BurdaStyle co-founder Nora Abousteit and creative director/Project Runway alum/Dahl designer Alison Kelly just launched “everything you need to know for a fashion-forward wardrobe,” in their new book, The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook. Featuring five fully customizable sewing patterns that offer “infinite fashion possibilities” and comprehensive step-by-step instructions, this is the go-to guide for sewing hobbyists and budding designers alike. The book features five popular basic patterns for a blouse, skirt, dress, bag and jacket which are turned into 15 distinct projects, along with dozens of user-submitted customizations for extra inspiration.

The key to BurdaStyle’s success of open sourcing, social media and taking the age-old art of sewing and making it hip again is brilliant and EcoSalon is a big fan. This book is but a representation of what the site offers daily to over half a million members that faithfully follow to learn how to create easy-to-make, great-fitting garments. Offline, BurdaStyle members have formed more than 260 sewing clubs worldwide, from China to New Zealand, South Africa to Norway, with 181 clubs in the United States alone. Members meet up to sew, socialize, and talk through projects and sewing issues face-to-face.

We guess that this book will inspire many more designer conversations and we’re happy to give you an opportunity to win it! Just go to our Facebook page and leave a comment and you are in the drawing.

Good luck!

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Alison Kelly’s Dahl dresses can’t help but make you feel pretty.

Dahl’s 50s-inspired tank dress (cut from their very first custom printed silk), will have you spring or summer party ready. We also advise you carelessly spin a few times to fluff out the full skirt and feel even more bubbly. $224

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

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When Alison Kelly wore this Victoriana top on Project Runway, she said that everyone wanted one, so she started making them and making them and well. Don’t worry, not everyone from here to Tulsa has one, but they are popular.

Now with her own atelier studio in Brooklyn, Kelly is busy designing not only tops like this, but custom pieces and showing the masses that she was born to design.

This top is actually very chameleon like hidden under a fitted blazer, layered under a long cardigan or worn alone with skinny jeans or pencil skirts. Manufactured in New York City, this remnant silk top will add a little sweetness to your wardrobe and a little romance to your day.

And for $98, this top is a steal. Here’s Alison wearing it and rocking it in her “Who me I’m just a knock-out in anything look.”

(cough) Girl crush.

The post Alison Kelly’s Sought-After Victoriana Top appeared first on EcoSalon.

The hard working contributors, columnists and editors at EcoSalon are earning their green stripes, blazing the trails and taking their proven commitment to sustainable living beyond the daily blog. Our strides are so darn exciting, we simply can’t keep them to ourselves.

Ready, set, kvel!

Fashion Editor Amy DuFault has stepped over to the other side, opening her own eco haunt, Shift Boutique. Sure to be the next Hyannis, Mass. hot spot, the store peddles sustainable products by Prairie Underground and Dahl, to name just a few emerging green lines. Amy also hosts events through her lifestyle consulting company, Greenover. If that didn’t keep her busy enough – she is signed up in January to teach eco fashion enrichment at her local middle school, helping 12-year-old girls create recycled fashion to showcase on a catwalk at a fashion show.

Contributor Susan Chaityn Lebovits is developing and implementing ways Boston University can reduce its environmental footprint. Susan is the Communications Specialist for Sustainability at the university, and is working to launch a new website in January that will house everything from research on renewable energy to classes that touch on sustainability and energy-saving building retrofits. The site will even help visitors locate bike racks and recycling stations. Meantime, Susan is producing a 15-stop Green Campus Tour Podcast, which covers locations such as the university’s geothermal building.

Anna Brones, our newest contributor, gets all of our votes as the people’s representative for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. HuffPost in conjunction with Hopenhagen is sponsoring the competition and voting ends December 4th, so cast yours as well! If chosen, Anna would report back daily from the conference as a HuffPost citizen journalist. Anna is the co-founder of Under Solen Media, where she develops social media marketing strategies to positively align brands, causes and adventurers. She’s also been busy helping the Save Our Wild Salmon campaign in the ongoing litigation process to come up with a scientifically sound plan for restoring Columbia-Snake River salmon.

