Everywhere I turn, it seems people are complaining about the cold weather. Ok, no more sitting beach side for a while but come on, hot chocolate, warm fires and cozy sweaters warm the soul!  There’s nothing like cozying up as the cold weather rolls in. And with so many great options for eco-friendly sweaters on the market today you can be assured you are staying toasty with quality made responsible garments. Here is a round up of our favorite eco-friendly fall sweaters.

1. Rib Pullover by Organic by John Patrick

If there is one thing John Patrick Organics has nailed it’s high quality basics. This eco-friendly sweater is made from premium fibers—90% wool and 10% cashmere. Recognized by the CFDA, Organic by John Patrick is showing the high street fashion industry basics last, and they can be organic too.

Organic by John Patrick, $340

2. Aztec Stripe Sweater by Chinti and Parker

If you are looking for a graphic, eco-friendly sweaters this fall, Chinti and Parker has you covered. Their enormous selection of sweaters “spells a new era of style and luxury, one that is built on integrity and sustainability, and one which far outlives seasonal trends.” Chinti and Parker offset all their carbon emissions making their clothing carbon neutral, and each garment comes with a tag stating its ethical credentials.

Chinti and Parker, $495

3. Alpaca Sheer Pullover by Indigenous

Indigenous creates organic and free trade certified clothing by collaborative with artisans around the world. As a Certified B Corp, Indigenous is dedicated to upholding the highest standards of industry best practices. This fair trade certified sweater is made with 100% (super soft) wool from free-ranging alpacas and is dyed using low-impact dyes.

Indigenous, $190

4. Florence Sweater by Curator

Simple and sweet, this sweater is made using 100% organic cotton. Curator is a label labor of love and all Curator clothing is designed and produced in San Francisco with minimum waste.

Curator, $84

5. Bougainvillea Sweater by The Reformation

The Reformation has created somewhat of a cult following around their brand and we love their PSA’s like this one: “Cotton is scary. Conventional cotton crops in California alone are dusted with 6.9 million pounds of chemicals yearly. We don’t use new cotton fabric in any of our clothes, so you can breathe easy.” Can you guess this sweater is made from surplus cotton blend fabric in sunny Los Angeles?

Reformation, $98

6. Tunic Diagonal by VOZ

This sweater is so cool! And the story behind it is even better. VOZ works with indigenous artisans empowering them through collaborative fashion design, and allowing them to gain access to western markets. Each hand-made garment is made of the highest quality natural and eco-friendly fibers, hand dyed and woven to preserve tradition.

VOZ, $435

7. Lola by Beaumont Organic

Perfect for cozying up with, Beaumont Organic’s 100% Alpaca loose fitting, color blocked cardigan is great to throw on around the house or wear with a button down and pencil skirt to work. And pst, it’s on sale!

Beaumont Organic, on sale for £95.00

Want More Fall Inspiration?

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5 Ethical Fall Coats From Hot Designers: Cozy and Chic

The post 7 Beautiful, Comfy, and Eco-Friendly Sweaters appeared first on EcoSalon.

“They say you should start a business that you wish already existed, so we quit our day jobs,”  is the motto of personal-passion-follower and Everlane CEO, Michael Preysman. At the age of 25, Preysman left his 9-5 venture-capital job in Fall of 2010 to start his own business. What he created has become more than just a company, it’s a guide to true factory transparency. 

The first Everlane garment I ever saw was the Classic Silk Blouse ($80) shown above. As a tried-and-true basics girl, I fell in love. What I couldn’t wrap my head around was how their prices were so low, and yet their brand spoke of a new fashion model. That is, until I did some digging.

“Complete Transparency: Know Your Factories. Know Your Costs. Always Ask Why“ is Everlane’s creed, so I didn’t have to dig too deep to find out they deliver nothing less than the truth. Everlane believes in an open and transparent customer dialog—to challenge, and be challenged (something many brands could learn from). They are cutting costs by selling their products exclusively through their online store, bypassing the 8x markup traditional to designer labels, and “passing the savings on to you,” according to their site.

But the company’s transparency initiatives impact more than just the price tag, and delve deep into their production practices. Sandals, tees and French Terry are Made in Los Angeles; Bow ties and ties in New York City; belts in San Francisco; totes in Texas; scarves in Scotland; towels in Turkey; and silk, backpacks, weekenders, cashmere, and PK in China. Their next step is producing handbags in Italy and wallets in Spain.

Everlane Explores, a thoroughly documented look into their factories, takes you on a journey with the Everlane creative team, CEO included, as they personally step inside their well-researched, hand picked manufacturing facilities around the world. They’ve just returned from their first leg of travels to China. And I caught up with Preysman about Everlane and here’s a look into how and why they’ve created a new model for the fashion industry.

Michael Preysman: We started Everlane as outsiders. We had no idea what items cost and how the industry worked. When we learned that a basic t-shirt carries an 8x markup we decided we could design our own but sell it for 2x. That was much of the basis for starting the company and we wanted to share that with our customers. For the products we make, we offer transparent pricing. That means we tell consumers the cost of the goods and our markup, so they know we’re being fair.

We also found that many brands produce 95 percent of goods in Asia, but often try to hide the fact from consumers. They never list the country of origin on the website and they publish videos of europe to create a false reality. We do the opposite. We try to find the best factory in the world for each product and we have no problems sharing that with the customer. We now produce in the US, China, Spain and Italy.

MP: Absolutely. Consumers want to know where their products come from and brands have a duty to be honest all the way through the process.

MP: The biggest issue with overseas is that we’re not there to see everything. That problem exists in Europe and in Asia. We find owners we trust that have been around for years and care about their employees. We then conduct audits and visit all of the factories before producing. We’ve been very lucky to find great people around the world.

