Maybe you’re ready to hit the ground running with spring’s new fashion trends but are concerned about the ecological impact of your wardrobe overhaul. From vibrant neons to statement stripes, there are several new looks on the list that, if acquired, could potentially put a dent in your wallet and on the world around you.

Fortunately, you can incorporate these popular pieces without forfeiting your fashion fantasies. With some ingenious DIYs and invaluable tips, we’ll be sharing different ways to green your favorite spring trends. Be sure to use this guide in tandem with this post, so you can make the most out of your endeavors.

1. Romantic Lace

This trend is all about the soft and feminine side of things contrasted with something edgy. One way to achieve this is by sifting through your closet to find pieces that you could add lace to. A pencil or midi-length skirts would be perfect candidates for a revamp. Plus, you don’t even need to buy brand new lace. Check thrift stores for lace pieces or the fabric store for remnants. And take a cue from Honestly WTF on how to turn a basic slip dress into something fabulous. Toss on a faux leather jacket to complete the look. 

2. Stenciled Stripes

Bold black and white and colorful stripes are trending for spring. Luckily, this look is easy to recreate. By using some painter’s tape on an old tank or t-shirt, you can breathe new life into a stale piece. I Love to Create has a simple and easy tutorial on doing exactly that. We could also totally see this turning into vertical stripes on a plain, flat front skirt, or even as a horizontal detail across a pair of jeans.

3. Customized Bra Tops

We’re totally predicting that this trend is going to spread like wildfire over the next few months, so be sure to get your mitts on some bralettes and bra tops that you feel great in. For this particular look, we suggest repurposing a sports bra by pairing it with your athleisure looks—you can even add lace embellishments to the cups and band for extra special personalization. Nevertheless, sporty undergarments are in, as are simple bra tops that resemble your basic shelf-style or wrap around bikini tops which could be worn in lieu of buying something new. If you already have a black bra lying around, and are feeling inspired, the cage bra tutorial from Hello Gwen is a must-see!

4. Crafty Florals

Bold florals are taking the fashion world by storm, and with a little patience, you can turn everything solid in your closet into a garden party garment in no time. Fabric paint, a few homemade stamps in different shapes, and a small brush for adding details can easily fill an entire skirt, or small sliver of clothing, like a collar and cuffs, with plenty of flowers. The tutorial from Mr. Kate is a great jumping off point for getting your ideas out of your head and onto the canvas. Oh, and it uses a thrifted white button down, too.

5. Peek-a-Boo Shirting

Ah, yes, the button down shirt. A wardrobe staple that is always evergreen means it probably won’t be difficult to get your hands on one or two or ten of these. Heck, you can even raid your man’s closet—we won’t tell!—because oversized is in, as is a fresh take on cut outs. Take the tutorial from Plan B, for example. It features cool, no-sew cut outs that you can add to any button down.    

6. Revamped Athleisure

With an ’80s/’90s street-inspired jumpsuit and tracksuit vibe happening on the runways, you might be able to pick up a few interesting finds from thrift stores. Otherwise, you can definitely DIY a few pieces. Color is in, so freshen up your solid leggings with a vibrant geometric stencil and some fabric paint like The Pretty Life Girls did. Tie in your tops by using a hint of the same pattern somewhere on the front or back. Repurpose thrifted t-shirts by turning them into tanks, or if you’re handy with a needle and thread, add some colorful patches and fabric details to your current collection.

7. Neon Dye

This fun new trend has a lot of potential. Bright, bold, and unapologetic, neons have a place in a spring or summer wardrobe. With some naturally sourced dyes, or store bought if you really want that blinding shade of yellow, then you’ll be well on your way to creating a unique masterpiece. Look for sheer tops in light colors that will take dye easily. Round up white clothing, like dresses, skirts, and even pants, which can usually be found—and spotted easily—in the sea of second-hand colors. Play with the dye process. Dip dye, tie dye, or ombre, rather than saturate the whole thing like she did at Itty Bitty Impact. That’s turmeric, by the way!