Senior Editor Luanne Bradley will soon appear with her husband, Edwin, in a San Francisco Chronicle article on eco power couples. The feature highlights their daily work for green change. Edwin is an environmentalist and lawyer and Luanne writes the column Life in the Green Lane, a humorous look the modern family going green in the city. Luanne continues her green design consulting, having completed a teacher’s lounge with healthy fibers and vintage Mid-Century furniture.

The Green Plate Columnist Vanessa Barrington is on a daily mission to make the small changes that add up, riding her bike everywhere she can, finding “the car is merely a taxi for the dog to go on walks.” She is limiting her meat and processed food consumption and still working to get one hold-out member of her family to see the joy of giving to charity instead of “stuff” for the holidays. Her garbage can is minuscule and she only fills it once a week! She uses bathwater to flush her toilet and when she is cold, she puts on a sweater instead of cranking up the heat. Of course, she can also make a steaming bowl of delicious soup from one of her dozens of dynamite recipes.

EcoMeme Columnist Lora Kolodny is in a holiday mood, trying to knit a gift-scarf out of bamboo yarn, and looking forward to the Green Drinks holiday party Dec. 8th in NYC. She recently convinced a Manhattan restaurant manager to stop serving coffee in disposable cups by default. Now only to-go patrons get the paper. When not writing for EcoSalon and her blog at the New York Times, she also volunteers for God’s Love We Deliver.

Publisher and EIC Sara Ost has been busy building the green community at EcoSalon through Trashless Tuesday on Twitter (a la Meatless Monday), drawing chuckles and questions cruising around the Bay Area in her Smartcar, hosting Treehugger’s Carnival of the Green recently, and turning up as one of Greenopia’s Green Women We Love. Next up is convincing the neighbors they really, really need the Omlet.

Check back soon for more updates on the green goings-on from all our contributors. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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Tiered T-shirt Dress by Dahl

One of my very favorite designers, Alison Kelly of Project Runway fame, is finally coming over to the green side where eco-designers dwell.

Look for a small capsule collection she and her soul mate, Dane Risch, are putting together for both men and women.

(For the record: cutest couple going!)

The dress, made from 100% Tencel, a soft and buttery fiber made from wood pulp cellulose, is pure comfort and is so sweet.

Alison says: “The colors are putty, cafe au lait and black. I use these color names to conjure up the proper tones, seeing that the computer monitor can sometimes manipulate color. This top is available in all of my size offerings. It hits about mid-thigh so it can also be worn as a dress.”

Oh Alison, you had me at putty.

Leave a comment below to win and for official rules, click here.

The post A Living Dahl: T-Shirt Dress Giveaway from a Project Runway Alum appeared first on EcoSalon.

The more I talk with designers, the more I want you to know what they’re thinking. Here’s some insight.

I recently asked nine various shades of green designers what they thought about the question:

“Does collaborating with big names like Target, Kohl’s or Wal-Mart sound enticing to you?”

Heyne Bogut: I think in order to make that work you need to have a very packaged and defined product that can be understood and categorized quickly and easily. I’m always up for a challenge and I like the idea of contributing to pop culture in any way, shape or form, but it’s tricky to water down what you do enough to make it work in those places.

Plus, there’s the quality end to consider, and the concern for what conditions it’s made under. So, basically, the idea is intriguing, but a lot depends on what these partners are like to work with. I know people who design product for Wal-Mart and the process is living hell. I’ve been approached in the past by mass producers and have found the attempted collaborations uneven and unsatisfying.

Mociun: I think collaborating with someone like Eastpac or Keds would be great. Or some company that makes things I don’t. I would love to have a printed backpack or something like that. So I guess I would be more interested in doing a collaboration with a company where I could design print one of their products. And doing something with a company like Target could be cool, just to get exposure and see what production on a really large scale would be like.

