Interpreting Anna Sui’s true blue fall style with vintage and thrift finds is easy, you just have to know what to look for.

When confronting the barrage of fashion’s endless micro trends, it’s tempting to head for the safety of your style comfort zone, whether it’s leggings and tees or the dress that never fails you. Having a collection of wardrobe staples that you look and feel great in is half the war of looking good.

But like in life, standout style can only evolve when we are willing to feel awkward when trying something new. So if the fashion thrill is gone, start experimenting – it’s what makes fashion fun. The best way to do this if you’re eco-minded, or a style lover who can’t bear to look like everyone else, is interpret the latest runway trends with vintage and thrift finds. It’s cheaper than buying mass market fashion and prevents those items from ending up in the landfill.

Here are our picks for five items that can be found in abundance in vintage and thrift stores and – luckily for you and the planet – are enduring fall styles.

Isabel Marant’s Oversized Coat

The Oversized Coat –  Big is beautiful this fall, with cocoon-shaped, oversized coats seen on Isabel Marant, Jil Sander and Kenzo’s runways. If you buy one thing from a thrift store this year make it fall’s must-have silhouette for outerwear. Typically, secondhand men’s coats are a miss for their boxy, sloped shoulder style – this season those elements are bang on. Balance the look with slim cigarette pants and add a belt if you feel too swamped.

Reed-Krakoff’s chunky oversized sweater

The Chunky Knit Sweater –  The emphasis on big continues with cozy, comfortable cable knits. If you can find a chunky cable knit, particularly from an American heritage brand – grab it, you’ll be in good company with Michael Kors, Missoni and Reed Krakoff who showed off their statement making knits on fall runways.

Balmain blazer with gold buttons

The Navy Blazer – Synonymous with country living and boating activities, the classic blue blazer with brass buttons is enjoying a revival as a high contrast piece to wear with more casual looks. Flung insouciantly over shoulders like a trench coat, you’ve just upped the ante on preppy style.

Anna Sui’s blue on blue detail

Anything Blue – Forget shades of grey, this season the new neutral is blue. The monochrome look will continue for fall, with fresh-looking shades of blue layered upon with the occasional hint of black. Another way to interpret this trend is the denim-on-denim look, stock up on denim shirts, and denim vests in a soft blue hue to make pairing with dark-washed jeans a more dressed up look.

Jason Wu’s Army inspired jacket

The Army Jacket – This season is definitely military minded, but more relaxed than in past revisits. An epaulette here, a spot of camouflage there – achieving this look is all in the details rather than sporting a full on uniform. Thanks to designer’s ongoing plundering of the theme, expect to find options galore in your local consignment store.

The post 5 Fall Fashion Trends to Thrift Right Now appeared first on EcoSalon.

After a rough patch, business in NYC’s Garment District is starting to pick up.

For decades, fashion mavens and budding designers have flocked to the quadrant between 34th and 42nd Streets, hedged in by 5th and 9th Avenues. Here, in New York City’s Garment District, fabric can be purchased, patterns made, pieces sewn, trimming added, and dreams realized, all in the space of a few blocks. Designers like Donna Karan, Calvin Klein, and Oscar de la Renta have all made the Garment District their home at a point in their careers, and countless others got their start in the neighborhood. At one time, the Garment District was the global hub of textile manufacturing. But not anymore.

“The only thing that has not changed is the location,” says Anthony Lilore, owner of RESTORE Clothing and a founder of the Save the Garment Center movement. “The physical appearance has gone from streets packed with garment racks and push carts, to some racks, some push carts, and some rickshaws with tourists.”

Indeed, over the past fifty years, the Garment District has seen a steady decline in business, owing primarily to overseas outsourcing, mostly to China. When that picked up in the early 1990s, family-owned companies in business for generations were forced to shut their doors, and designers, burdened by the higher rents and rising costs of working in midtown Manhattan, moved elsewhere. Most of those who have survived the downturn and recession say they’re hanging on by a hair.

“At this point, it’s a labor of love,” says Maria Lipari-Bertone, whose family has run Quality Patterns, which specializes in grading and marking, for more than forty years. “This is our bread and butter. Many of us came from overseas, and we made our lives in the Garment District.”

But there are signs of revitalization. At New York’s first City Source Expo, held January 10 at the Fashion Institute of Technology, more than fifty producers, suppliers, and pattern makers turned out to field questions and take orders from attendees interested in local production. Several vendors said that they’re starting to see an uptick in sales, mostly due to China’s rising “minimums” for new orders, a weak dollar, and higher shipping costs. Lipari-Bertone says that many new designers can no longer afford to work in China, so they’re starting to inquire into local production again.

