Study NY by Tara St. James‘ Fall/Winter 2010 collection has a hidden split personality. If it isn’t enough that most pieces can be worn two or three different ways, each look was also shot in two contrasting styles: A more conventional lookbook format by photographer Eric Reeves and a series of moody black-and-white images by Graeme Mitchell.
Ahoy and avast! TOMS Shoes is shivering our timbers with its nautically notioned Spring 2010 collection, which includes a couple of animal-free styles that will give vegans happy feet. Decked with abstract sailing-inspired patterns, the Seaport and Tangier Classics feature uppers made from hemp and recycled plastic bottles, latex arch supports, and recycled EVA outsoles. Plus, like all of TOMS shoes, each pair you buy will pay it forward with a pair of new shoes to a child in need.
Warm weather is soclose we can almost taste it! If you’ve been searching for the perfect Marilyn Monroe-sque ensemble (circa Some Like It Hot) for the imminent heat wave, we’d like to introduce you to Titania Inglis’s foxy little eco-jumper. Its sweetheart lines and organic fabrics, tailored to a T in New York City’s Garment District, have us longing for the sun. But it’s hardly the only piece in Inglis’s arsenal that’s frolic-friendly.
Call a bandwagon a bandwagon if you must, but Naya isn’t just a fresh-off-the-presses line of eco-friendly wedges, heels, and flats. It’s also a ringing endorsement that the sustainability movement is doing something right. The first company-owned brand launched by the billion-dollar Brown Shoe Co. in 10 years, Naya joins established sibling brands like Dr. Scholls, Buster Brown, and Via Spiga, as well as the Famous Footwear chain of stores.
Jitske Lundgren, founder of Studio JUX, really know his clothes. The Dutch designer’s men’s and women’s collections, which comprise organic and all-natural fabrics, feature utterly wearable items that focus on classic silhouettes with an unexpected twist. But Lundgren also knows the people whose hands have toiled over every stitch. With fair-trade principles at the forefront of JUX’s brand identity, each piece is finely crafted by Nepali tailors under fair labor conditions, monitored by the Fair Wear Foundation.
Adie and George never had the pleasure of each other’s acquaintance but that hasn’t stopped their granddaughters from playing retroactive matchmaker. Casey Larkin (Mr. Larkin) and Sasha Duerr (Permacouture Institute) bandied around several names for their collaborative knitwear collection before landing on the monikers of their biological forebears—perfectly apropos when you consider the heritage nature of the 100 percent West Coast line.
Philadelphia-based design duo Something’s Hiding in Here uses reclaimed wood and other eco-friendly materials to make funky accessories that are fun to wear and reasonably priced. These chunky hand-shaped wood gems are just the right combination of edgy and homegrown, not to mention we love wearing anything that features the subtle and organic patterns wood grain naturally provides.
If there’s one thing that designer Dandi Maestre knows, it’s that you can’t tame nature, so why bother? The former graphic designer plunders Gaia’s backyard for treasures-in-the-rough and crafts them into oversized sartorial statements: shed antlers become an avant-garde necklace, reclaimed driftwood transforms into a chunky cuff, and dyed exotic nuts are carved into psychedelic rings.
Christopher Raeburn was all over London Fashion Week’s’s HQ at Somerset House this year, with not one but three displays throughout the exhibition. Having admired Raeburn’s work since we first spotted his lightly crafted aesthetic back in 2008—remember his recycled hot-air-balloon garments for Worn Again?—Ecouterre was on the scene for an up-close-and-personal look at his Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, which focused on utilitarian traits such as functionality and practical layering.
With the transition to all-digital broadcasts, the planet isn’t exactly hurting for obsolete TV sets. Which is why vegan footwear purveyor Olsenhaus is making a switch of its own—by cladding Its entire Fall/Winter 2010 collection of pumps, wedges, stiletto booties, and knee-highs in an innovative polyester microfiber made from trashed television screens.
Subtle. Understated. Restrained. These are not words in Suno’s vernacular. The New York-based label, founded in 2008 by designer/screenwriter Max Osterweis, is a riot of color and print. The daringly original pieces lend themselves well to the storied provenance of their fabrics: Vintage “kangas,” or large, sarong-like pieces of printed cotton traditionally worn by coastal East African women, almost all of which bear Swahili aphorisms about social or sexual politics.
Like the Ming Dynasty furniture that inspired them, these eyeglass frames by Taiwan’s Yii Collection echo the clean, elegant lines of carved rosewood designs from that era. And true to the Ming philosophy of order and minimalism, the lightweight specs are a perfect marriage of aesthetics, craftsmanship, and function. How else would you expect design geeks to frame their peepers?
[Via Designboom]
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 …
Too shy to show your object of affection how much you care? Let your dress do the talking—or sniffing, as it were. Jennifer Tillotson’s Smart Second Skin Dress interacts with its wearer’s changing moods by releasing atomized bursts of fragrance—or more precisely, a “rainbow symphony of aromas”—in response to different emotional triggers. This personal “scent bubble,” which purports to regulate your emotional and physiological state, is designed to promote relaxation, alleviate depression, boost self-esteem, or simply telegraph your amorous intensions.
If Punxsutawney Phil’s weather prognostications are bumming you out, perk those spirits up by ogling Kitty Cooper’s glam array of heels in cheerful, retro prints. Made of vintage fabrics from the ’20s to ’70s by a family business in East London, these ruffly wedges and luscious peep-toes are enough to make any pin-up girl go gaga. Is it spring yet?
We’ve seen upcycled T-shirts and jeans aplenty, but nothing like Stacy J. Lee’s artful reinterpretation of that consummate American ensemble. The New York-based designer’s latest collection, “Re(-)creation,” comprises one-of-a-kind hand-knit accessories, sweaters and dresses made entirely of discarded, damaged, or sample garments. But the eye-popping, versatile pieces, which literally transform in some cases, are far from ordinary.
My, my, my, Hermione Granger! Judging from the sneak peeks of Emma Watson’s collaboration with People Tree, the Burberry- and Chanel-fronting starlet does cazh just as well as couture. Chockfull of breezy, youthful fare that is a far cry from her dour Hogwarts cloak, Watson’s “Love From Emma” line offers organic cotton jersey tees, sustainable knitwear, and recycled accessories designed to appeal to her teen demographic’s sense of cool and conscience.
Linda Wong, the Taiwan-raised designer behind Canopy Verde, believes in the power of three: Heritage, family, and the environment. Her burgeoning collection of visually arresting bags is her personal trifecta made manifest. Besides featuring locally sourced organic cotton and bamboo fabrics, chrome-free leather, and low-impact dyes, Canope Verde also wields the power of the dollar to improve manufacturing conditions in China. “Working with my current factory, I’ve found that the best way to improve environmental practices is by showing them the market opportunity of eco-friendly products,” she says.
With allusions to oceanic aragonite structures, planetary space, crystal formations, spiderwebs, and the “concept of making the abstractly invisible visible,” according to designer Heather Goldberg, Shadowplay’s debut collection of eco-conscious jewelry is replete with magic and mysticism. No mystery lies in where the ingredients are sourced from, however. Handmade with organic, naturally dyed yarns; Swarovski crystals; and fair-trade black silver closures from the Karen Village Hill Tribe in Northern Thailand, Shadowplay’s elegant, one-of-a-kind necklaces feature artful tangles of yarn punctuated with a galaxy of crystals.
