Ten clever, easy DIY ways to remake your pants for fall.

I was in NYC the other day, and for the first time in what seems like forever I was actually cold. This means two things: fall is definitely on its way and shorts are once again to be replaced with pants. The good news is that there are so many great styles of pants that are on trend for fall. But, instead of buying new ones, revamp the ones you already have with these 10 easy-to-do DIY projects.

Palazzo Pants
Wide-leg, printed palazzo pants are probably one of fall’s absolute biggest trends. They are as easy-breezy to make as they are to wear. This gorgeous pair by a pair and a spare look like they came straight off the runway. I’ll be making a few pairs of these in different prints immediately.

Color-blocked Pants
Color-blocking is still going strong this fall, and you can easily turn a pair of ho-hum chinos into a cheerful fashion statement with little more than fabric paint and tape. HonestlyWTF will show you the way.

Tuxedo Pants
Suddenly, tuxedo pants are seen everywhere, and they are super simple to make at home. Check out this tutorial by Henry Happened to find out how you can make yours. We’d make them in black and white and love that they can be dressy if worn with a sheer blouse or sporty if worn with a simple T-shirt.

Lace-Embellished Jeans
Lace seemed to pop up in the collections of many designers this season, mainly used as an embellishment. When paired with unexpected materials, such as denim, it creates a contrast that feels fresh and very on trend. This pair of lace-embellished jeans by a pair and a spare were inspired by Jason Wu’s Fall 11 collection and will certainly give you the look for less.

Distressed Denim
At fashion weeks around the world, fashionistas were wearing denim that wasn’t just a little bit distressed but completely shredded to bits. If you want this look to happen naturally, it would probably take a few years. In this tutorial, Swellmaybe and UniqueLA show us a simple way to achieve the look, DIY style.

Tie-Dye Leggings
Nope, we are in no way over tie-dye just yet, and the fact that it’s such an easy and fun way to transform any kind of garment just fuels our fascination. This tutorial by designer (and tie-dye expert) Shabd Simon-Alexander for Martha Stewart gives you an almost floral print, which feels very current for fall and will work long into spring and summer.

Silk Scarf Trousers
These below the knee shorts can be made from one single scarf (which you can find tons of in almost any thrift store), and the larger the scarf the longer your trousers can be. This tutorial by Park & Cube shows you how easy this is to do, but make sure to follow their advice to measure twice, cut once.

Studded Denim
Sometimes it’s those small, simple details that can really make a garment go from something that just lingers in your closet to something you wear every day. This simple, clever tutorial by Swellmayde shows you how to revamp a pair of existing jeans using metal studs. We love that they are both tough and sweet at the same time.

Fringe Pockets
Embellishment is a huge trend this fall, and the good news is that it’s very simple to do yourself. Putting fringe on the pockets of your jeans takes them from ordinary to fun in a pinch. It also plays well with fall’s western trend. I remember doing this to a pair of jeans when I was about ten years old, so it’s very simple. Check out this tutorial by Fashionista New York Girl to find out how. Just use a pair of pants instead of shorts and it’s perfect for fall.

Pajama Pants
Who would have thought we would ever consider wearing pajama pants outside of the house, and with heels nonetheless. Luckily for all of us, this comfy bedroom-staple has made it’s runway debut and taken it to the streets. This tutorial by ducky house shows you how to make a pair from old sheets. We think they would look great in a dark silk fabric or white cotton, with contrasting neon lace for the cuffs.

SEE ALSO:

DIY: 10 Things to do With an Old T-Shirt

DIY: 10 DIY Bracelets You Can Make This Weekend

DIY: 10 Summer Shorts You Can Make At Home

DIY: 10 Statement Earrings You Can Totally Make

The post DIY: 10 Ways to Remake Your Pants For Fall appeared first on EcoSalon.

What you should look out for at the thrift shop right now.

