British retailer Marks & Spencer and charity Oxfam create a giant Union Jack from unwanted clothing as part of their new scheme to get customers “shwopping.”

It’s quite a banner year for the British—the Olympics and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Lots of reasons to celebrate with the Union Jack and now, thanks to a campaign by British retailer Marks & Spencer and charity Oxfam there is one more.

To raise awareness for their new shopping scheme called “Shwopping,” they have created the world’s largest Union Jack flag from unwanted clothes. Using 2,100 unwanted items of clothing that was donated to the initiative, pieced together by local volunteers and school children who put together the clothes mosaic – measuring 65’ by 33’ – in East London in under 2 hours (see video below). All the contributed garments will be recycled by Oxfam.

So what exactly is shwopping? The idea is to encourage consumers to adopt a “buy one, give one” mentality when they are shopping, rewarding customers with gifts and prizes for donating an item of clothing to charity whenever they purchase something new from the store.

Old items are dropped into “Shwop Drop” boxes located inside Marks & Spencer stores and are then directed to partners Oxfam. The clothing is then resold in one of their stores or forwarded on to those in need in the Third World, or recycled into fibers to make new material. Absolutely nothing goes to the landfill. Oxfam will use the money raised to help people around the world overcome poverty.

The initiative is part of the Marks & Spencer Plan A program that was launched in 2007 in partnership with Oxfam. Since its initial launch, Plan A has already collected over 10 million garments. Aiming to create a new retailer culture beyond throwaway fashion where reusing, recycling or reselling old clothes becomes the norm. Their goal is to become the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015 and to recycle as many clothes as they sell, currently more than hundreds of millions of items each year.

Find out more by visiting Marks & Spencer.

The post The Brits Go Shwopping appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fashion eccentrics like the late Anna Piaggi flouted the rules of conventional fashion.

“Good taste is the worst vice ever invented,” Dame Edith Sitwell famously declared. We can only wonder what the unconventional poet would’ve made of today’s fashion magazines, and their endless style guides proffering hints, tips, dos, dont’s and – of course – “must-have” buys.

We know that mass-produced fashion is destroying the planet, but it might well be destroying style too. Touted as democratic; what fast fashion has really delivered is so much sameness, it’s stifling.

Our taste for copycat style came into sharp relief earlier this month with the news that Italian fashion editor, Anna Piaggi, had died. The photos that accompanied the style icon’s obituaries showed her talent for unbridled, imaginative outfits but most strikingly, the confidence of an original woman who truly lived the life she envisioned – reminding us just how dreary wanting to look merely “pretty” really is.

So if you’re interested in developing a look beyond the inspiration of fashion magazines and the boring, bland and safe choices of their film star cover girls, take a look at some of fashion’s favorite style anarchists now and then. As the late Alexander McQueen declared, ‘”Fashion needs eccentrics, of course, but so does the world. God, the world would be boring without them.”

Marchesa Casati

Once quoted saying, “I want to be a living work of art,” Luisa, Marquise Casati Stampa di Soncino was an Italian heiress in early 20th century Europe. Known as the first female dandy, she was muse to and patronized some of the biggest artists of her time. Even now her outrageous and flamboyant style still manages to inspire designers to this day, including Lagerfeld, Tom Ford and John Galliano.

Diana Vreeland

Described by her mother as an “ugly little monster,” legendary Vogue editor, Diana Vreeland highlighted her so-called flaws and defined her motto, “elegance is refusal.” Scraping her blue-black hair into a severe knot to spotlight her unconventional profile, her garishly rouged cheeks and scarlet fingernails became her signature. “You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody,” she said.

Isabella Blow

Style icon and international magazine editor, Blow was credited for discovering and nurturing fashion talents such as Alexander McQueen, Sophie Dahl, Hussein Chalayan and milliner Philip Treacy. Treacy’s muse, she was rarely photographed without one of his extravagant and flamboyant headpieces. Suffering with depression throughout her life, she tragically committed suicide in 2007.

