Don’t look now but 2015 is almost here. Are you ready? We present your 2015 mood board for the new year. Complete with trends in beauty, fashion, food, and wellness.

Must Have Hue // Pantone has announced that Marsala is the hue to have for 2015. A deep, rich mahogany red, this must-have shade is mellow yet adds zesty color. InStyle magazine suggests pairing a Marsala-hued accessory with navy, black or mustard. Yum!

New Beauty // The good news? Super natural looking skin is in. This means taking good care of your skin trumps contouring and heavy makeup. You can go for a truly natch look sans makeup, or try an all nude look using taupes, browns, and pale pinks. For you color-loving gals, don’t fret. A super saturated lip look is hot for next year too. Opt for creamy lip color and pat on with your finger. Love RMS Beauty Lip2Cheek for lips brimming with color. Glamour girls, winged out eyeliner is the go-to in glam for the new year. Go soft with pencil or intense with liquid liner. Here’s your inspo.

Current Coif // Hair for next year – think undone. Even of-the-moment braids are left a bit messy. This means you can put away your blow dryer, straightener, and curling iron. Don’t forgo the regular trip to your stylist though. Going au naturel here means hair still has to be cut to perfection and taken good care of. Use organic products that are free from harmful ingredients and go a day or two between washings to let your body’s own oils do their job. Some high performance organic haircare lines are Acure Organics, Yarok, and Rahua.

Fashion Forward // Fashion seems to have a split personality for next spring with hippie chic and girly girl both hitting the runways. Boho is still hot, with fringe and bell bottoms making an appearance. Rather than wearing together, try a fringe jacket with a dress or bell bottoms with a tailored shirt. If you are more into the feminine look, ruffles and oversized floral prints are on trend, and these can be worn together.

Fitness Fad // Yahoo reports the new trend is…no trend. That’s right, it’s back to basics where exercise is concerned. This means traditional cardio routines and body weight training. You can’t get more back to basics than running. Check out the hottest running shoes for 2015.

Hot Health Food // It is not news that kale and broccoli are healthy foods. But have you tried broccoli sprouts? How about kalettes? Broccoli sprouts hold the same cancer fighting benefits as their cruciferous cousin, but come with an extra enzymatic punch that boosts potency. Add to salad or pair with cooked broccoli. Kalettes are a kale/Brussels sprouts hybrid that deliver the health advantages and flavor of both.

Java Habit // The new year in coffee means darker is better. Push those sugary, flavored coffee drinks aside if you want to go on trend with your joe. Even Dunkin’ Donuts will roll out their new dark roast. Looks like espresso is on the menu too. If you can’t skip the sweetener, try Gloria Estefan’s Cuban Coffee recipe. Delicious!

Cleanse to a Tea // Move over Master Cleanse, there’s a new detox in town. Starvation cleanses are so, well, this year. In the new year, teatoxing is the way to go. A nutritionist friend of mine says living on liquid or very little food is stressful to the body and does not recommend this type of cleansing for anyone. With teatoxing you still get to eat and exercise healthfully, adding in a cup or three of detoxifying tea daily. No low blood sugar, insatiable hunger, diarrhea, tears (just sayin’). Teatoxing is safe, effective, and actually pleasant. Want to give it a try? Skinny Teatox has 7, 14, and 28 day kits. Plus the teas look gorgeous and tasty. Perfect post holidays.

State of Mindfulness // While meditation is at an ever increasing high in terms of popularity, mindfulness is the hot term of the moment. What’s the dif? You don’t have to sit in lotus for several minutes to achieve the peace of mind meditation offers. By being in the moment during your daily tasks you can reap the rewards of awareness. This practice even works with diet. Multitasking is over, mindfulness is the new state of mind.

Have fun creating your own mood board for 2015 with these tips. See you in your Marsala hued fringe jacket in the new year.

Related on EcoSalon

11 Ways the World Drinks Coffee

Yoga Love: How Mindfulness Teaches Generosity

20 Best Foods for Radiant Skin, Healthy Hair + a Super Smile

Image: Runners by The Q Speaks at Flickr.com cc, Pantone Marsala by Eric delcroix at Flickr.com cc, messy braid by Maegan Tintari at Flickr.com cc, RMS Beauty Lip2Cheek via SpiritBeautyLounge.com, cubana by Timothy Boyd at Flickr.com cc, Skinny Teatox via skinny-teatox.com, Kjaer Weis eyeshadow via SpiritBeautyLounge.com.

The post Mood Board 2015: What’s Going to be Hot in the New Year appeared first on EcoSalon.

Ugh.

I’ve hit a wall. I hate everything I’m making. I have no energy or love for what it is I am creating and I feel like I’ve stepped down a path I’m not sure I am in love with.

I hope that this is a perpetual feeling all designers feel. My fingers are crossed.

As I face unchangeable choices, decisive distinctions in the aesthetics of this new collection, I doubt my talent. I doubt the color pallette, the concept, the conceived silhouettes.

