This week’s Link Love we reconsider fast food as art, fall in love with Cameron Diaz again, travel to Paris for high fashion, and more.

Check out our favorite stories from around the web this week.

Is fast food art? Maybe we’ve been looking at it all wrong. This lie-size wood diorama may change your perspective. [via Eat Drink Better]

Possibly the smartest celebrity health book ever is by Cameron Diaz. [via Well+GoodNYC]

The scariest things in your house are plastic…all plastic is basically poisoning you and the truth is being downplayed by industry and government. [via Mother Jones]

The Iditarod is just wrong…here are 7 reasons, in case you don’t believe us. [via GirlieGirlArmy]

Paris Fashion Week in photos. Oui. [via Vogue]

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image via Vogue

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 The Green Carpet Challenge or the GCC is the brainchild of the always eco-fashionable Livia Firth (yes, wife of Mr Colin Firth) and has been buzzing since 2009. The challenge works with A-list designers and pioneering sustainability brands, to catapult sustainable green fashion onto the world stage, with many partnerships winding up on the red carpet.

Lots of well known celebrities and designers including Cameron Diaz, Julianne Moore and Tom Ford, have already participated in the initiative, but with a new website and a whole raft of new collaborations underway, we take a look at some of the recent Green Carpet Challenge projects.

1. Collaboration with Chopard

The latest collaboration and arguably one of the more interesting ones, has been between GCC and luxury jewelry line, Chopard. Chopard is working with the challenge, alongside the Alliance for Responsible Mining, in launching a new collection, appropriately named “The Journey.” The collection itself includes a gold diamond bracelet and matching earrings, with the materials being sustainably sourced and Fair-mined gold from community mines in South America. This is the first jewelry collection to be awarded the GCC brand mark; and  to add even more excitement to the occasion, the initiative was recently launched in Cannes. Chopard already has a fifteen year relationship with Cannes, being the sculptor of the coveted Golden Palm Trophy.

2. The Met Ball 2013

This year’s Met Ball was the third time the event had teamed up with GCC on the red carpet to promote green fashion. Livia herself even embraced the Punk theme with a specially designed Moschino dress, made of certified low environmental impact yarns. Just to add a quirky element to the evening, she added a peace sign to the back of her dress, made entirely of pins. She also recruited friends and eco advocates Emily Blunt and John Krasinkski to the cause. For her second foray in the challenge, having first participated last September, Blunt donned a black Carolina Herrera gown made with vintage wool fabric and silk chiffon, while Krasinski looked dapper in a Tom Ford suit made from low environmental impact woven wool. (the same one used for Bradley Cooper’s eco friendly suit at the Golden Globes.)

3. Gucci’s Green Bags

Livia Firth and the GCC also recently teamed up with Gucci, the Rainforest Alliance, and the National Wildlife Federation, to create a luxury handbag line made out of deforestation leather. The collection itself is the culmination of years of work in securing sustainably produced leather from the Brazilian Amazon, and has become the first leather product to be certified as ‘zero deforestation.’ The bag’s supply chain is also transparent and each bag comes with a GCC Passport containing important information for the consumer detailing the sustainability credentials, setting a new standard for brand accountability. The three new Gucci handbags: the Hobo, the New Jackie and the Top Handle Tote, all carry the stamp of sustainability.

Images: Eco Age

The post 3 Green Fashion Collaborations that Prove the Green Carpet Challenge is Going Strong appeared first on EcoSalon.

Kyler by Joy O’s modern designs are made from upcycled steel and precious metals.

With the current spring/summer season proving to be a veritable 70’s redux, those of us enamored with that decade should be in fashion heaven. Think flared pants, platform shoes and slinky, draped silhouettes, versions of a Film-Noir/femme-fatale meets Charlie’s-Angel-dancing-the-night-away-in-Studio-54 look.

And yet, this fever for all things vintage-inspired leaves me feeling a little restless. Call it a fashion tipping point, like the craze for Sex And The City’s Carrie-style fabulous shoes a few years back. It’s just no fun if everyone else is doing it. It makes me want to announce, in a zany John Cleese voice,  “And now for something completely different…”

Thus I was recently delighted to discover a lone note of modernistic design in the new Futurelore jewelry collection from Kyler Design. The striking pieces made from upcycled scrap steel and recycled precious metals are created to stand the test of time and trends and have caught the eye of conscious celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and Jessica Alba.

Designed by Joy Opfer, who describes the inspiration for her Futurelore collection as a “Fascination with the arc of human expression in objects and mark-making, from primitive petroglyphs and stone-age tools, meshed with the scientific and technologic elements of the future,” her hand-drawn tribal designs may prove the antidote to everyone who thinks that the latest 70’s revisit is all too much. I caught up with Opfer recently. Here’s what she had to say:

The designs are really out of this world. Can you tell us more about what inspired this collection?

It’s an optimistic collection that is one in a cycle of other eras when designers looked to the past and future at once, like art deco and primitive modern design from the 20’s-30’s. Nothing is really new, as everything comes full circle. Each piece is inspired by the combination of a primitive item – arrowhead, shield, feather, totem pole – mixed with the hard edges and technology details like circuit boards and science fiction objects like transponders, rayguns and lasers. I like to think they’re magical objects created by the fusion of caveman with spaceman or primitive belief combined with future technology, and I wonder, is that where we are now?

It definitely seems to have struck a nerve. The collection has been live on the site only two weeks, and with no promotion at all, nearly every order has contained a Futurelore piece!

Tell us about your decision to keep your production local.

I had no trouble finding a U.S. supplier to work with. All my suppliers are U.S. based and yes, it costs more, but my customer sees the value. I think she would rather have fewer quality items than 20 things from Forever 21. I love being based on the West Coast. There are so many stores to work with that have an interest in and have developed a customer base that cares about sustainability, especially in San Francisco. The cause is gaining traction with celebrities which helps. The West Coast has much to offer on that score as well.

How do you enjoy fashion beyond an act of consumption?

With so much media at our fingertips and so many inspirations filtering through our minds, I think that looking at and interacting with fashion blogs or styling sites like Polyvore have made it much easier for me to not have real “things,” but to be able to express my thoughts and crazy ideas without the pressure to purchase or even to have the perfect body to wear the items. I think it’s a huge bonus to come up with styling before purchase rather than after!

Can sustainable fashion transform and inspire change?

My customer is a modern, conscious woman who cares as much about her planet as her closet. She counts on her jewelry to take her look from day to night, and work to weekend. She’s aware she votes with her wallet. I hope my quality classic designs help her to get “dressed,” and by that I mean confident, expressive and fully present, conveying her inner self and values to the outside world.

Joy Opfer’s FutureLore collection is available at store’s nationwide and at www.kylerdesigns.com.

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Summer has been so chilly this year that it seems everyone forgot about wearing a Little White Dress and instead opted for its raven sister. Luckily, the tides have turned and some of our A-list celebs are leading the way in fashionably white attire. From movie premiers to private parties in the Hamptons, the LWD is making its comeback.

Of course you can always find a superbly tailored dress from Linda Loudermilk and this season she offers us a cool ivory hue. From Somewhere also churned out an elegant little number that has a playful side. An easy piece that is classically understated, sophisticated and accessorizes well – the LWD is here to stay!

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