Fashion Goes Green

From lingerie and jewelry to handbags and shoes, ethical fashion is increasingly a la mode, as outfits on display at London Fashion Week showed.

Estethica is an area devoted to eco-friendly clothing which has been set up in the temporary tented village outside west London’s Natural History Museum which hosted fashion week.

Some 21 mainly young designers are showing off their work for the 2007 autumn/winter collection there, compared to 12 at September’s spring/summer show.

To be included, they must meet at least one of three ecological golden rules: use fair trade products; use products which have been produced organically or use only recycled materials.

The aim is to show that it is possible to make cutting-edge clothes while being kind to the environment.

"At the moment, it’s mainly small designers but we think that major stylists will come aboard in the coming years," said an Estethica spokeswoman.

Jewelry designer Vivien Johnston said she sources her gold from mines in South America with strict rules on employment conditions and the environment.

They do not, for example, use cyanide for gold extraction.

"I have been a commercial for five years in a jewelry company and we were going more and more to China and India where the conditions of production are not good for the men and the environment," she told AFP.

Her products are fair trade and cost an extra 10 percent as a result, she added.

Terra Plana, meanwhile, specializes in making environmentally-friendly shoes—not sandals, but stylish creations which would not look out of place on the catwalk.

They use recycled material from leather car seats, chrome-free and vegetable-tanned leather and a range of other green materials to make trainers, shoes and boots.

Rosie Budhani, their spokeswoman, claimed that because the shoes are so light, the ships which transport them to suppliers around the world produce less carbon. She adds that all emissions are offset.

Another label, Makepiece, uses wool from its own herd of 60 sheep and 20 goats which graze meters from their base in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales town of Todmorden, northern England for a range in each of their collections.

"It’s handwashable so you don’t need to dry clean and everything is natural so biodegradable," added their designer, Nicola Sherlock.

Despite such an earnestly ethical approach to fashion, the clothes made by these designers are not hippyish—many are as stylish as those made by mainstream designers.

And some big names are even starting to think about their relationship with the environment.

Danish designer Peter Ingwersen of the Noir label has created the Illuminati II range, a fabric brand which aims to supply ethically produced cotton from Uganda to luxury designers.

"This farm produces the best cotton and we support projects to fight against diseases such as aids and malaria," Ingwersen told AFP.

Some 70 percent of Noir’s collection is made from sustainable materials and produced in accordance with sustainable principles, while 30 percent are non-polluting, he added.

Paris Fashion Week has had an area devoted to ethical fashion since 2006 and features around 70 labels this year. —AFP