10 Holiday dresses that will take you from the company party to year-round glam girl.

Holiday dresses can be the bane of our December existence. If you’re lucky, you’re able to swap frocks with a friend or know of a fabulous consignment boutique that helps justify buying something new for a single party. Why not think even further with your purchase this year and how you could wear it year round? We’ve found 10 dresses that can do just that and with just a spark of creativity, can be the dress that keeps on giving.

Carrie Parry’s Red Bow Dress

Carrie Parry’s Red Bow Dress made from 100% organic wool is a feminine, shift dress with a removable bow collar that “transitions easily from a day at the office to a night on the town.” We love the festive red tights for the holidays as they add a fun style element to what could otherwise be a boring shift with safe, black tights and shoes.

(Also available in black.)

Camilla Norback’s Butterfly Sleeve Dress

If you opt for a LBD this year, try stepping outside the straight and narrow you’re seeing in popular department store windows and add a little flounce and flair. Swedish designer Camilla Norback offers up this lacy dress that is just as much country as rock and roll.

Feral Childe’s Pleated Prokofiev Dress

Known for their graphic prints and seamless melding of color and shapes, Feral Childe always produces collections with at least one truly  stand out dress. This Prokofiev Dress in their Orchestra Print is that one. What can’t you do with this dress for a holiday party or, better yet, year round?

Dahl by Alison Kelly

Alison Kelly’s dresses are just as pretty as she is. Feminine, playful and at times glamorous, Dahl dresses come in a variety of colors (see site for more), and with 10 styles to choose from, you’re bound to find a style just for you.

Kelly Lane’s Galaxy Dress

Kelly Lane’s Galaxy dress is part funk, part lady. While the top part of the dress echoes the lines of a built in shrug, the rest of the dress is a basic shift that flatters. Worn with black opaque tights for a holiday party or teal tights for a night out, this dress will shape shift its way into your style universe.

Popomomo Palazzo Pantso

H

It’s not a dress or a skirt, but these Palazzo Pants from Popomomo are a perfect fill in for holiday parties with a sexy cropped top and statement piece of jewelry or, just kicking back. The drawstring waist is an additional selling point for those holiday parties don’t come without their fair share of eating (and stomach expansion).

H Fredriksson’s Drip Dress

H Fredriksson’s Drip Dress drapes where it should and is made from a buttery soft silk. Contrast the shine of the fabric with a knitted tight post-party, add boots and a fitted black t-shirt and you have a whole other date in your Drip Dress.

Prairie Underground’s Austen Blouse

Not all parties you go to this holiday season are going to be under dim lights with a live band playing Duke Ellington. This Austen Blouse by Prairie Underground is actually long enough to wear as a dress (albeit mini), and looks great with patterned tights and a pair of shimmering flats or after your holidays are over with purple tights and heeled brown booties. This is also a great neckline to show off your favorite necklace.

Allison Parris’ Sammi Feather Dress

This is the dress that is made specifically for everything fun and fabulous that you do. Made from a raw organic silk, the Sammi Dress from Allison Parris will elevate you to a new level of sustainable with a fashion-forward feather crinoline skirt to balance out the industrial, exposed zipper on the back. Can you wear this dress again? Of course, but it better be in another state.

Lina Rennell Check Cocktail Dress

You didn’t wait all year to make a New Year’s resolution to start working out or intensifying your yoga practice, no, you did it faithfully – all year. Slip that toned body into Lina Rennell’s Check Cocktail Dress and watch how the other party goers keep using you as a gauge for how much they shouldn’t eat. This dress is for year-round and has so many possibilities for cardigan sweaters and boyfriend blazers, sandals and platform heels, this dress just brings it.

Top image: Allison Parris

Mainstream fashion media and corporate-sponsored design houses continue to shun environmental progress.