MP: We don’t work with retailers and don’t have to cover the costs of a physical store. That’s a lot of savings to pass onto the consumer. Our markup is 2x, it’s the lowest you’ll see in the industry.

MP: We’re a motley bunch and a bit of a pain. Everyone is a perfectionist and has such strong opinions. It makes it tough to get things out the door. As a result we do fewer things and try to do them very well. We’re having a ton of fun and the team is incredibly close.

Here is a sneak peek—in pictures—of what they found during the company’s factory tour in China:

Dongguan, China: Cashmere Knitting Factory

Dongguan, China: Seed Stitch Knitting Factory

Shenzhen, China: The PK Factory

Dongguan, China: Backpack and Weekender Factory

Ningbo, China: Cashmere Spinning Factory

Ningbo, China: Cashmere Storage and Dye House

Why can’t all clothing companies do this? It’s against the traditional model of how production is done.  To be so engaged in overseas factories isn’t easy, but we are beginning to see the idea spread. Customers want the full story, and Everlane is delivering. As we ask why, let’s support those who take the time to deliver the answers and complete transparency could become endemic across the industry. There’s no tricks or tips, just passion for a better way.

images: Everlane

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The best of EcoSalon’s stories this week.

How do you want to come across to a new acquaintance – strong and dignified, or whiny and self-obsessed? As The Hunger Games goes ballistic at the box office, we celebrate a better cinematic role model for women than a certain “emo teenager pining for her hybrid werewolf-vampire boyfriend”.

How did you originally find EcoSalon? A certain staffer delves deep into our analytics in search of outlier search engine queries, with predictably disturbing results.

Can you imagine greeting the dawn from within one of these gorgeously minimalist Zen retreats?

Congratulations for sustainable fashion designers Everlane – they may have just upended the traditional, relatively wasteful model of industrial clothing production.

Finally, our resident foodie’s column turned two years old this week. Go join in the celebration of Anna Brones and her hit column, Foodie Underground (there’s cake!).

The post The Friday 5: Making a Good Impression Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

A new e-commerce site redefining what sustainable fashion means.

Sustainable fashion isn’t just about rigorous sourcing and handmade craftsmanship. As much as we might admire a sweater by Edun or a skirt by Organic by John Patrick, most of us who appreciate responsibly made, high-quality clothing make do with scouring resale racks, and the occasional guilty purchase at Target.

But there is a middle ground, where sustainability and affordability collide, and it’s bigger than we think it is. Everlane, a company that was founded in November of 2011, might not market itself as earth-conscious, but their system of manufacturing so radically eliminates the bloat and waste endemic to the fashion industry that it can’t be overlooked.

Before you can understand how drastically Everlane has upended the traditional model of industrial clothing production, you have to understand how the original model works. A traditional clothing designer plans and produces a line around six months in advance, in lots of perhaps 20,000 units apiece. That’s 20,000 skirts, 20,000 shirts and 20,000 pants that have to be designed, sewn, stored and shipped to retailers all over the world. After this herculean feat takes place, the company crosses their fingers and hopes that it all sells – usually at an incredibly inflated price.

This model applies to all the items in a manufacturer’s line, from shoes, to jewelry, to accessories and starts over a year in advance, with occasionally colossal expenditures and no room for error if say, the demand for polka dots or the color chartreuse isn’t as high as originally anticipated. If all those items aren’t sold, it becomes overstock that is sold at a loss to the manufacturer as well as the retailer – or worse, destroyed.

Polyester is made from petroleum; cotton is extremely pesticide-dependent. Dying the fabric creates hundreds of gallons of wastewater and toxic runoff – all for clothes that may just find their way into a dumpster. Many people were horrified to discover that in a world where so many people are cold and unclothed, companies like Wal-Mart and H&M were shredding overstock but isn’t the overstock’s very existence a problem in itself?

That’s where Everlane’s minimalist solution comes in. The company doesn’t build and staff its own factories. They don’t even build or staff their own physical stores. Instead, they contract with already-existing factories that manufacture many other high-end brands and keep their marketplace entirely online. Their clothes are manufactured in runs of five hundred or less and sold exclusively to their subscriber base, which currently stands around 200,000.

Everlane’s line of cool, classic garments with a twist has included everything from bags, to sweatshirts, to accessories like iPhone cases, for both men and women. They keep everything priced under $100 while maintaining exceptionally high quality. If a micro-run of backpacks sells out incredibly fast, then they manufacture more. If not, then the company moves in another direction. “It’s about understanding the consumer, instead of predicting what they’ll like,” says Michael Preysman, Everlane’s co-founder.

The company also tries to unveil a new style every week. Some runs may sell in a month or two; others, like a run of backpacks, sell in less than a day. Less overstock means less storage, fewer associated transportation costs, and perhaps most importantly, fewer processed materials.

By eliminating a lot of the costs associated with starting a clothing line, they’re able to pass on those savings to their customers. A long-sleeved tee shirt that might sell for $75 only costs $20.

“We try to be conscious about everything we do, from office waste to minimal packaging. Avoiding excess is part of our design philosophy, and as an added bonus it’s also usually more cost efficient,” says Preysman.

Avoiding excess is such an obviously sustainable practice that few of us devote any thought to it. We compost our leftovers and wash our reusable bags, but then we shop H&M’s organic collection without thinking about the fact that it probably produces just as much waste – in terms of labor, time and processed materials – as their non-organic counterparts.

Sometimes, the most innovative solutions are hiding in plain sight. Sustainability doesn’t have to be expensive it can, as Preysman points out, simply be a good business plan.

“I think efficiency and sustainability go hand in hand,” Preysman says. “And high quality doesn’t have to be high priced.”

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