The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) can effectively be considered one of the most influential organizations in helping up and coming American designers enter the credible fashion market.

Much to our joy, the CFDA has launched the “CFDA and Lexus Fashion Initiative” as part of its scheme to support new designers, comprising workshops, mentorships and fieldwork for meaningful change in the U.S. fashion industry.

The Initiative will consider ten brands or designers for review, requiring them to demonstrate how they aim to significantly evolve the ethical and environmental standards of their design and production methods. The aim is to create a higher standard of sustainability and social responsibility across the board in order to instill a stronger sense of purpose, community and positive change in the fashion industry. The CFDA believes the principles to change design are “inspiration, innovation and imagination.”

Each year, the grand prize winner of the Fashion Initiative will receive $150,000 and two runners up will receive $50,000 to be used for establishing and developing ethical and environmental practices for their business.

The program spans over the course of 17 months, is completely accessible via the web and is available to any U.S.-based fashion designer. The CFDA recognizes the need for ample time for designers to perfect their craft and receive steady, supportive mentoring over a span of time where changes really do begin to develop.

The ten finalists chosen from the applicant pool will be announced next month. The CFDA is looking for companies that are already consciously utilizing ecologically and socially responsible practices in order to definitively drive the desire for those principles across the span of the fashion industry. The finalists will then be evaluated by the board, which conists of some of the most influential individuals in American sustainable fashion such as Timo Rissanen of Parsons School of Design, Amber Valletta of Master + Muse, Olivia Wilde of Conscious Commerce, Scott Hahn of Loomstate and Linda Greer of The Natural Resources Defense Council, to name a few.

This Initiative not only demonstrates the increased recognition and support of new fashion brands and designers, but also the considerable need for ethical and eco-friendly practices at the base level of a fashion brand.  “It just would be great if you just see this commitment to sustainability permeate the entire fashion community,” says Andre Lim, the Marketing Maanger at Lexus, “I believe it’s going to happen one day. It’s just a matter of time of knocking down those dominos one at a time.”

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Image: CFDA

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The line for the CFDA and Lexus sponsored Eco-Fashion Challenge event in New York City, wrapped around the building and continued down the block. If that is any indicator of what is to come (which I fully believe it is) sustainable fashion got a major boost from this eco-fashion integration challenge!

“Designing a Lexus is a complicated and sophisticated process that requires putting many pieces together, and the same is true of fashion,” stated Loomstate designer Scott Mackinlay Hahn. “Step by step we are learning a new language for sustainable and eco awareness and bringing it into the fashion story.”

(Marcia Patmos of Leroy & Perry)

Inside a packed skyline loft, floor to ceiling posters presented the various designers in the running for the CFDA and Lexus package which includes $25,000 towards their next line as well as support for their Fall 2011 show or presentation during New York Fashion Week in February.  Words like organic, air dyed, recycled, handmade, fair, local, upcycled, and sustainable lined the posters and defined the designers’ eco-focus. This must be the new language Mackinlay Hahn speaks of. What is reassuring is that slowly, but surely, the general public is learning this lingo and looking for it on the garments they purchase. As a result, “…more designers are asking for it now too, and demanding eco-versions of fabrics from their suppliers,” says Marcia Patmos, the designer from Leroy & Perry who was one of the competing ten designers.

(Maria Cornejo, Jeffery Costello, Monique Pean, Robert Tagliapietra)

And speaking of supply – which of the ten designers will be applying supplying us with their eco-fashion creations next Fall? Drumroll please! The three labels that were awarded the eco-challenge CFDA and Lexus package are:

Monique Pean

Costello Tagliapietra

Maria Cornejo

“The fact is, we are all trying to be eco-friendly,” asserts Maria Cornejo. “These are little steps that really build into something.” Cornejo went on to advise other designers to ‘be creative’ and think of other ways of being eco than just sourcing, such as being local in production or using non-toxic dying processes.

(Reed Krakoff, Monique Pean and Scott Mackinlay Hahn)

For fellow winner Monique Pean, eco-fashion translates directly to slow fashion, which she describes as, “…designing pieces that are high in quality and passed down from generation to generation.”

Going back to Mackinlay Hahn’s statement about utilizing a new language to talk about fashion, I think we are definitely there and as Robert Tagliapietra of Costello Tagliapietra so eloquently put it, “This communication is immeasurable.”

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Sustainable fashion just got another big push from mainstream, this time by Lexus and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. The program’s goal of increasing sustainable practices in the fashion industry, just picked their ten finalists, three of which will be selected to receive support from Lexus for their Fall 2011 show or presentation in February 2011.

The finalists, representing womenswear, menswear, and accessories include Behnaz Sarafpour, Maria Cornejo, Monique Pean, Marcia Patmos, Organic by John Patrick, Costello Tagliapietra, Alabama Chanin, Libertine by Johnson Hartig, Subversive Jewelry by Justin Giunta and Slow and Steady Wins the Race by Mary Ping.

WWD reports that the ten finalists were chosen based on their most recent collections – 25 percent of which had to be created in an eco-conscious way in order to qualify.

Three winners will be announced next Tuesday, in addition to a “People’s Choice” winner that you can vote for on Lexushybridliving.

Image: Linda Loudermilk

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The idea of a green bicycle seems redundant, but engineers at Lexus have recently fixed their hybrid-tech eyes on two wheels instead of their usual four. The result is the prototype Lexus Hybrid Bicycle that boosts a rider’s manual power with a 240-watt electric motor powered by a 25.9-volt Lithium-ion battery. It even offers a choice of “Eco” or “Power” modes. Consider that for a moment: riding your bicycle on eco mode.