Fashion week has always been an exciting time of year for the fashion industry. It’s an amped up version of “Project Runway,” where designers scramble to present the most eye drawing collections, fighting every other designer showing for the attention of the press. It’s a lot of work, a lot of hype and the best man or woman wins orders from Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales, or maybe even a capsule line at Target or H&M if they’re really lucky. Innovation is heralded and beauty is showcased as fashion struts its stuff to show the ordinary people how to dress exceptionally.

So if this is the case, why does Ralph Lauren’s Runway Collection, season after season, get the New York Fashion week cover of WWD and raving reviews from all the fashion press? He literally designs the same retro looks year after year: 1920-30′s, Great Gatsby-esque, horse riding get ups for the rich. Feather boas? Have you ever seen anyone in public pull that off without looking slightly ridiculous? This is what the fashion industry heralds as innovative, new and headlining.

The fashion press applauds loudest for the very same fashion houses that do the most advertising. Coincidence? Imagine if an oil company donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to a politician’s campaign and they just happened to be in the same business that the politician fought to give special tax breaks to. This is the exact same way the mainstream fashion industry runs: donations and lobbying, also known as paying for advertising.

The Business of Fashion pulled from a Guardian article, quoting Alexandra Shulman the Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue saying “Vogue makes most of its money out of advertising — and it does make an awful lot of money — so we’ve got to have a good relationship with our advertisers. They’re not going to place £100,000 a year and then say ‘Feel free not to use any of our goods’  — life’s not like that. So although there is this feeling sometimes that creatively it’s not pure, well magazines are a business, you’re not sitting there writing poetry.”

Marrying Sustainable Fashion With Mainstream

While the mainstream fashion press is busy paying lip service to old school fashion house’s fat wallets, they barely acknowledge that sustainability for the future of fashion means a lot more than traditional press and sales. Outside of the advertising winner’s circle, there are plenty of designers, press, and bloggers who acknowledge, report upon, work for and really do see the change of the sustainable design community’s efforts.

Even Oprah has something to say about it. Yet the fashion industry doesn’t want to outwardly acknowledge the shifts going on towards sustainable consumerism perhaps from a fear because they’re afraid that following, or even promoting ethical and sustainable business practices would mean a few things:

1.  The admittance that things have been and continue to be done unethically in almost every step of the process.

2. The end of days for business processes that are comfortable, which might equate to a loss of sales and/or jobs for people who don’t know how to evolve.

3. Quite possibly the end of all the excess that is fashion week because it would require focusing on doing things based on a whole new model.

Eko-Lab, A/W 2011

Melissa Kirgan co-designer for sustainable label Eko-Lab asks why sustainable fashion and mainstream fashion need to be two separate entities when they both ultimately share the same goal: to sell a product.

“No matter how ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ a design is, if it is not bought there is no business. For us at Eko-Lab the number one important focus is to make an amazing product, our beliefs and ethics are to be valued as building blocks in the heritage of our brand.”
Yet Kirgan relays her own story of a trip to Bendel’s Open Call to present her line which was an eye opening moment for her and partner Xing-Zhen Chung.

“When we presented our product it was well received and we were given many complements, when we began to share the origin of our fibers and their organic qualities there was an instant change in tone and we were told that was not their customer,” says Kirgan, adding that while fashion is glamorous, it’s function is to create an illusion of how the wearer wishes to project themselves to the world.
“While sustainable design appears to still suffer crunchy connotations. If you must make these into two groups (mainstream vs. sustainable) then sustainable design is going to need way better branding.“

Better Branding and Changing Existing Fashion Industry Models

Every sustainable designer has had to look in the mirror and face the need to reinvent the wheel. When it comes to the fashion business, no matter what, designers (sustainable or not) are still adding to a massive waste stream. If we actually believe fashion can be a platform to stop planetary, environmental, and health degradation, it’s going to consistently be a painful reinvention for designers to go through, (especially if they like the idea of a steady paycheck and health insurance). Very few eco-designers make it after two years. 