Anna Piaggi, with milliner Stephen Jones

With a wave of blue hair curled over one eye, vivid lipstick and a bright dash of rouge on each cheek, fashion journalist Anna Piaggi was a front row regular who was said to be “the world’s last great authority on frocks” – of which she owned more than 2,800. London’s V&A Museum dedicated an entire exhibition to her remarkable career in fashion journalism. Muse to milliner Stephen Jones, who released a statement upon her recent death describing Piaggi as “a talisman for all those around the world who believe that fashion is a way of life and that freedom of expression should manifest itself in what we wear.”

Lynn Yaegar

Instantly recognizable by her bright red hair, doll-like face and painted-on cupid-bow lips, Yaegar is a contributing fashion editor and writer to Vogue. She is a former fashion reporter for The Village Voice, having worked for the paper for 30 years. Known for her love of vintage clothing, she is a rare original on today’s style scene.

Daphne Guinness

Heiress of the Guinness family and muse to photographers Steven Klein and David LaChapelle, Daphne Guinness has an intensely cultivated sense of dress and her rejection of style status quo makes her one of today’s most enigmatic style icons. “I truly hate the word [eccentric]…I’m actually very grounded…Also, eccentrics are almost asexual, and that is not something you can say of me, by any means…What drives me now is the idea of something being against the world. I’m an artist, I suppose.”

The post Now & Then: The Fashion Eccentrics appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s a perverse pleasure watching the characters in Mad Men smoke and drink away without any fear of consequence. With the days of the three-martini lunch well and truly over – say nothing for the disappearance of mid-century bar accoutrements like chrome smoking stands and Murano glass table lighters – it’s reassuring to know that while the cocktail hour might not be as much fun as it was, the spirit of the dress which was named for it remains intact.

The nip-waisted, full-skirted New Look silhouette pioneered by Christian Dior dominated cocktail fashions thru the 50s. Thankfully, the gloves and hat were soon replaced with a great pair of heels.

Born in the years after World War I, the emerging cocktail culture corresponded with sweeping social changes that led to the independent “modern woman” venturing out into more diverse groups of people mixing in clubs, lounges and private cocktail soirées. Bridging the gap between an afternoon dress – suitable for afternoon tea – and a grand gown for attending evening balls, came the transitional cocktail dress, knee length and worn until the late 1950s with elbow length gloves and flirty little hats.

Sparkling in Paco Rabanne’s futuristic gold paillettes, Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road.

Favoring fine fabrics such as satin, silk, velvet and silk jersey – and after the success of Chanel’s little black dress a.k.a the LBD in 1926  –  the color black, the short, often tight-fitting cocktail dress quickly became a desired item of attire for all women in the 1930s. For those in the progressive and fashionable Cafe Society, it became a uniform.

Julia Roberts memorably went searching for a dress for a night out in Pretty Woman. “I got a dress,” she proudly tells Richard Gere. “A cocktail one.”

From its early realization and onwards – Christian Dior’s (Dior in fact coining the term “cocktail dress” in the late 40s) full-skirted New Look, Givenchy’s elegant renderings worn immaculately by Audrey Hepburn in the 1950s classic’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sabrina, to Paco Rabanne’s swinging shifts in gold paillettes and Halston’s essential draped disco dress for Studio 54 – the silhouettes, like the partying habits, have changed with the decades. Whatever your poison, the pleasures of a bold dress in a flattering fit with a face framing neckline can be both intoxicating and life-affirming.

Modern day Bon Viveur: Kate Moss in a lace-panelled cocktail dress by John Galliano for Dior Couture.

Now & Then: The Trench Coat

Now & Then: The Bold Brow

Now & Then: The History of the Cuff

Now & Then: The History of Turtlenecks

Now & Then: The History of Tights

Now & Then: The History of Skinny Jeans

Now & Then: The History of the Chevron Stripe

Now & Then: The History of Penny Loafers

Now & Then: The History of Go-Go Boots

Now & Then: The History of the Poet Blouse

Now & Then: The History of Ladylike Gloves

The post Now & Then: The History of the Cocktail Dress appeared first on EcoSalon.