To be a successful thrift shopper you need to be able to quickly weed through rows and rows of racks to find those special pieces that will make your friends green with envy. While thrifting requires an open mind, it helps to have a general idea of what you are looking to find. Here’s our tips on things that you should keep an eye out for at the thrift shop right now.

Color

Color is still a major trend we’ll continue to see through spring and summer. Color blocking, brights and pastels are all equally on trend and fairly easy to find in any well-stocked thrift store. The ones that sort their merchandise by color are especially good for scoring colorful finds. Look for solids like burgundy (wear it head-to-toe or match with pale pink), pastels and especially tangerine.

Anoraks & Bomber Jackets
Army/surplus jackets were seen on many runways this season, Jason Wu and Isabel Marant included, and are a great way to toughen up any ensemble. Score extra brownie points if you manage to find one with a Camo print.

Prints & Patterns
The biggest trend this season, without question, is prints. Whether you are mixing patterns to create a head-to-toe print look or using one patterned piece to add contrast to a simple monochrome look – prints will do the trick.

Lace
Valentino’s lace dress from the F/W 2012 collection really brought lace back into the realms of high fashion, and has everyone looking to recreate this hit look. There are currently six magazine covers, among them W and ELLE, featuring this dress. Look for lace tops at the thrift shop to create your own dreamy lace look, in black, white or neutral.

Peplums
When it comes to details, peplums are all the rage right now. If you find one – you’ve hit thrift paydirt! Dig thru the 80s section to find a peplum dress, skirt or jacket (just make sure you remove those inevitable shoulder pads).

Denim

Denim never goes out of style, which is why it’s such a great thing to thrift. When it comes to pants, look for a straight leg boyfriend fit. Denim jackets and vests are also great right now, and make sure you stock up on denim shorts for summer. If you can’t find shorts, just look for jeans that fit well and cut the legs off.

The post What To Thrift Right Now: Color, Anoraks, Prints, Lace, Peplums & Denim appeared first on EcoSalon.

Whether you tip toed through the end of 2010 holiday parties with a naughty or nice outlook is really something between you and the man with the untamed white beard. We are already gazing ahead to spring/summer 2011, particularly with numerous fashion week line-ups now at our slush-saturated heels. An upcoming fashion trend that might surprise you in this era of recession-studded austerity is an increasing fascination with macramé, crochet, and hand-made lace. Both Fashionising and Style.com have announced that caftans and hippie-chic ponchos have been upgraded to luxurious and supremely feminine offerings for 2011. A testimony perhaps to our desire for fashion that demonstrates the labor of love that goes into quality ethical construction and accessories that also tell a story?

Mark Liu, A/W 10′

As a fiber artist I am always looking for evidence of stunning handwork in key fashion investment pieces. I have also admired how both indie and sustainable fashion designers were the first to go “knotty by nature,” ahead of celebrated names like Celine, Catherine Malandrino, Gucci, or Pucci. London-based zero-waste designer Mark Liu even created a knotting system as a way to eliminate textile waste in the creation of his Winter 2010 collection, “Singularity Point.”

Eko-Lab, A/W 10′

There is definitely something alluring about donning fiber-crafted fashion – as the cord, yarn, or ribbon simply gets softer and more malleable with wear. Knotted couture is actually an ancient phenomenon. The earliest skirt on record is a Paleolithic mini-skirt made of knotted strings that were weighted with tiny pebbles that went klickety-klack as women swished in front of the campfire. We have evidently come along way, ladies, if Roberto Cavalli is now keen on creating body-hugging string gowns for the rock-chick Venuses of our times.

Eko-Lab Crochet Panties

Xing-Zhen Chung Hilyard and Melissa Kirgan of Eko-lab have incorporated some wild and knotty crochet into their sustainably minded fashion designs, principally as organic trim elements but also as a head-to-toe testament to their slow design alchemy. I loved the crocheted top hat and fringe shawl from their AW 2010/11 collection. These “conscious fashion” pioneers also know how to whip up some superfine and sexy crocheted bikinis that rival anything that our Stone Age counterpoints might have crafted.