This might also be why you don’t see most eco-designers, showing up at the Lincoln Center Tents, (which cost $20,000 a runway), where every season the “notable” designers present with a new and cheerful line of must have items.

Are there designers who support and propel a healthy future that the population would rather hear about? Of course, but the only way most people might see them is if they go searching for it outside of the daily barrage of advertising. Even with Oprah’s blessing, the eco-design world is considered “the fringe,” not something that appears regularly on mainstream fashion’s radar. But even with their “fringe” status some of these designers are somehow staying in business, making a huge impact, and offering consumers an option to opt out of the game of Fashion Monopoly that no one but the big corporations win.

Stewart + Brown

Howard Brown of Stewart+Brown is one of those designers and says the ethical fashion movement needs to remain true to its core mission; to lead by example and shift the paradigm toward sustainable business and production practices.

“Opportunistic grandstanding and hollow gestures from the fashion establishment do nothing meaningful to change the status quo yet compromise the mission and integrity of the ethical fashion movement. The path towards sustainability does not pass through fast fashion retailing. Remember what Bucky Fuller said, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’”

Image: MokeSDoke

SeriesPart 4: The fashion industry is emerging from its cocoon post-recession, a changed sector where consumers are more cautious, manufacturers are on their toes and designers are struggling to stay afloat doing business as usual. In this five-part series, we take a hard look at the fashion world, speaking with industry leaders, luminaries and experts. This week we ask: Did the recession birth new DIY designers tired of being branded with corporate logos?

In times of economic despair, there will always be a surge in the use of hands to quell the storm of financial uncertainty and to give meaning to otherwise challenging lives. During the Great Depression, people were advised to acquire “productive activities,” to make good use of idle time being out of work and to maintain solid work ethics that rewarded them with a sense of fulfillment and a feeling that they could still, in fact, be productive members of society.

Post recession, one has only to look at the number of DIY sites that have become popular and the micro trend of sewing and knitting groups to know that a cultural shift is happening. Within the confines of craft, there now lies an inherent rebelliousness that you usually only see in punk, indie music or street culture. Women working with their hands to teach others (or even alone in their own homes) are leading a movement against being branded, and taking how they dress themselves as a form of protest.

Juliana Sabinson, a freelance sewing teacher and artist, is one of those people.

Anne Wilson’s Local Industry

Sabinson says while her desire to create and teach the art of sewing is to promote empowerment. Her own story is inextricably linked to her dislike and distrust of contemporary clothing and the companies behind it.

“I try and think about all the socioeconomic systems behind my purchases and at a certain point buying clothes seemed no longer a sustainable option, not to mention the majority of it is so badly made,” says Sabinson. “So I make not only to fulfill a creative desire and to externally express myself, but also as a political act, a small and artistic protest against a largely unquestioned system.”

She’s not alone. Many people are coming out of the woodwork post-recession in protest that they are not a brand and refuse to be catered to as one. This rounded consciousness that applies to fashion, along with food and home, is burgeoning a sewing renaissance that professional women as well as homemakers are part of to take a stand against corporate forces that got us into the recession in the first place.

Sabinson says it’s not all rebellion, however. When people are sewing and using their hands they are not only building a level of muscle memory, they are quieting their brains and giving themselves a space in which to be a designer.

“They are designers simply because they’re creating,” says Sabinson, who teaches her students to first create in their heads then execute the design. She likens it to a “leap of faith,” which makes them feel at ease and able to think more creatively.

“For me, the most important goal in all my classes is to build one’s confidence and willingness to fail and start over.”

Though unemployment and economic uncertainty have helped fuel design growth, some say the economic downturn has in some ways been beneficial, because more consumers have turned to channeling the comforts of tradition.