Which of these DIY hacks are you going to try first? Share your thoughts on the EcoSalon Facebook page!

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The post 7 Fab DIY Eco Hacks to Get the (Green) Look: Spring Trends 2017 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Along Brooklyn’s west-side waterfront, not far from the Bay Ridge neighborhood where many of our immigrant grandparents grew up, there is a woman working to start a clothing line in a biotech lab.

It all started when Suzanne Lee, a British-born fashion designer, was writing “Fashioning the Future: Tomorrow’s Wardrobe,” a book on the intersection of style and science. She met David Hepworth along the way, a biologist who taught her how living bacteria can be used to cultivate a number of materials, including fabric. Together, they created what has since become the basic formula for growing clothing: Vinegar, sugar, tea and microbes, similar to those found in kombucha. When the right amount of each ingredient is combined and left to dry on the flat surface of a container (say, for example, your bathtub or kitchen sink), it will eventually come to very closely resemble leather. The full formula was published in a recent Popular Science article.

If it truly becomes possible to start a clothing line in this manner – by using naturally-occurring, non-animal contents – the implications will be monumental. Not only will vegan shoppers have greater options, but also, any decrease in commercial leather production carries a huge environmental impact. First, it could limit the use of the myriad chemicals used to remove hair from cowhide (which Green Living Tips kindly provides here). There are also the overall ecological effects of cattle ranching to consider, like the EPA‘s estimated 80-110 kilograms of methane produced by the average cow per year. In a best-case scenario, high-profile designers who seek to ban animal products (like Stella McCartney) may take note of this new, human made material, decreasing the reliance on and prevalence of factory-like cattle raising.

It’s a likely end-goal of Lee’s work. After she launched Biocouture to work toward formalizing the process, she partnered with Modern Meadow, an emerging biotech business housed in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, where she today serves as creative director. The operation has quite a bit of ground to cover; in fact, according to the Popular Science article, very little information on the status of the collaboration has been made public. However, there’s good reason to invest attention, at the very least, beyond the aspirational decrease in leather production. This type of science could also lead to the growth of cotton-like products, eliminating the many ramifications of the crop’s current supply chain: labor issues, pollution and pesticide treatment of cotton fields, among others.

The possible conflicts arising from project’s success shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Of course, it will almost undoubtedly be met with resistance and protest from members of the leather and cotton industry, not to mention the manufacturers who rely on the availability of cheap cotton. It’s also necessary to consider the science itself; is it GMO? And, if so, what might the production of this alternative material, however benevolently motivated, mean for the future of such manipulated organisms?

However, the project is just that: Altruistically-charged. “Use less water, hell yeah,” Lee says in her interview with Popular Science. “Low energy, absolutely. Less chemicals, less dyes.” Pay attention. Good things are coming.

Say hey to Amanda on Twitter or Instagram

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Image: Biocouture Official Facebook Page

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DIY Fashion is the latest trend, or is it?

There’s something reassuring about knowing women have been making do and mending their own fashion beyond the fairly recent eco friendly awareness. Take a look at these great vintage videos teaching utility fashion skills and glamour tips long before climate change could be an offensive term.

In this Pathé Pictorial newsreel, Anne Edwards fashion “editoress” of Woman magazine shows WWII era women how to make turbans from scarves, as hats were being rationed. As turbans are a trend again, this simple DIY project is worth attempting especially once the announcer tells us, “Why, there’s nothing easier in the whole wide world.”

Satisfy your urge for fashions must-have accessory this season by following this great instructional video from the 1920s that shows us how to make an oversized clutch. With raffia, a basket weave straw material, having been all over the runways for spring you’ll be completely up to date with a design that remains timeless after almost 100 years!

And if those how-to’s whetted your appetite for vintage style wisdom, check out this wonderful video detailing what glamor is and how to go about get it. Proving women’s busy lives aren’t purely a modern phenomenon, even pre-late night TV there was always a lot to be said for the expression “getting your beauty sleep.”

The post Vintage DIY Fashion Tutorials appeared first on EcoSalon.