Michelle Lane’s Japanese cord jewelry collections twine mysticism and the patterns of physics into sculpted wearable art that creates a certain intimacy between the wearer and the object. Lane views her necklaces and bracelets as being more of an extension of clothing than jewelry, and given that she crafts each piece by hand, there is no doubt that this designer has a healthy-preoccupation with organically generated and mindful, small-scale production.

Michelle Lane

Similarly, award-winning Brit designer Tanvi Kant explores wild knots and loopy crafting in her recycled sari fabric necklaces and free form textile creations. Not only is she resourceful in her deconstruction of discarded textile materials, but her one-of-a-kind designs also allow for expression of her cultural heritage and colorful roots. Each knotted design can be artfully shaped on the body according to the individual’s accessorizing whims. Also not to missed on the recycled scrap textile front is designer Michelle Lowe-Holder’s Victorian-style “ribbon Reclaim” neck wear crafted from off-cut fabrics from previous collections and reclaimed ribbon flocked together on a crochet base. (Thanks, Sass Brown, for this tip).

Michele Lowe-Holder

A quick peruse on eBay for eco-macramé or knotted accessories offers up a whole treasure trove of hemp rope bracelets, hippie-style belts, and yes, you guessed it, hanging plant holders. One seller who really stands out, though, is Imperishable Things. Knots can be deceptively simple, and these recycled cotton and nylon rope designs caught my eye with their chic domestic interpretation of cord. Don’t you just love it when yesterday’s clothesline can become tomorrow’s cocktail party conversation starter as noose-style bling?

Imperishable Things

Top Image, Tanvi Kant via Crafts Council UK

The post Knotty By Nature appeared first on EcoSalon.

Over the past year, we’ve covered quite a few trends for you. Recapping a stylish year in pictures, one can’t help but hope the more timely trends will stick around and morph in the new year while a few flaky others fade away. Here’s our top 10 standout picks that we hope you dabbled with wearing. Or, if you were smart, you stayed 100 miles away from.

Hot Pants

Unless you had the body of a model and mind with a touch of crazy, you wouldn’t dare wear this. Yet editorials everywhere sported women frolicking around town in their underpants. I don’t care if they’re knitted or silky, this trend towards negating a hemline is just wrong. Where would you wear this outfit? The beach?

Derek Lam, spring 10‘

Camel

Buttery, sophisticated, ladylike, camel was the color to wear. Not having a camel coat in your closet felt like a sin. Luckily, you still had a camel coat from last year when it emerged as a hot trend.

fall 10 trends, Elle

Lace Resurgence

I love lace, not in a Stevie Nicks “Give to me your leather take from me my lace,” kind of way but as an integral part of your wardrobe and how you can utilize the fabric to mix in textures and patterns. Valentino had some pretty striking lacy pieces last spring that took the grandmother out of lace and instead, added a healthy dose of sex kitten.

Valentino, spring 10

Clogs

Straight from hospital ER rooms and from under all the waitresses who’ve ever thanked Dansko for making the most comfortable shoe ever, came the clog.

Designers went crazy with it making it strappy, cuffed, cut out and edgy so that we’d never look back to the days we slung hash at the local diner.

Coclico

Pantsuits

Why I still don’t have the one I want bewilders me. You might differ with me but I remain obsessed with pantsuits. Despite the fact you have to completely disrobe to use the bathroom, there’s just so much you can do with them!

Samantha Pleet Jumpsuit

Patterned Pants

Patterned pants swept the nation in the form of cool graphics, zig zags and animal prints that added just the right pop to otherwise bland outfits. Seasoned fashionistas took the trend further and met the prints head on with more print. Done well, this was a good look (and still is).

Feral Childe Lederhosen

The 70s

Demure, tasteful and refined, the 2010 take on the 70s was surprisingly tailored with high-waisted pants and lady-like blouses meeting flowy maxi dresses to create a look we’ll see more of in 2011.