Caroline Weaver, VP of North America Marketing for SVP Worldwide, the world’s largest sewing machine company and source of the SINGER®, HUSQVARNA VIKING® and PFAFF® sewing machine collections, says if you look at a brand like Singer’s 150-year history, during times of economic slowdown and depression, people will always gravitate towards hobbies and because of that, micro trends like sewing will flourish. In the case of the under-40 crowd, these sewers-cum-designers are just starting to realize that modern day sewing machines are not their grandmother’s gadgets.

“These machines are highly, highly automatic and that’s what’s appealing to the under 40 crowd. The machines make their own button holes, thread themselves, and provide constant tension. These are the machines with millions of lines of code. Nowadays, you’re not just paying for a sewing machine, you’re paying for a computer and having  a sewing mentor in your machine.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Anjali Athavaley reports that in the post-Project Runway world, sewing enthusiasts are finding the old-fashion craft comes with apps, Twitter and high-tech machines. This is a whole new generation used to smartphone technology and the simple push of a button to instantly gratify their every need for information.

BurdaStyle, an online social community using the web to bring the craft of sewing to a new generation of designers, hobbyists, DIYers and anyone looking to sew, is a popular part of this generation. BurdaStyle Creative Director and Editor Alison Kelly, who was also on Season 3 of Project Runway, says the current DIY movement was certainly proliferated by reality shows like Project Runway.

Alison Kelly, Season 3 of Project Runway

“Before them, I think fashion design was a mystery to many people, the face behind a fashion label often remained unknown (except of course by die hard fans), and now many fashion designers have become celebrities. It’s a wonderful thing, inspiring people to create, and these reality shows are so interesting because one can witness the creative process first-hand, while drama and competition fuel the fire,” says Kelly.

Nora Abousteit, co-founder of BurdaStyle, says when she and former partner Benedikta Karaisl von Karais – a fashion designer – came up with the BurdaStyle concept and thanks to what Fast Company calls “her love for interaction and innovative technology,” Nora reinvented an old Hubert Burda sewing magazine into an online icon in the sewing community.

BurdaStyle at Brooklyn’s Renegade Craft Fair

“We witnessed many people over the past four years that started sewing and now are proficient. It is so much fun to see when people improve their skills and take up harder challenges and simply produce more and better work,” says Abousteit.

In addition to budding designers worldwide utilizing the BurdaStyle community, lots of well-known designers have participated in their DIY community, including Wenlan Chia (Twinkle by Wenlan), Alabama Chanin, Samantha Pleet, and Mina Stone.

With over 530,ooo registered members, BurdaStyle is a growing force to be reckoned with.

While all women interviewed agree this post-recession “micro-trend” is all about a new and more aggressive DIY sewing community, they all also agree that it is empowering.

“Consumers are tired of living in a mass produced world,” says SVP Worldwide’s Weaver. “Women are deciding to put signs outside their homes that they do embroidery work for customizing team jerseys and hats to make extra money, our classes are filling up, we’re breaking sales records and people are just so inspired.”

Images: Kheel Center @ Cornell University, A Forest Frolic, Anne Wilson

We’ve been falling hard for the NOW Showcase for the past three seasons at Market in New York City and are glad to be this season’s exclusive media sponsor. With all that amazing talent in one big room, not only are we excited to see all the new fall collections, we’re hoping we might even see you!

On two separate evenings, the EcoSalon team will be on hand to mingle and answer all the questions you ever wanted to ask us, like, “Is fashion columnist Gretchen Jones really 10 feet tall?” and “Does Fashion Editor Amy DuFault really have a thick New England accent?” and of course, the top question you’ve secretly been wondering: “Are they fun?”

We totally are.

So come meet our fashion columnist and recent Project Runway winner Gretchen Jones on Saturday, February 19th, 4-6:30 p.m. Jones, a designer and EcoSalon fashion columnist of “My Designer Life,” will be on hand to talk about anything you deem sustainable. About to launch her first collection since her Project Runway win, Jones will have look books on hand to show buyers and a leopard turban on to impress anyone else.