Harper Della-Piana:  There would be positives connected to working with companies like that, of course. The prospect of making a large-scale impact on my company’s finances; provided the pieces I design for a company like that are made in the U.S. or by ethical workrooms would be part of the guarantee. I would not work on a project with a company like that if it didn’t have a positive impact on the workers or the environment in some way.

Alison Kelly/Dahl: Collaborating with larger corporations is at once appealing and unappealing. First, you will have to mass produce your collection in a ghastly inexpensive manner. Department stores like these aspire for quantity, not quality, which leads you to the question of whether or not you’ll want to forfeit the integrity of your designs by having to use cheaper textiles, eliminate important design elements and manufacture in China. I have a friend who just turned down an Anthropologie deal because they would not succumb to her eco-friendly standards. It becomes a question of morality.

Cmarchuska: I have mixed views about collaborating with big names like Wal-mart or Target. Ultimately, I feel  there could be some great opportunities for exposure and marketing when combining efforts with a major retailer.  However, it is tough as a small start-up/new designer to find favorable agreements for both parties. I think I would work with a major retailer if the terms were right.

Souchi: I understand why designers are enticed by these types of collaborations but I have no interest in this avenue of exposure. The type of collaborating that would excite me would be to work with artists I admire in all mediums. I think Marc Jacobs is fantastic with this. His collaborations with Stephen Sprouse and Murakami were great because they were new and unexpected for a house that traditionally was about the brown and camel logo. Or when Hermes hired Martin Margiela to be its house designer. For me, it would be a combo of materials – mixing yarn ideas with metal smiths or painters.

AK Vintage: Enticing?  Yes. Very much so, in fact. I’m interested in building my business and doing it as green as possible. I think if big box stores like these were ever to approach me they would obviously be interested in the sustainability of my product/brand just as much as my ability as a designer, because that is part of the identity I’m creating for my lines as well as for myself.  And, under these circumstances, I would absolutely be open to having that conversation.

Mothlove: I grew up in a small town, where my quaint little downtown full of mom & pop shops not only supported its community, but was supported by its community. Wal-Mart arrived in our town, and that sad story we’ve already heard started playing. A small, yet thriving community ceased to exist. Those small shops now represent the individually-owned boutiques I pursue as a designer.

I believe in the independent, the well-crafted and the local. I also believe that the designer-to-boutique, boutique-to-customer [relationship] creates community; communities with consumer awareness, communities that self sustain and support. Of course, financially the idea of big box collaboration is tempting, but I’d lose my story. And the consumer would lose its culture.

Aster And Sage: Collaborating with Target or Wal-Mart is definitely an enticing idea. I daydream about my imaginary Target collection all the time. Mmmm, yes.

Read more candid thoughts from eco designers.

Image: j.reed

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When ex-Project Runway designer Alison Kelly embarked upon her journey as designer she realized it might be one of those lonely occupations.

So, not skimping on creating collections for her Atelier Dahl, but yearning for company, she decided to collaborate with her boyfriend and Salt and Samovar bass player Dane Risch to create Dahl and Dane, an organic t-shirt line that allows you to declare your love for husbands, boyfriends, furry pets, organic produce, even reusable bags if that tickles your fancy.

To be featured next month in Self magazine, the kitschy shirts were also recently featured on the Today Show and continue to garner press because they speak volumes of one’s love for things without having to talk about it.

After all, what you love is what you love.

You can custom design their men’s, women’s unisex or even children’s t-shirts in a variety of colors with creative statements like “I mom,” I life,” or “I me.”

For those of you who know your love is strongest for only one person, jazz it up with their initials and wear it with pride.

Order the t-shirts for Valentines Day by January 26^th and you’ll have it delivered to your door in time for holiday gifting.

Order past that and you won’t feel the love until it’s too late.

The post There's Love in These T-Shirts Yet appeared first on EcoSalon.