Gucci, spring 10

Cutout Clothing

I like how Marie Claire worded the cutout trend: “The new provocative way to dress is strategically sexy: discreetly peekaboo, transparent but not trashy.”

Women were reminded that they had sexy shoulders, backs and arms that rivaled their decolletage in sexiness. We’ll see a little more of this trend in 2011, too (thankfully).

Popomomo, spring 10

Socks

If you wore knee socks at any point this past year, you were the it girl. For those of you with cankles, large knees, or robust thighs, you spat in the face of this trend. If you had the right legs and ankles, this was a fun trend and a great way to layer and add depth to an outfit.

Done wrong, an element of raunch pervaded your vibe.

Albino, spring 10

Sequins

Sequins were everywhere this fall and throughout the holiday season in the form of tank tops, bomber jackets and over-the-top blazers. But whether you paired them with denim, flouncy bubble skirts or your favorite straight legged trouser pant, you had a unique look. It was nice to see the sparkle spread itself out this year, with women finding different ways of wearing them.

Julie Park Cami

The post Top 10 Trends We Loved (And Hated) From 2010 appeared first on EcoSalon.

We all need to be more proactive with our friends and families about what we want for holiday gifts. I remember having an epiphany one Christmas when my mother bought me battery-powered, heated socks that took two D batteries in order to emit that warmth. Trying to sleep while camping was a blast with what felt like chunks of hard cheese nestled on my ankles. Nope, not another year of that.

I say why not tell people what we want so that they don’t waste their hard earned cash on things we’ll tuck away under our dusty dressers and so that we get something we really like? Isn’t that line of thinking sort of ah, sustainable?

This holiday season I want a few really good things but themes keep surfacing. This time it’s pretty lacy things.

Not lingerie, no, I want jewelry made from lace that will break up my tough winter looks and here are some favorites:

I came across Ceca Georgieva recently through Ecco Eco fashion writer Abigail Doan and could not believe something so pretty could come at such a low cost. Please bring me this back from Sofia Abigail!

Textile bracelet from hand sewn silk cord, $15

Another stunning line of lace accessories on Etsy is from White Owl, based in Detroit. Their delicate earrings and necklaces are so affordable and are your entire outfit.

White Owl’s Solange lace Earrings, $22

Seems we fashion writers are strangely on the same page this week with Ecouterre writer Victoria Klein in finding this gem which she says “blends old world charm with modern sensibilities by casting vintage lace and ribbon in recycled metals.”

Heritage with a capital H Victoria? Damn straight.

This is pretty but don’t count on it being price friendly. This little number from L.A. based White Fly will cost you some dough, or, roughly the price of 400 packs of D batteries for the tube socks you’ll get if you don’t share with your loved ones what you want.

White Fly Lace Cuff Bracelet, $4,500

The post This Holiday Season? Try Something Lacy appeared first on EcoSalon.

Breezy and poetic, Minna’s Natasha Top is made from tea-dyed Scottish lace with valencienne lace straps and comes lined with a hand-dyed organic silk chiffon.

The U.K. designer offers her ethical women’s and children’s collection both online and at her boutique. Honestly, there’s not a piece there I didn’t like. Even her jewelry is inspiring.

But back to this beautiful top.

Can you imagine it with a pencil skirt or stark white pants? I love how they styled this model wearing it with distressed jeans too. The top is also embellished with a “detachable corsage made from silk, lace and antique market findings.”

Should you find this top to be appealing in a Jane Austen meets 2010 sort of way, then go to the site and live the dream.

The post Ethical Designer Minna Tempts Us with Summery Lace appeared first on EcoSalon.

Fall’s top fashion trends are running us ragged trying to keep up. Are we going demure and aviator-ready or punking out with neons and crazy bare midriffs?

One thing is for sure, we’ve got a lot to choose from, which is good if your life is multi-faceted or you’re one of those women who entertains her every fashion whim.

One thing I won’t be surprising you with is that scarves are still really in and so is what color? You guessed it, purple.