So picture yourself in, um, on a Lexus. This model offers an “energy regeneration” function that recharges its battery by capturing the kinetic energy generated by braking. In essence, stop means go. And get this: it’s an all-wheel drive (whatever that can mean on a bicycle).

Here’s the drill for you spec-heads: the bike is equipped with an “electric eight-speed Shimano internal gear system, which references the sophisticated eight-speed shift-by-wire automatic transmission of Lexus’s LS 600h limousine. The carbon fibre construction shares the same light-but-strong composite materials technology that was used on Valentino Rossi’s MotoGP-winning motorcycle.” So there.

For those of you more concerned with what’s not under the hood, the lines of the Hybrid Bicycle are all Lexus; with its softened angles and elegant sweeps of metal, you’re gonna wanna pet this baby as much as ride it. Oh, did I say “you?” Sorry, right now there are only two of these in existence, one of which debuted at the 2009 Tokyo motor show.

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Marketing 101: When it comes to auto racing, telling jokes, and launching a new product, there is one truism: Timing is everything.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lexus presents the HS250h.

The HS250h rolled into showrooms in fall 2009 and car buyers who love the Earth and luxury accoutrements like heated/cooled seats in equal measure, finally had a dedicated hybrid to call their very own.

Marketing 102: If an auto company becomes a national punchline because its cars won’t slow DOOOOWWWWNNNN, then it’s probably not the right time for delivering a new vehicle aimed at the same drivers currently stuck in recall hell at their local Toyota dealership.

The last five months were a glorious time to be luxuriously green, but all good things must come to an end. (For example, a sedan with sketchy brakes headed toward a brick wall.) Yes, sales of the HS250h are on hold until the kinks can be worked out, but it’s no biggie. There’s nothing to see here, keep moving. As Toyota president Aiko Toyoda said of the recall, “Quality is our lifeline for Toyota.”

Marketing 103: Never use the word lifeline when speaking of cars with the troubling habit of not reducing speed on Dead Man’s Curve.

I kid Toyota because they demand consumers make hard choices: “I’d rather not perish in a fiery crash, but I would save a ton on gas expenses while reducing our dependency on foreign oil”¦” But the truth is, I kind of liked the HS250h, and think it could play an important role in the yet-to-be-determined world of everyday hybrid driving.

As a part-time car reviewer, I’ve been behind the wheels of a number of hybrids and have generally felt better about the reasons to drive them than the actual driving experience itself.

Take the Prius, for example. Setting aside the holy-shit-this-hybrid-has-become-the-bus-in-Speed issue, it has bigger problems. They’re hideous. And in these here United States, they’re movement cars, huge in Santa Monica and Marin County and not so much everywhere else. Behavioral marketing expert Dr. Clotaire Rapaille goes so far as to say it’s sex that sells the Prius, not loyalty to Mother Earth. In a 2004 interview he told me,  “Right now the Prius will get you laid, just like when VW Beetles invaded college campuses in the ’60s.”

Only 1.6 million Priuses have been sold worldwide since 1997. (To put that in perspective, Ford sold 414,000 F-Series trucks in the recessionary year of 2009 alone.) It will always be a tiny fraction of car buyers who purchase what’s healthy over what tastes good, which is why the HS250h has a (rapidly diminishing) chance of making an explosion in the marketplace. Poor word choice, my bad.

The exterior of the HS250h isn’t dazzling – it’s more Camry than Lexus – but it’s no crime to be bland, at least not in comparison to the Prius’s metallic slug shell. At 24/35 mpg, the HS250h gas mileage is good for its class and the solid 4-cylinder 187hp engine has four drive-modes: Normal, Power, Eco and EV that helps increase efficiency and lower emissions. In five days of driving, the HS250h never had any of the hiccups or acceleration problems I’ve experienced in other hybrids like the Ford Escape. It has a kick to it and had no problem holding steady at 75 mph on the New Jersey Turnpike.

For the record, the brakes were a bit stiff, but not ineffective and I never noticed a sticky go-go pedal. Then again, I’m far from petite, so the G-forces of my driving boots may have overwhelmed the software issues.

Marketing 104: There’s no such thing as bad publicity…unless it includes the phrase “individual lawsuits claiming deaths or injuries caused by unwanted acceleration of vehicles.”

Where the HS250h shines is in all the creature comforts that could attract drivers who want to brag about going green over backyard Chardonnay without sacrificing a tool that lets drivers know of the location and length of upcoming traffic jams.

Starting at $34,000, the HS250h features the sex toy-sounding “Remote Touch,” which is basically a combo mouse/joystick that operates all the technology. It takes a minute to adjust to manipulating the cursor around the navigation screen, but it’s so intuitive to our techy lives that I quickly found it a vast improvement over the old button-centric dashboard. There are other fun design notes, like the gauge that keeps tabs on green driving, adjustable leather seats, key fob settings that automatically adjust to a driver’s preferred A/C setting, and an ability to upload GPS destinations from a home computer.

Personal maps, bioplastic material in the interior upholstery and satellite radio? It would be an honor to have the brakes go out. Besides, the HS250h has a collision system that automatically dials 911. It’s Mother Earth’s Indy car!

It’s hard to imagine that the HS250h will overcome this and be a player in the eco-conscious auto world, which is too bad because its luxury features could entice more mainstream suburban drivers and help get hybrids out of the “good-for-you” garage. It’s a fun ride and could have crashed the hybrid party. Whoops. Sorry.

Marketing 105: On second thought, timing isn’t everything. Braking is.

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