Sustainable style news from EcoSalon’s West Coast Fashion Editor.

Fashion Week Wow – Portland’s Fashion Week kicks off tonight with the official launch party held at Urban Studio in the Pearl District. Proud recipients of the country’s #1 sustainable city honor, Portland hosts the five day event that features a special lineup of world-class sustainable designers like Avni, Anna Cohen, Ethos Paris, and Lenzanita on Thursday, October 6^th along with top local brands like Stephanie D. Couture, Ms Wood, Collier, and Amai Unmei on Friday, October 7^th. Support green fashion and see why Portland is known for being a hotbed for U.S. design talent.

Straight Shot – Head down to San Francisco’s green Temple Nightclub for the third annual Catapult Design fundraising event to see some of the latest design work with a social impact and see some of the coolest people in the Bay Area in one room together. Catapult Design is a maverick design studio devoted to creating “human-centered” designs and to addressing the issues facing nearly 2 billion people around the world without clean water, food and shelter. See you there!

Indie Summer – Come outside for the Bay Area’s last outdoor fashion event of the year. Showcasing the skills of the local DIY community, San Francisco’s Indie Mart will host 100 vendors this Sunday, October 9^th. In addition to the food, beer and bands the event is known for, there will be original goodies available from local creatives like SeedStore, Gangs of SF, Pretty Penny, San Franpsycho, Indosole, Workshop, Black Jet Bakery and plenty more. Get it while it’s still hot.

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The tag line for the Ethical Fashion Shows hosted in Paris reads, “Notre but: prouver que la mode ethique peut etre a la fois tendance et parteuse de benefices sociaux et environmentaux.” For those of you who are scrambling to remember French vocabulary from high school, they’ve basically stated that their goal is to show that fashion can be trendy while still being ethical, environmental and socially responsible. Sounds like a good goal, non?

What’s better is that the Ethical Fashion Shows presented very wearable collections in the four day trade show with live catwalks. Hosted in the new Docks en Seine building, which is quite a new age architectural marvel itself, the design on design aesthetic worked well, affording designers the space to create interesting and artful exhibits.

With over thirty different designers exhibiting, here are but a few that made my short list:

• A & K Classics
• Ciel
• Ethos Paris
• Shifumi
• Ute Auwarter

Differing from the Green Shows in New York – the Estethica exhibit and Sustainable Show during London Fashion Week – the Ethical Fashion Shows were much more intimate with an educational element. Even the program held information regarding what constitutes an ethical piece of clothing, which was brilliant!

All in all it was a wonderful introduction to not only the local Parisian ethical designers, but many from Peru, India and other parts of Europe. I am confident that as the Ethical Fashion Shows develop, their fashion capital of the world host – Paris – will push their ambiance and presentation forward while keeping the educational segment in tact.

(Photos above are from the Peru Fashion focus catwalks during the Ethical Fashion Shows. Photo credit: Greta Eagan)

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While we’re still frothing at the mouth over Portland, Oregon’s own Gretchen Jones winning the last two week’s Project Runway challenges, Seth Aaron, winner of last season’s Project Runway is doubling the energy in the City of Roses.

Looking forward to Portland Fashion Week, Aaron will be presenting a collection inspired by SolarWorld as a reaction to “Pressing energy, environmental and economic challenges facing the country,” and because of his interest in exploring solar technology’s aesthetic possibilities.

The collection will be unveiled October 9 in PFW’s Sustainable Fashion Showcase in Portland.

This isn’t PFW’s first foray into promoting alternative and sustainable fashion, there’s a whole page of information on their site that will educate you more about their initiatives including having a show at Portland City Hall (with Portland’s Mayor, City Council and press in attendance), to educate policy-makers on planet-friendly practices in fashion to their construction of runways with eco-friendly materials and even using sustainably-certified hotels for their guests.

We caught up with both Aaron and PFW Executive Producer Prasenjit Tito Chowdhury to see just what to expect over the next few months.

EcoSalon: Can you talk about how PFW will be the “World’s first carbon-neutral fashion week production?” What are some ways you’re going to make this happen?

Prasenjit: Portland Fashion Week is the first comprehensive sustainable production of a fashion week in the world. We take look at all the elements of the fashion week production and make steps to minimize the impact. PFW uses eco-friendly styling products on models, sets are made of sustainably harvested wood, printing is done on recycled paper, there won’t be any plastic bottles at the venue but you’ll find compostable corn-cups for drinks, low voltage LED lighting, electric connections through non-plastic-tape connectors, and sustainable swag bags, to name a few.

Regarding a carbon neutral Portland Fashion Week, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation has provided BEF Water Restoration Certificates(TM) and Green-e Energy-certified BEF Renewable Energy Certificates generated from 100 percent clean, renewable energy for the energy and water used to produce Portland Fashion Week. Both BEF and Green-e are sponsors of PFW.

Prasenjit: In addition to Seth Aaron’s solar-inspired collection, eco-conscious designers and labels like Pendleton, Amai Unmei and Ethos Paris will be putting their fashion on the PFW runway. Others are coming as well who have committed and we are looking forward to releasing their names once we ink our agreements.

EcoSalon: Seth, you say in a Fibre2Fashion article: “There was inspiration from the second I stepped foot in the SolarWorld factory.” Can you share with us how some of that inspiration will come into being for your collection at PFW?

Seth Aaron: Things just jumped out at me – impressions – It was all hyper-futuristic. There were intense graphic grids, hard lines, very clean and crisp, structured. It was metal and robotic and just an impressive space! There were also bold color palettes – the deepest blues, blacks, and almost science-fiction silvers – that your eyes just fall into.

EcoSalon: I love that you partnered with both SolarWorld and PFW to do this collection. To bring fashion to the forefront of sustainability, would you suggest more designers partnering with innovative companies to showcase themselves and the company’s mission?

Seth Aaron: The partnership with SolarWorld has been awesome and sure I would recommend that others establish relationships with world-leaders in sustainability or business – I mean it’s been pretty incredible to see the story of my fashion collection turn up in everything from the BusinessWire section of Forbes, to conventional fashion mags and blogs, eco-lifestyle and fashion sites, all the way to German business wires and renewable-energy, techno-geek publications!

EcoSalon: Am I reading correctly that there’s going to be a completely solar paneled runway for October’s PFW?

Prasenjit: Oh yeah. The runway will be covered in SolarWorld’s all-new black monocrystalline solar panels. Imagine the look of polished obsidian.

EcoSalon: Nice.

Image: Fred Joe Photo

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Rising like a phoenix from the ashes in these comfortable yet stylish pants, you will never suffer from shopper’s remorse. Ethos Paris is one of the most affordable yet pretty lines I’ve come across yet. Hands down.

I met the designer recently in New York during Market Week and was assured that it was in fact certified organic, Fair Trade and not genetically modified. Sold.

And at $54, you should be sold too.

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