Fashion Editor, Amy DuFault (yours truly), will be on hand the second day – Sunday, February 20th, 4-6:30 pm entertaining a motley crew of eco-boutique owners (the ones you love shopping online but have never met), fellow sustainable fashion writers, and Garment District representatives. I’ll be at the ready with my Flip, pad and pen to take notes about anything you think might be EcoSalon-story worthy.

In addition to sipping fair trade wine from Appollis and Fair. vodka cocktails, you can warm up with hot Gypsy Tea and snack on some delicious Regal Vegan Faux Gras™ and then (ahem!) there’s the every-15-minute-giveaway on the 20th from Chem Line, Deborah Lindquist, Creem, NatureVsFuture, SDN, Lipstockist and Heidi Roland – all for the price of a business card.

If you weren’t able to make it to any New York Fashion Week events, this is a unique and special opportunity to meet the real designers behind the inspiring lines and see just what Fall 2011 has in store for us.

We look forward to meeting you!

For a complete list of designers showing at NOW, go here.

What is it that makes a designer inspiring?

Why is it that we do not approach sustainability in a way that embraces ecological thoughtfulness of any extent, rather than total prosecution for trying at all?

Gretchen Jones, Sara Didzinski of Better Late Than Never jewelry and Austin Bates, production manager at Pamela Love

I came to New York City as a designer so I could be a part of a strong movement towards good design, not just green design, but design that will last a lifetime based on how and where it’s made and its inherent, timeless style. So on the 5th day of NYFW at Pamela Love’s A/W 2011 collections, all I can feel is pure love for the opportunity to view designers doing their best to inspire – and to be as conscious as they can.

Pamela Love’s presentation took hold of the 8th floor studios in a manner that demanded undivided attention with six white angels for models, gigantic crystals as backdrop (and infused in the jewelry) and ethereal lighting to make us think we were somewhere in the clouds.

I wanted to be those girls.  Wanted to fill my jewelry box with huge cuffs, even bigger necklaces and focus on the centering energy of a quartz crystal.

What is it about a presentation that makes my heart race?
Why is it that I don’t bleed red but thread?

Stumbling into my first New York Fashion Week experience, still in awe of where I now stand, I am realizing my dreams faster than I can acknowledge what it is I’m achieving. My focus this season is in observation and research, adoration and, at times, ecstasy. I aim to get my feet wet, set my eye on the next prize and walk away motivated by the creativity surrounding me enough to take flight towards my own fall presentation.

It’s time to get dressed again (perhaps the first time in a while my outfits don’t stick out), lace up my platform wedges and get my pen and paper ready.

This girl means business.

Richie Rich, fall 11′

I’ve knocked the first few days of NYFW out with a random array of shows.

Last night, Richie Rich’s show was all about trashy chic: Wild hair, bigger make-up, MEGA ‘tude’ and a ridiculous amount of spectacle, but that’s what Rich is known for and we got every bit what we wanted from it.

My good friend and sustainable jewelry designer, Andy Lifschutz, adorned all the models and I have to say his jewelry definitely kicked the looks up a notch and was where my attention stayed.

Richie Rich, fall 11′

John Patrick Organic was a study in  restrained English riding with a hint of tomboy chic. Textures ranged from sheer, hand dyed silks and vegetable tanned leathers to rich hand knit wool.  Slightly youthful, yet ever sophisticated, the collection left me with a longing to read Jane Eyre.

John Patrick Organic, fall 11′

Cropped sweaters, beaded belts, layering pieces in a way I wish all women would, the collection softly whispered in my ear to take it home and wear it right away. I walked away feeling as if sustainable limitations are a thing of the past and a girl like me can make whatever it is she wants thanks to all the options out there. The extra effort to obtain it seems to always be worth it in the end.