As we all sat in our homes filled with factory made goods admiring the Oscar fashion show this past week, it was inspiring to think those glorious gowns were in fact one of the last examples of a custom, handmade product being made by some of the most talented craftsmen still working in America.

Fashioned from the finest silks, satins and tulle and worn on bodies honed by private Pilates classes, green juices and spa treatments, we might assume that’s what only big money can do for you. But it’s the fact that these dresses are literally built around the Hollywood elite that makes the difference. Details matter: Like the hand-sewn hidden stitch that helps to keep a seam clean and invisible, or tailoring to flatter a long neck or shade a thick waist.

In these days of mass market fashion designed to fit a wide variety of shapes and sizes in just a small, medium and large, the art of tailoring the perfect fit is very much a lost one. And yet I’m prepared to bet your favorite items in your wardrobe, the ones you reach for most often, are the ones that fit you best.

Beyond taking in a side seam and properly fitting an armhole, learning simple tailoring techniques such as chopping off a hem or cutting the arms off an old trench can breathe new life into your wardrobe and help you to get on trend with just a rip of a seam. Not to mention that with all our efforts to turn the industry toward using sustainability, recycling your old clothes is probably your best bet if you truly want to green your wardrobe and look great.

Take a page out of Kate Middleton’s book. The princess-to-be appeared at her first royal walk-about last week in a recycled herringbone coat that had been shortened to show off her legs, proving there is nothing downmarket about a little fashion reconstruction.

Many people say vintage and thrift shopping is not for them and understandably squirm at the idea of taking out the scissors and creating something new from their old clothes.

I’m a dab hand with a needle and thread and yet I wouldn’t go near transforming the neckline of a bias cut dress from the 1930’s made from delicate wool crepe by myself. Trying to change necklines and armholes is best left to a professional until you gain more proficiency, or maybe just some courage. For that I turned to talented tailor-in-residence Holly Samuelsen from Gravel and Gold in San Francisco. Samuelsen is a “reconstructive therapist” for vintage lovers and bike messengers in the Mission district of San Francisco.

Going to a good tailor to have your clothes pinned and have the lines smoothed out to fit the body? You can expect to pay about $45 an hour. According to Samuelsen, the key to do-it-yourself-tailoring is “Don’t be afraid.” Simple things like taking in side seams and hems to gain a better personal fit are things you can attempt yourself. Adding ribbons and appliqués are fun projects and would cost a lot to have a professional do, so try some of these alterations yourself.

Once you gain an understanding of what you can do and what your tailor is able to do, your thrift exploration is widened. As Samuelsen says, “When I’m in a thrift store, I’m shopping for material.” Next time you see that eye-catching jacket from the 80’s with a bang-on, trendy tribal print that looks just like the ones you just saw on Proenza Schouler’s recent runway, realize that for $5, a little slimming of the width by taking in the side seams and a visit to your tailor to reshape those crazy wide shoulders – you’ll have a fresh jacket just like that.

The post Altering Fashion To Fit appeared first on EcoSalon.

Honestly, there are times when I too feel like taking a happy pill to get away from it all but the only way to be a part of it is to be educated. So don’t stop now.

These 15 books will take you down many interesting roads on your journey. Be open to it.

1. Eco Fashion

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Eco Fashion by Sass Brown

“This book shows the range of companies making a difference in the area of sustainable design in fashion, exploding the myth that sustainable design is bad design, or at best basic design, by highlighting the range of companies producing desirable and well-designed apparel and accessories with a conscience. It not only demonstrates the range of products available around the globe, but explains the stories behind them and the communities they support, as well as showing how and where they make a difference.” – Laurence King Publishing

2. Future Fashion White Papers

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Future Fashion White Papers by Earth Pledge

“A collection of 30 compelling essays by scientists, retailers, farmers, dyers, models and others in the industry, including Diane von Furstenberg, Julie Gilhart, and Shalom Harlow. FutureFashion White Papers take an in-depth look at the fashion industry and provides a thoughtful, wide-ranging analysis of how a transition to sustainability can be achieved. Diane von Furstenberg notes: ‘FutureFashion White Papers is an exploration that signifies movement towards a more sustainable fashion industry. It is an opportunity to think about and evaluate the fashion industry as it stands today’.” – Earth Pledge

