Cool Hunting—Friday nights at San Francisco’s De Young Museum is where you’ll find the city’s culturally cool enjoying cocktails and the best in live music, poetry, films, dance, and lectures. Add world class shopping to the list this weekend at the first ever fair-trade bazaar showcasing fair-trade products from around the globe. Shop for unique items including jewelry, textiles, native handcrafts, and decorative accessories reflecting the many cultures represented in the museum’s collection. Free admission, plus members receive a 10% discount on all purchases. All proceeds support exhibitions, programs, art conservation and preservation efforts at the de Young and Legion of Honor.

Coast Couture—The month of August is Ocean Awareness Month at Fred Segal in Santa Monica. Head down to ZeroMinusPlus, the incredible home and life accessory store on Thursday, August 25 from 6-9 pm for a fundraising event benefiting 5 Gyres and featuring the art of Marina DeBris and her show “Beach Couture — A Trash ‘n’ Fashion Show.” Showcasing the artwork she crafts from trash she picks up as she runs along the coast every morning, “I use humor to startle viewers into taking a closer look at things we usually ignore. The goal is to encourage people to rethink their use of disposables and ultimately reduce waste, “ said DeBris. “Beach Couture” will be up until September 5. The City of Santa Monica will be giving out free reusable bags made by local veterans.

Seattle Sound—At the center of Seattle’s hot indie fashion scene is designer Sara Seumae’s SPUN sustainable collective, where small designers rent rack space to get their work in front of the public. Hosting its first-ever sample sale of the basics-with-a-twist SPUN line on August 27, the sale features 20 to 90 percent off of past-season styles, old stock, samples and one-offs—it’s a great opportunity to try well made, organic cotton clothing made in the U.S.A. Style seekers will also find clothing from Alki Apparel, Bri Seeley, Cameron Levin and many more locavore labels.

The post Eco Style West Vol.23 appeared first on EcoSalon.

With Project Green Search, season two now underway, group co-founder Aysia Wright has her green cap on and is ready to tackle the big job of finding the next fresh face to represent social and environmental ethics in the green realm.

I caught up with her this week to ask some questions about just what project Green Search is all about. Here’s what she had to say.

Tell us what Rachel Avalon accomplished over her year?

She attended events such as the Global Green Oscars, the Millenium Awards, Fred Segal red carpet events, among others, as well as being featured in several articles online, in print, video and radio, including Treehugger, Peppermint Magazine, Organic Spa Magazine, Coco Eco Magazine, EcoStiletto, The Daily Green, and more. Given her interest in non-toxic beauty, she ultimately agreed to become an Ambassador for the Campaign for Safe cosmetics. She will be producing webinars on clean beauty to allow those seeking more information to obtain it in an easily digestible format vs. wading through reams of data and articles. Ultimately, PGS is a support network that will work to provide the winner with much exposure and open as many doors as we can. It should not be looked at as a golden ticket, it’s an opportunity for recognition, support, exposure that will help a dedicated woman on her way. What she does with it is up to her. The prize package doesn’t hurt either.

I think a lot of people assume this contest is just for a fresh face for modeling but we read on your site that it’s to create a sort of warrior woman for a “Green Revolution.” Enlighten us on what it’s really for.

It’s two fold: Hopefully Project Green Search serves as a point of inspiration for people at large to realize they can align their careers with their social and environmental ethics. Something flashy and sexy like modeling, or hosting, is a fun and visible way to make that point. I also want PGS to serve as an awareness platform for people to realize they don’t have to tow the party line – they can stand up to companies with questionable environmental and social practices and demand them to make changes. Whether that means choosing only to work with triple bottom line, LOHAS based businesses and organizations, or working from within entities to foster positive change is up to them.

Does it help if she does have a fresh face?

I’d say she has to have something esthetically special – fresh, striking, radiant, classical beauty, poise – something that sets her apart. Let’s face it, attractive women have a unique power to draw attention, which benefits the product, service, organization or event they are representing. But these women need to be more than just a pretty face and beauty in this context is much more. These women have depth, authenticity, a passion for change making. It shows when a person believes in what they are representing, and strengthens the brand they represent. More and more we are seeing companies feature women with a story – seek more than just looks for their models and spokespeople and there is real opportunity here.

Is the contest age specific?

No, the contest is not age specific. Women of all ages are welcome to enter. There’s a pretty broad demographic of people out there age wise seeking eco friendly products and services, and they respond to people who they can relate to. This might be a 22-year-old woman or it might be a 55-year-old woman.

What are some new challenges you’ll do for this year’s contest?

We’ve got a pretty fun line up of challenges this year, most of which are centered around developing a career in this space, but we do have one new component that’s all about having a kick ass time and bringing out the competitive nature of the finalists – the Eco Scavenger Race – in which the finalists will pair up for a mad dash, following clever clues to suss out certain sustainable goodies.

Looking forward, what do you hope to  to accomplish with PGS?

Ideally, I’d like to see it develop into a mechanism for sharing the stories of people who opt to fight the good fight, make tough decisions along the way, work to make change.

The post Project Green Search Launches Its Second Season appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve already written a lot about Love Heals since we love just about everything they do. So we shouldn’t have been surprised when they sent us info on a new project they were launching called, The Design Studio.

The online design interface (the first of its kind) lets you become the designer choosing handcrafted charms, strands and pendants and manipulate them into stunning, personalized necklaces.

“For the past few years, Love Heals has been receiving daily requests for custom jewelry. In order to serve both our stores and our customers better, we wanted to develop an accessible design process that allows everyone to bring their creative instincts to the table,” says Love Heals President Gunnar Lovelace. “The stores and our customers know the quality of artisan work that we put into every piece of jewelry we design – and we want to share that experience, as well as our mission of giving back.”

How to start? All you have to do is simply drag and drop the various eye catching pieces onto the “stage” to see what looks good and keep going like the little raven you are or you can keep it minimal. It’s actually a lot of fun.

I designed a piece that when all was said and done went for $192, but it was absolutely perfect in every way. And thanks to Love Heals Jewelry love for EcoSalon readers, they’re allowing us to offer a 30 percent discount to you in celebration of their launch. Just enter DESIGN at the checkout.

After each “guest designer,” has chosen from the thousands of ethically sourced, handcrafted materials and which gets sent off to be assembled by the pros, they will receive their design within 7-15 business days.

And the best part of this post?

If you’ve read down this far, you’re invited to an EcoSalon/Love Heals design contest where if you have the winning design, you get it free!

Simply design your necklace and select “share” within The Design Studio’s interface by emailing it to us at editor@ecosalondotcom. We’ll pick the winner a week later and the winning design will be gifted once we make the decision.

So get designing!

Background on Love Heals: Sold in high-end stores across the country (Fred Segal, Free People, Calypso, Planet Blue), Ojai, California based Love Heals is renowned for their gorgeous jewelry and CSR initiatives which include planting 10 trees with Greener Ethiopia and protecting a child from blindness with Vitamin Angels for every piece they sell. (For each design you make, Love Heals will also plant 10 trees and give money to Vitamin Angels.) Not to mention, Oprah, Taylor Swift and Alicia Silverstone are die-hard Love Heals fans.

To date, the company has planted over 432,000 trees and protected over 5,000 children from blindness.

The post Love Heals Feeds the DIY Addicted appeared first on EcoSalon.