John Patrick Organic, fall 11′

Mara Hoffman has been on my covet list for years now with all her hand-dyed silks and inspiration from nature. I sat in line for an hour just to get my 15 minutes of merriment at her presentation, finding myself surrounded in a sea of black clad fashion folk – but this just reminded me how fun it is to stand out dressed all in neutrals. Hoffman’s rich colors, enchanting textiles and braided appliqué were something to behold and I can’t wait for fall when they make it into stores.

As swiftly as they came in, the models were then escorted out.  My moment with the rich red and khaki kaftans and body-con kaleidoscope dresses was over. My pocket book will soon be as empty.

Mara Hoffman, fall 11′

I tried (I swear I did), to run across town to one of my favorite shoe designers ever, Rachel Comey, but high heels, dead phones and taxi lines out the wazoo turned my window of opportunity into nothing more than an empty seat.

By far the show I anticipated most was the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation’s winning presentation of The Lake & Stars.

Those girls have topped my girl crush/style crush pile since teddies came back into my vocabulary. Always a little tongue in cheek, always super chic, Maayan Zilberman and Nikki Decker turned it up and out. Ice blue velvet, sheer nude mesh, Kelly Green and black and white?  Somewhere between form vs. flow and play vs. business, they got the job done. I wanted every piece on the models. Dancing between Italian Neo-Classicism and famed architecture group Superstudio, the collection felt nostalgic and modern all at once. I aim to hang with this tag team and I’ll even let a little campy S&M into my panty drawer if they tell me to.

As my feet ache, brain overloads and personal deadlines weave in between my fashion schedule, I find myself asking why I waited so long to immerse myself in live fashion – and when can I do it again?

It has been a long distance sprint to the finish line. You know when you think a reprieve from the hard work is just around the corner, so you run your hardest thinking the finish line is coming up? Alas, it’s just a mirage and there are more hills to climb.

It has been a very difficult month, but today I woke up before my alarm clock which I haven’t done in weeks. I’m guessing it’s because this past week I actually finished my collection in the tiny home studio I like to call Armageddon (because that’s what it looks like in here). I made the deadline with six hours to spare.

I woke before dawn, packed my collection and hailed a cab into Manhattan. I was filled with fear that perhaps I had made a body of work that wasn’t me and wouldn’t work. Had I forged a new path with blinders on?

But I arrived to smiling faces who were eager to play dress up and cheer me on. The wonderful photographer made me feel like a “real designer.” The Green Beauty Team (of course, I used an ethical girls dream team) was ready to make my vision come to life on a model that was sweet and different than the “MothLove” girls of yesteryear.

Everything about this day was new. I had never worked in an environment with a professional team. It made me feel like Super Woman, but Super Woman after a long battle. At one point I almost cried. The model was dressed, her hair and make up finished. The lighting was ready and music played the anthem of the day. Then my concept came around the corner and looked better than I could have imagined. It was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The new Gretchen Jones appeared.

And just like that it was over. You might think I’d be relieved, yet my to do list seems larger than ever. The next leg of this race involves branding and launching, with a turn-around-time that seems impossible to achieve. But again, impossibilities seem to knock on my door more often than a friend these days.

As I wrap up one project and move onto the next I wonder when it will hit me, just how far I’ve come.

The day after wrapping my shoots I was at New York Fashion Week (NYFW) presentations watching Bliss Lau’s artful show of ballerina dancers entangled in the most incredible leather and chain garments. A designer I’ve admired for so long, right there in front of me, pushing herself the way I hope to. Making me want more, never looking back except to appreciate where I’ve been.

This season I find myself submerged in the scene, rather than looking through the window. Fearing I still don’t speak the language, I have to jump in. This game isn’t for the light at heart.

My dance card is full this week and NYFW beckons me like a moth to a flame. I may be a whole new me, but I’m just learning how to spread my wings.

Image credit: Gretchen Jones

This is the sixth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The price of fashion, at least the price of being a designer, costs a whole lot more than any dollar sign could ever quantify.