3. The Eco-chick Guide to Life

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The Eco-chick Guide To Life by Starre Vartan

“Every now and then, someone comes along who shows the rest of us how much we take for granted the freedoms of our daily lives. The eco-journalist, blogger and all-around green genie Starre Vartan is one such person. In The Eco Chick Guide to Life, her earth-first program for glamorous but environmentally conscious living, she mines new lodes of guilt, finding gems of awareness and providing detailed eco-wise shopping guides for the body, the closet, the home and the larder.” – The New York Times

4. DIY Fashion

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DIY Fashion by Selena Francis-Bryden

“DIY Fashion is a cool, quirky, and creative guide to making and customizing your own clothes, bags, and accessories. It contains more than 40 thrifty, sustainable, and stylish projects, none of which require prior skill or a sewing machine. From customized hand-me-downs to elegant evening wear, the book is packed with ideas that the reader can adapt to their own taste.” – Amazon

5. Eco-Chic, The Fashion Paradox

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Eco-Chic, The Fashion Paradox by Sandy Black

“Sandy Black has divided the book into four chapters: The Greening of the Fashion Industry, Re-Designing Fashion, Fibre to Fabric and Fabric to Fashion. In the first chapter she has profiled six of the most influential players in the UK ethical fashion industry: the inimitable Lynda Grose, the pioneering Fair Trade label People Tree, the mainstream advocates Marks and Spencer, the long-term campaigner Katharine Hamnett and the style leader Sarah Ratty of Ciel. By choosing these six profiles to feature at the beginning of the book Sandy Black has very quickly laid out the complex territory on which the battle for ethical fashion must be fought.” – Treehugger

6. Green Is The New Black

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Green Is The New Black-How To Change The World With Style by Tamsin Blanchard

“Tamsin Blanchard is a journalist and writer. Since 2005, she has been the Telegraph Magazine’s style director. Before that she wrote about fashion and interiors for The Observer, and spent three years as The Independent‘s fashion editor. She is contributing fashion editor to the V&A Magazine, and a sometime contributing editor to 10 Magazine. She has also written for Vogue, Marie Claire, US Harper’s Bazaar, and The Daily Rubbish. In the late Nineties, she co-founded “˜it’ a luxury boxed magazine for fashion, art and design. She has taught fashion journalism at Central Saint Martins and University of Westminster and is currently an external assessor at London College of Fashion.”

With a foreword by Lily Cole, and lots of contributions from designers and eco experts, it is an entertaining, inspiring guide on how to be fashionably green. – www.tamsin blanchard.com

7. Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys

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Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journeys by Kate Fletcher

“Kate Fletcher is a practitioner and academic who has been working in the field of sustainable fashion for the last 15 years: she has recently become Reader in Sustainable Fashion at London College of Fashion. Her consultancy within the fashion industry, coupled with her educational experience, makes her uniquely well qualified to write this much-needed text. Fletcher, who has helped to develop the concept of “˜slow fashion’, is at the center of research in this area and calls upon both established texts such as McDonough and Braungart’s Cradle to Cradle and recent research from a wide variety of sources, including her own, to support her writing. The quality of research is high.” – Oxford Art Journal

8. Eco Chic: The Savvy Shoppers Guide to Ethical Fashion

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Eco Chic: The Savvy Shoppers Guide to Ethical Fashion by Matilda Lee

“The hottest trend on the catwalk is ethical clothing. Top fashion designers and spokes models including Katharine Hamnett, Stella McCartney and Bono’s wife Ali Hewson are all voicing the benefits of eco chic. But what is this new fad, and what difference can it make to the world? “Eco Chic” gives you the full story on this fashion phenomenon, from which fabrics are harmful to the environment, to how you can create your own eco-friendly fashions through recycling and savvy shopping. You will discover how to spot and avoid garments produced in sweatshops and why supermarket ‘fast clothes’ make both you and the planet sick. This book will allow you to look great but also feel good about your impact on other people and the planet as a whole.” – Amazon

9. Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories: A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays

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Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories: A Collection of Sustainable Design Essays by Jonathan Chapman and Nick Gant

“Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories boldly presents alternative understandings of sustainable design, to curate a challenging, sometimes uncomfortable and always provocative, collection of essays by some of the world’s leading sustainable design thinkers. The result is an authoritative anthology that reinvigorates the culture of critique that in previous years has empowered design with the qualities of social, environmental and economic revolution.” – Earthscan

10. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

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The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

-¦a readable and evenhanded treatment of the complexities of world trade”¦ As Rivoli repeatedly makes clear, there is absolutely nothing free about free trade except the slogan.” – San Francisco Chronicle

11. Threads of Labour

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Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Worker’s Perspective by Angela Hale and Jane Wills

“This book gives valuable insights for decision-makers in international clothing brands. Read it and learn how garment workers worldwide are affected by the sub-contracted manufacturing that characterizes this industry.” – Dan Rees, Director of the Ethical Trading Initiative

12. Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles

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Eco Colour: Botanical Dyes for Beautiful Textiles by India Flint

“The essence of plants bursts forth in magnificent hues and surprising palettes. Using dyes of the leaves, roots, and flowers to color your cloth and yarn can be an amazing journey into botanical alchemy. In Eco Colour, artistic dyer and colorist India Flint teaches you how to cull and use this gentle and ecologically sustainable alternative to synthetic dyes.

India explores the fascinating and infinitely variable world of plant color using a wide variety of techniques and recipes. From whole-dyed cloth and applied color to prints and layered dye techniques, India describes only ecologically sustainable plant-dye methods. She uses renewable resources and shows how to do the least possible harm to the dyer, the end user of the object, and the environment. Recipes include a number of entirely new processes developed by India, as well as guidelines for plant collection, directions for the distillation of nontoxic mordants, and methodologies for applying plant dyes.” – Amazon

13. Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style

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Green Chic: Saving the Earth in Style by Christie Matheson

“Matheson slyly steers us toward consumer goods and services that minimize our earth-stomping human footprint. She’s brave enough to say ‘buy less of everything,’ and even the politically fraught ‘buy nothing.’ Matheson’s genius is to make this seem not only doable, but fun.” – Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land and Bottlemania

14. Sustainable Fashion: Why Now?

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Sustainable Fashion: Why Now? A Conversation Exploring Issues, Practices and Possibilities by Janet Hethorn and Connie Ulasewicz

“Sustainable Fashion: Why Now? is a critical read for anyone with ties to the fashion industry: designers, marketers, product developers, retailers, teachers, students, and consumers that want to become involved with balancing the fashion desires of the individual with the need to be a steward of our environment.” – Fashion Practice

15. Fugitive Denim

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Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade by Rachel Louise Snyder

“Smart and ambitious, cosmopolite journalist Snyder maps the global garment industry, beginning in a New York loft where designers plot a line of ultra-pricey, socially responsible jeans that would ensure a fair wage for workers and not cause excessive environmental degradation. From there she visits cotton growers in Azerbaijan, denim specialists in Italy and factories in Cambodia and China. An excellent reporter, Snyder talks comfortably to both sophisticated designers and factory workers, conveying their very different motives as she paints a picture of an industry far more tangled than most consumers imagine. She notes that economic and employment shifts are felt globally, describing Italy mourning the loss of manufacturing to cheaper factories in Asia, where low-paying jobs represent unprecedented opportunity to many workers. If the prose occasionally verges on cuteness, it’s preferable to the jargon of quotas and NGOs ubiquitous in most discussions of global trade. Snyder’s investigation is an essential read for those curious about fashion or the globe-spanning business that produces their clothes.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Photo credit: Book pages by Horia Varlan on Flickr, licensed for commercial use under Creative Commons.

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