I’m frightened and the truth is, designers do not like to express such fear, the dark side of a glamorous world meant only to entice, not to share our insecurities with you. The truth is, I’m an artist and I am frightened. So much anticipation and interest in what I do next is making me totally freak out!

I have been given very little time to pull it together and I push to create work that inspires, yet pays homage to the work I’ve done in the last year, to give the garments people seem to have connected to a chance. Yet, from a creative point of view, it’s like painting with colors you mixed from a series past. I am not inspired to be re-hashing old concepts, I’m just not, but I feel drawn to giving them the chance to be loved and worn in a way I think they deserve. Double ugh.

The company I keep right now is solely the pattern paper on my floor (still cutting on hard wood floors as I was pre-Project Runway win) and it is begging me for more time. I am faced with the focus on refinement. On doing the best version of ideas I’ve already had. Once again the reality of design, rather than art hits me. I am creating for you, not me – or at least to some extent. Many of the pieces I am designing are in some sort of way retrospective, re-worked garments that you connected to but that I have just fallen out of love with. A “lovers quarrel” so to speak, but one within myself. I think for better or worse, that’s a sign of a good designer. Moving on the second they grow.

Perhaps it’s time for me to stop working on the elements within this collection that reflect on past works, and move onto the pieces that will challenge me, challenge you to think outside the box of what you think of as “Gretchen Jones.” It’s time to think architectural elements, not “Lady Of The Canyon,” or better yet, how I can meld the two.

I can do it, I am doing it – its just hard to do it alone. We artists [we designers], need our cheering sections. Especially coming off of a year/experience that so harshly critiqued not only my every stitch, but character. If I am to fail, I say fail hard. Blow it all at the craps table – I may just win big.

What a blessing it is to be troubled with issues such as these. Fifteen days and counting til the finish of a collection I hope to die for. Sleep and restful thoughts are just a glimmer on the horizon.

This is the third piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 3: My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Time stand still, please, could you?

That damn designer dilemma is here again with the always impending deadlines. And now with a trip to Costa Rica, I must learn how to accept it, how to use it and more importantly, how to embrace a break without letting go of momentum.

In Costa Rica, I wake to rose petal waves gently unfolding on the velvet shores and at the same time think how I could have left my life in this state of ground break? Construction just starting on a collection I can barely break from my breast yet had to. I needed to not only walk away from the studio in order to stop coddling it, but to these moments of sheer bliss before my entire life changes with the new collection.

I also needed to take off my rose colored glasses and settle into a new pair, ones that are the dark shade of inspiration.
My Costa Rican “quickie” couldn’t have come any sooner.

While there noticing the dark, heavy, glittering sand layered with lighter (in weight and color) tan powder, like two universal matters filtering through a flour sifter – yet somehow perpetually linked hand in hand. Coral matter flecked along the shore line like burnt umber freckles dancing atop the tan bosom of the sea. Sunsets so vivid and rich that the equator seemingly swallowed them whole, I let go of some worry while watching them be consumed. I left some of myself down there.

Walking off the plane back into the brisk east coast air, I feel baptized by the book of travel. I resolve to do it again soon. The creative spirit needs that. It needs new lenses and appreciation for other ways of life, as that is how we translate our character into the concept. Ethnic interpretations and texture from far away ground you, ground your designs, give you perspective, and a new way of speaking your own truth.

My bible is made of silks and wools this season which will envelop those restful nights like the warm winter blanket of work ethic. Back to the drawing board and sewing machine for me.

This is the second piece in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post Week 2: My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Craft. Tradition. Skill. Sustained aesthetics.

As I find myself forever linked to native influences, I tend to think about the skill it takes to make things, well, well-made.

Time, action, finesse and a little bit of human mistake, too. It’s what makes a piece feel special – it’s the soul that is inevitably left by the maker. In some Native American crafts, mistakes are made intentionally, as it is believed the only one(s) who can be a perfectionist is the divine. I like that. I like being able to sense a person’s hand in what I am purchasing. It’s what makes it special, and in turn, worth the investment.

And as I find myself ever more connected to my trade skill and hands-on learning approach – I’m self-educated and apprenticed in many areas of handcraft – I am reminded of the wonderful quote:

“And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.”
– Wole Soyinka

I like the school of life, rather than the classroom.

This week’s imagery is pulled from areas within my own studio and soon-to-be launched new collection, but also many images that have formed my “signature” as a designer. I hope as you look at it, you can see past the label – and into the soul that feeds it.

This is the first in a new series at EcoSalon with Project Runway winner and sustainable fashion designer Gretchen Jones. For Jones, her daily apprenticeship with the “school of life” has been her guiding teacher and we look forward to bearing witness to her weekly inspiration collages, featuring ideas and scenes from the streets and parties of New York City, where she recently located. As well as her innate sense of style she’ll be pulling from a world of patterns, textures and all the designers who have preceded her.

The post My Designer Life by Gretchen Jones of Project Runway appeared first on EcoSalon.