I’m exhausted mentally and physically. My brain cells need to be fully restored. Emotionally, I feel withered away. The last time any friendly interactions were had without that ever-present subconscious awareness of deadlines looming seems so far away.

To be honest, I cannot remember the last time my pace was slowed – perhaps it was as far away as the summer of 2009. Having the opportunity to smell the roses and truly relax, relate and replenish has taken a back seat to ambition, desperation (at times) and timing. Yes, I’m sure you think that with all my opportunities life would be nothing but cheery – but it’s actually the opposite. Added pressure, not enough time, new found stigmas attached to my personality, pressure, exhaustion in the idea realm – shall I go on?

The glamorous facade we all see in magazines and red carpets is truly the smoke in mirrors that barely reflects the realities of playing fashion hard ball. It’s a labor of love, nothing more. No one should work 18 hour days, six days a week while basically playing a risky game of roulette.

Did you know that the average start up cost for developing a single collection is over $30,000?

The estimated funding/backing needed to launch a label is 1.5-2 million, with a solid $250,000 in the bank ready to pay out for first collections – just to develop samples, shoot them and prepare for sales (all this with no guarantee of success). Plus, the time lines for developing and preparing collections are usually at least four months. I’m working on about two months and much less than $30,000. It’s as if the drug is the stress and the high is the finished body of work. It’s never finished until the deadline hits, when you go dark for a second and then pick yourself up by the (hopefully chic) boot straps and prepare to do it all over again.

So I find myself wondering, at the final hour with three garments to finish, two to edit and 23.5 hours to go – is it worth all this stress and sleep deprivation, lost relationships and risk of ending up broke?

Yes. Of course.

The least I can say is that I can’t get enough of it and it has always been that way. Fashion chose me, not the other way around. As I progress as a designer, I’m finding that I would like to refine the approach.

And I hope that in 24, excuse me, no, 23 hours, the cost of everything I’ve put myself through will come to fruition. It’s never good enough, I always wish I could do things better, I always walk away with a million ideas that didn’t get the time to be developed…but that’s what the next collection is for, right?

This completed collection – the one after I show you what I’ve created in a tiny room on the floor – will deliver some free time to embrace where it is I have come from. It will give me a momentary respite so I can take a long walk in the park, be proud and get back up again to try to one up myself next time.

The learning curve is just too fun to ride. I guess I’ll just stay buckled in.

This is the fifth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

Take off the blind fold will you. I mean, will I, can I?

Tunnel vision, oh god, I have had such a serious case!

After hours spent alone in the house, after sewing non stop for days (insert Project Runway flashbacks) and after vision skewed physically and mentally, the arduous process of inner struggle took hold. And I found myself wondering – is the role of a designer to tell you what to wear now, or what to wear next?

First and foremost I am a woman. And on a personal level, creation is about asking the question, “What is it that I want to wear, can’t find or what speaks to me personally?” The benefit of being a designer is getting to translate desires into design. I want to make clothes, not costumes. I myself play dress up daily, to self express. Designing the items that lack in a wardrobe, my wardrobe is the approach I take.

What makes a good designer great is their ability to listen to their own creative voice and intuition, rather than the public or mainstream. Translating to you, technically speaking, what it is we want to wear. And for you that means what we want you to be wearing next.

After a mildly terrifying review (to be honest the most “positive-bad” critique of my life), during the midpoint in this season’s sampling, my intuition was confirmed. What I had created and presented throughout past seasons and the viewing of PR, had lost its relevancy within my creative hand. And did not and does not work within the context of the direction my work (and self) is taking. Which begs the question – are designers dictators or fortune tellers?

Perhaps a little bit of both.

If you liked what it is that I have created, if you want what I was feeding you a year ago, even six weeks ago, why wouldn’t that be my focus, the next idea? The beauty of this industry is that it works with the way I create. The second I am finished with a concept, I move on. Not holding onto what it is that I have created, but what it is I will create next. Fashion design enables constant dialogue. Communicating in a manner that translates the context or chapter last lived and exposed to, while looking onto the next horizon. Anna Wintour once said “Fashion is not about looking back, it’s about looking forward.”

