The balance of sustainable fashion lies within your every purchase.

A year or two ago this article would have been entitled “Fashion Giants Ride Sustainability Wave.” At this stage in the game talking about companies like Wal-Mart, Target, H&M, Gap Inc doing their bit is like greenwashing the chairs on the Titanic. With climate change officially confirmed, fashion companies have an irrefutable responsibility to green their manufacturing and products. But, given the choice, would they?

We often go back and forth discussing the future of the fashion industry here at EcoSalon. I don’t know if the model is broken and needs to be dumped on its stylish head, or if we can fix it with some earnest action and better designed products. Maybe both need to be happening at the same time. You can do both by going ahead and protesting against the concentration of wealth among the privileged few by shopping local fashion from small independent merchants this holiday season, but also check out the fruits of the big brands’ eco initiatives. Their partnerships to minimize energy waste and hazardous chemicals help to encourage eco-fashion at reasonable prices too. Well, some of them.

Here are the latest developments from three of fashion’s well-known brands, Levi’s, Havanianas and Manolo Blahnik.

Levi’s goal is to support the 300 million people currently engaged in cotton farming around the world.

At a cocktail reception last week, Levi Strauss & Co. announced that 2 million pairs of its Denizen and Levi brand jeans now contain a blend of cotton certified by the Better Cotton Initiative. In partnership with other leading brands such as H&M, Adidas, IKEA and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Solidaridad and PAN-UK, they’re adhering to the standards of Better Cotton – cotton grown in a way that is less harmful to both the environment and some 40,000 farmers in India, Pakistan, Mali and Brazil. Levi’s executives say their goal is to eventually support the 300 million people engaged in cotton farming around the world.

Sales of Havaianas limited edition “Conservation International” collection have raised approximately $100,000 per year for the Brazilian marine organization.

According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, Havaianas, the Brazilian company that makes about 200 million pairs of flip-flops each year, has just introduced Eco Havaianas that are made from scrap materials incurred during regular production. Other products include Havaianas IPÊ, which designates 7 percent of its revenue for the Institute for Ecological Research in Brazil. Another style, the CI-Brazil, funds projects for the protection of local endangered species and in its first year sold more than 500,000 pairs.

The shoes are sustainable. Is the price?

Fish skin is very much the medium of the moment with Alexander Wang unveiling a collection of sneakers with fish skin detailing for Spring 2012 and Sex in the City favorite, Manolo Blahnik, announcing recently that he was using the “fish leather” in his new range of eco shoes. Made from sustainable tilapia skin, raffia and cork, the collection is part of a collaboration with eco designer Marcia Patmos. Patmos told Womens Wear Daily, “I love the idea of Tilapia skin because it is a by-product of the food industry that would otherwise be discarded, but it’s actually a beautiful material perfect for small leather goods’. The shoes will be sold at Manolo Blahnik shops for $895, WWD reports.

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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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