Plus, in recent years groups like Save the Garment Center, Made in Midtown, and the Garment Industry Development Corporation have surfaced to advocate for Garment District preservation and serve as a resource for designers interested in manufacturing there. Backed by New York fashion industry vets like Nanette Lepore, Anna Sui, Jason Wu, and Yeohlee Teng, these groups emphasize the district’s historical, creative, and economic value to the city of Manhattan.

Made in Midtown says:

Ultimately, this story is about much more than fashion. It’s about one of the last neighborhoods in Manhattan that has not yet been remade by recent waves of new development. It’s about jobs and immigrant workers. It’s about the decisions city officials make to support certain kinds of businesses.

And for designers interested in sustainability, a one-stop-shop like the Garment District means a more compact production process, which eliminates the costs, both financial and environmental, of working with subcontractors in different parts of the world.

“The quality of craftsmanship and the concentration of schools, designers, sample rooms, showrooms, production, and stores make the Garment Center the only one of its kind anywhere,” says Lilore.

The post In New York City’s Garment District, Signs of a Comeback appeared first on EcoSalon.

EXCLUSIVEAnother designer knock off in the halls of fast fashion leads to a lawsuit for beloved indie brand Feral Childe.

It’s like some dirty soap opera: An indie designer label gets knocked off by an omnipresent, fast fashion chain. The result? Copied designs are then worn by the unknowingly complicit thousands all over the world, amounting to stolen artwork never meant to be anywhere but on eco-fashion lovers’ backs.

Feral Childe, one of EcoSalon’s favorite fashion brands both for its sustainability and style, has released this statement expressing their disappointment at Forever 21 stealing their original textile design: “Without any consideration or respect for the origin of the artwork, Forever 21’s mass reproduction of our textile design without our permission is extremely unethical, and in direct violation of the law.  It’s frustrating that this enormous company, with over a billion dollars a year in revenues, would dare to poach the artistic creations of a small company such as ours.”

Feral Childe designers Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson’s “Teepees” design is protected by law, and registered with the U.S. Copyright Office. Because of compelling evidence that they have in fact been victims of design piracy, the duo are taking appropriate legal action to address the copyright infringement by Forever 21.

The fast fashion retailer has had countless problems in the past including controversial knock-offs of larger designers like Trovata and Anna Sui.

As featured in NY Magazine in May 2009. The Forever 21 shirts are on the top row, Trovata’s are on the bottom.

Anna Sui spring 2007 RTW on left and Forever 21’s Maven Top on right.

In the case of Feral Childe, the familiar scenario is the same with the Teepee print at Forever 21 at exactly the same scale and type of mark making as their original. As of publishing time, Forever 21 had responded to the cease and desist letter, but has denied liability and stated that perhaps Feral Childe copied the design from another source. Once the designers received that response, they filed a lawsuit which is currently pending in Federal Court in Los Angeles.

Feral Childe Teepee Print

Forever 21 print

Fast fashion is still a fairly fresh word in mainstream America, but even through our own articles here on EcoSalon chronicling some of Forever 21’s oops moments, the mega brand continues to push a whole new wasteful trend to the masses, mostly teens. The message: $14.99 is plenty to pay for a pretty dress or tunic top. The repercussions of these fast fashion choices are felt throughout the world whether in the form of slave labor, severe environmental degradations or yes, the copying of a design that two young women worked for months on to perfect for a sustainable collection.

According to WWD, the House Judiciary subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet is expected to reveal that a hearing on the bill has been slated for today, July 15. The house subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) is “slated to consider a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), known as the ‘Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevent Act,’ industry sources said. It would expand copyright laws for the first time to include fashion designs that are often the target of knockoff artists who profit from another’s design creation.”

We caught up with designers Alice Wu and Moriah Carlson for an exclusive interview on their copyright infringement and what they’ve learned from this experience.

How do you know for sure the design was yours?

The first sighting was on a passerby in Brooklyn in June: Moriah did a double take when she saw a woman wearing a tank top with what looked very much like our print, but it was from afar and we couldn’t be sure. Then someone we know showed up a few days later wearing a dress in our print – but it wasn’t our dress design! She said she had purchased the dress at Forever 21. Sure enough, it was easy to find the garments at the Forever 21 stores and online. We purchased a few, and compared them with our fabric and garments. The design on the Forever 21 garments had clearly been copied – if you put the Forever 21 garments and Feral Childe garments side by side, the textile design is unmistakably the same Teepees.