Agreed.

As I left my critique this past week, with three out of nine designs safe, two in critical care and a few left for the morgue, I thought to myself – what is it that I wasn’t listening to or seeing? My intuition, that’s what.

I am where I am today because I stay convicted. I trust in the direction I am taking because I must. The best part about fashion is that it is objective. If the direction doesn’t suit you, if it doesn’t look like the road you were on with me last season, you can hop off. Or you can trust that your future may just come in a different shade of Gretchen.

For now, eight days left, eight garments remaining.

This is the fourth piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

There’s always something going on in the fashion world despite the crowned achievements of fashion weeks and celebrity collaborations taking center stage.

For instance, a good contest for budding designers to partake in, news so juicy you won’t be able to stop talking about it and of course, a trend someone has picked up on that you had on your radar but didn’t quite know how to make it sustainable.

Here’s a little overview of some of our favorite blogs covering fashionable things.

Ecouterre’s Denim Challenge sponsored by the Gap, garnered a slew of very talented submissions that you can peruse here. Tough decisions to be made for the Ecouterre staff and judges (shh, one is me) but the grand prize winner will be showcased on Ecouterre, Inhabitat, and the Gap 1969 Stream, as well as receive a $200 gift certificate. While lucky finalists will get their name, design, and a link to their portfolio or website showcased on Ecouterre and the Gap 1969 Stream and a fancy new Ecouterre t-shirt.

(See image above from the challenge and definitely one of my top picks. Wide leg jeans can do that?!)

Burda Image

BurdaStyle’s Party Through The Decades contest sponsored by Bernina. The contest is open to BurdaStyle members (reason to join now?) and will serve to be an exciting platform to showcase “Your joie de vivre in a fabulous party look,” says creative director and site editor Alison Kelly (you might remember her name from Project Runway years ago?)

Check out Alison’s favorite party looks spawning over the past few decades on the site.

FIT Image

The Eco-Fashion: Going Green exhibit over at FIT will be wrapping up on November 13th so get on over there to witness first hand the information and actual garments thathighlight both the positive and negative environmental practices of the fashion industry through the ages.

Treehugger writes here about how you can get an “Earthy education” by attending.

Paige Green Image

Educating yourself about eco-fashion and developing a consciousness about it is half the challenge, living it is quite the other. Many challenges are out there right now to live a more simple fashion life but when I saw this Fibershed challenge I realized I needed to step it up.

The Fibershed challenge “Is inspired by the need to swing the pendulum of our production – and our consumption to a more balanced state, that supports the health of all humans and the greater ecological system of which we are apart; through the re-integration of organic fibers, natural dyes, and a regional base that supports local communities and economies,” says the site.

The challenge to live for one year in clothing made from fibers within a geographical region 150 miles from founder Rebecca Burgess’ front door. You can go to the site and pledge money which will go to:

Pay Farmers fairly for their fiber
Pay local mill to process the fibers
Pay for professional documentation of the project- photo and film
Pay for knit patterns to be drafted and samples to be created

Go to Fibershed now and pledge!

Vogue Image

On the other end of the fashion spectrum, we have Anna Wintour and Vogue. I love this post by writer Johanna Bjork from Concrete Flower on “Vogue’s Vague Eco-Fashion Foray,” where Vogue supreme goddess Anna Wintour has finally discovered eco-fashion, but, well, doesn’t know what it is.

Bjork writes of the sustainable choices Vogue picked: “A steep price tag is just not enough to make something eco. While some of these materials may be better than their alternatives, most of these fashion houses make loads of crap from ‘conventional’ materials, probably in Asian factories. One eco piece does not make up for all the rest. We call this greenwashing.”

Here, here. Anna, call me.