their deep indigo hue—by putting them on ice, literally. Employed by denim enthusiasts to prevent premature fading, the jeans-in-the-freezer trick could become par for the course if TriStar, a Brazilian fashion label, has anything to do with it.

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Photo by Keep It Up

In the Department of Strange But True, you can now recycle your most intimate of intimates through a bra-redistribution program named, quite appropriately, Bosom Buddy. Get it? Boso…never mind. (Mother Nature Network)

Adili, the U.K. eco-fashion retailer that recently rebranded itself as Ascension, is asking to have its shares suspended “pending clarification of the company’s financial position.” (The Guardian)

Saks has made an out-of-court settlement …

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