If you trust me, I’m going to ask you to settle in. Where we’re going, most women have never gone, for this fall fashion foray is going to be made sane through sustainability. Some might say that’s a paradox, but sister, the times are a-changin’.

1. The Caped Crusader

Let’s just get this elephant addressed. If you wear it right, you can escape the label of Red Cross nurse or Little Red Riding Hood. If you’re wearing this trend, you are very fashion forward, a risk-taker and a woman willing to laugh adversity in the face.

I love Ryann

2. Neon

Tough to tell what we should do with this one, after all, it’s hard to get it to look authentic when it’s really been done. but I like Feral Childe’s spin on things. A word of wisdom: jelly bracelets, jelly shoes or neon wayfarers in addition to a larger piece of neon (like the shirt below) takes one from trend into (gulp) teenager.

Feral Childe’s Pleated Tunic

3. Pretty In Plaid

Working men wear it, lumberjacks wear it, why aren’t you wearing it? It’s true, plaid is permeating the fashion pathways, no going around it. I actually think this is a fun trend if tailored or worn with a slim bottom. Plaid has a lot going on so think sparingly about what you pair it with. Or, play it safe and just buy a scarf or something from the thrift shop.

Vicarious by Nature

4. Alpha Female

Are you a biker babe or Amelia Earhart wanna-be? You’ll have to ask yourself this in earnest because the alpha female is in and tough. The twist?
She’s also sophisticated. Flat front trousers, polished biker and tuxedo jackets, crisp white shirts and cocktail rings with attitude. Take that.

Cropped Leather jacket from Allison Parris

5. One Sleeve

Is it on or off? This garment will keep them guessing but it’s fun and you’ll see it in t-shirt form as much as in nighttime’s hottest cocktail duds.
Wear it alone or with a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath to create a color block and get more wear. Like most of fall’s seemingly extreme trends, all you need is one strong piece, so be careful about going overboard.

Prairie Underground’s Olympia Dress

6. Statement Accessories

When all else fails, head to your  favorite eco or online boutique and invest in a few fall pieces like a great ring, statement necklace or clutch purse. Everything this fall seems to be about statements but not everyone is ready to partake. Accessories are our doorway to getting comfortable with stepping out of the box. Here are some of my more recent fall favorites.

Muichic, Jacquie Aiche, Alex and Ani, Ashley Watson

7. Shirred Shapely

Shirring (I’ve mentioned this before on EcoSalon) is actually a woman’s best friend. Hiding and disguising potential flaws in undergarments or bodily changes (we hope are temporary), the fabric can be moved around to do what you want. How’s that for a friendly trend?

8. Cagney, Lacey and the Gilded Age

If I wrote sitcoms this title would be the next big hit, I know it. Imagine it: Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly wrestling with yards of Victorian lace in a warehouse fabric cover up”¦maybe you’re not ready for this.

Okay, looking lady-like and affluent in Hermes scarves is one way of achieving this look but you can also dive a little deeper into the eco-pool and surface in rich silks and brocades, ruffles and high necks. You can also just buy something versatile and pretty in lace like this top.
You are Victorian, hear yourself roar.

John Patrick Organic Pullover Blouse

9. Ankle Boots, buckle boots, over the knee oh my!

Oh, in a perfect world we’d just live in boots. I love when the cooler months come and I can slip my favorite Frye Engineer boots on. Not eco, but I bought them 6 years ago and wear them like they’re never going out of style. There’s something to be said for the longevity of a piece being green to some degree.

These two new pairs of boots have wooed me, though, and I will battle my boot demons to keep myself in check this season.

10. Slouchy Sweaters

What would fall be without a go-to sweater? This fall, silhouettes are voluminous and cozy, almost coat-like. Actually, they’re too big to fit a coat over,  so best to layer under.

Pair it with a pair of skinny jeans and ankle boots for city and country street cred.

Park Vogel Batwing Sweater

The post Fall’s Top 10 (Sustainable) Fashion Trends appeared first on EcoSalon.