The Feral Childe Teepees print idea was developed over several months, starting from sketchbook drawings and then refined and edited in countless email exchanges between us until we perfected the image. This type of markmaking reflects the very particular philosophy of drawing taught at the New York Studio School, where both of us studied. I studied there briefly, and Moriah completed her graduate work in drawing and painting there. So both of us are intimately familiar with this visual language. With that art training as a basis, we have made the image very personal and particular to Feral Childe. There are hidden pictures of teepees and crowns and pennants in the drawing that aren’t necessarily apparent at first glance. How could anyone else come up with that combination?

How could a company like Forever 21 copy you so blatantly and think they can get away with it? Can they?

Whoever at Forever 21 discovered our print and decided to co-opt it wasn’t looking closely and probably just assumed this was just an abstract “scratch print” and didn’t notice our hidden pictures. Our Teepees print screams Feral Childe, if not by name, then by our eccentricities. Feral Childe’s prints are the soul of our collections. Meanwhile, Forever 21’s “designer” was too lazy to come up with an original print idea. Forever 21 is not going to get away with this, because our design Teepees is registered with the Copyright Office and we’re not going anywhere until justice has been served.

Have other designers reached out to you to tell their own knock-off stories?

During the first week we discovered the copying, we researched what other companies have had their designs copied by Forever 21. We reached out to Virginia Johnson, who discovered her prints on some of Forever 21‘s skirts; they settled. We contacted Virginia Johnson about her experience with this matter and told her our story and she was very sympathetic and helpful.  Another designer friend of ours has had her coats knocked off by a San Francisco boutique that ordered a couple of pieces from her, then had them copied cheaply and labeled with the boutique’s name.  There is a lot of lookalike jewelry out there. Copycat cases seem to pop up in the news every few months or so. We just never thought this could happen to us.

If companies like Forever 21 get away with this, what does it mean for other small designers?

Forever 21 isn’t going to get away with this one. We have faith in the law.

Right now there is very limited copyright protection for fashion designers, and it’s never easy for small companies. It costs money to file your designs and to pursue the copycats so we felt totally helpless at first, but our community has been really supportive so far and we are confident in our lawyers. It’s because of copycats that there are some new fashion copyright bills in the works which we hope will benefit designers whether they are just starting out or working for large companies.

What learning experience from you and for others do you hope comes from this?

Document your creative process, and be prepared to defend your authorship.

Image: Wall Street Journal

The post Fast Fashion Giant Forever 21 Steals Sustainable Label Feral Childe’s Design appeared first on EcoSalon.

When I started writing this post, I suddenly realized I didn’t know what Cri de Coeur actually meant. “Cry from the heart,” says the Merriam Webster dictionary. Made sense once I knew, as my own internal organ throbs at the very site of this line!

Founded in 2007 by Gina Ferraraccio, who’d been interning at Anna Sui and Bergdorf Goodman, as well as for a private label lingerie line, Ferracraccio gained valuable real-world fashion and business experience before launching her Cri de Coeur vegan shoe line in 2008.

In 2009, (now co-designer) Julie Dicterow began working for the label and after only a few months, realized that the two girls were a force to be reckoned with in terms of sustainable shoe design and forward fashion.

Press and buyers around the world recognized their potential too and heralded the debut collection. Like a fairytale right? Well, sometimes these things happen.

Cri de Coeur is now noted by many as a top-quality vegan shoe line with which, according to their site, “Ladies around the globe can create eco-luxe looks in no time flat. Pairing deftly with everything from cocktail dresses to skinny jeans, Cri de Coeur shoes embody effortless chic.”

I love all the color in their spring line and especially am very fond of the fact they recently launched a diffusion line for the “Budget fashionista” called “Hearts of Darkness” with every shoe retailing under $100.

Thanks ladies.

Designers Gina Ferraraccio and Julie Dicterow

A “Cry from the heart?” Ferraraccio and Dicterow say the name symbolizes their heartfelt desire to change the face of the fashion footwear market: “Cri de Coeur provides stylish, contemporary women’s footwear that is ethically produced from start to finish.”

Feel like slipping on a pair Cinderella? Well come to EcoSalon Shops! event and you’ll get your chance (not to mention meeting the fabulous designers).

The post EcoSalon Shops! Presents: Cri de Coeur Vegan Shoes appeared first on EcoSalon.