Sustainable style news from EcoSalon’s West Coast Fashion Editor.

Earth Quake – Pendleton’s Portland Collection is shaking up the fashion world, sending seismic waves of inspiration across the local design scene. Take a look at Portland fashion week emerging designer awardee, Amanda Grisham’s label, Grishley. Inspired by Pendleton’s colorful prints, I love her creative graphic color-blocking technique using leatherette strips. We’ll keep you posted on when this hot collection goes on sale – in the meantime, you can keep up to date with all her news and inspirations here.

California DNA –  Another collection to keep in your line of vision is Los Angeles-based Alternative Apparel’s consciously casual Spring 2012 styles. While their website sees the launch of their new cozy holiday collection, an expanded collection, entitled Oasis of Color hit the runway last week at Vibiana, a renovated cathedral in the heart of downtown Los Angeles during LA Fashion Week. Watch Founder Greg Alterman and Design Director Lissa Zwahlen discuss how the Palm Springs desert landscape served as inspiration for the bold hued prints and sun-bleached earth toned palette.

Pop Up Pie – Sustainability’s sweetie pie, actor Adrian Grenier and film and TV producer Peter Glatzer open the doors on Friday to their 2^nd Annual SHFT pop-up shop. Located on LA Brea Avenue for a seven-day run, the mark-shift store will feature eclectic eco items for your home including furniture by designers Samuel Moyer and William Stranger, plus local artwork by 30 artists including Vanessa Prager, Melodie McDaniel, Jeremy and Claire Weiss and MB Boissonnault. And don’t miss the ultimate in eco traveling, the Schwinn Vestige commuter bike made from organic, recyclable flax fiber and coated with water soluble paint.

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Post Portland Fashion Week, Anna Cohen and Imperial Knits sit down with EcoSalon to talk DIY.

Portland Fashion Week can mark another first for their past runway season with the launch of the first ever knit-it-yourself kits come to life on the runway. With a bold turn away from traditional ready-to-wear runway designs usually featured at fashion week, the designs were created from the collaboration of heralded designer Anna Cohen, and guest designers Chrissy Gardiner and Edie Eckman along with Imperial Yarn – a branch of the Imperial Stock Ranch.

Designs varied from chunky knitted sweater dresses to knitted belts and knee high socks and illuminated the growing popularity for DIY and as Cohen says, “a very clear desire for people to go back to the roots, to the land, to simple processes that feel like home.”

“This focus on creating beautiful product and the responsibility that comes with it very much aligns with my history and commitment to helping bring high fashion and sustainability together. We are in other words, very well matched. How exciting for this relationship to bring me closer to the roots of fiber than I have ever been,” says Cohen.

DIY kits are fairly new to the scene with designers like Wool and the Gang and Alabama Chanin at the forefront, but both Cohen and Imperial Knits are ready to join the growing ranks who see using their hands as a way to become even more connected to their clothing.

Jeanne Carver, Imperial Ranch co-owner, who runs the family’s 140 year old farm with husband Dan on 30,000 acres of Oregon’s desert high country, says as far as the popularity of knitwear itself, she has seen a marked increase in the apparel and fashion world.

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Sustainable style news from EcoSalon’s West Coast Fashion Editor.

Fashion Week Wow – Portland’s Fashion Week kicks off tonight with the official launch party held at Urban Studio in the Pearl District. Proud recipients of the country’s #1 sustainable city honor, Portland hosts the five day event that features a special lineup of world-class sustainable designers like Avni, Anna Cohen, Ethos Paris, and Lenzanita on Thursday, October 6^th along with top local brands like Stephanie D. Couture, Ms Wood, Collier, and Amai Unmei on Friday, October 7^th. Support green fashion and see why Portland is known for being a hotbed for U.S. design talent.

Straight Shot – Head down to San Francisco’s green Temple Nightclub for the third annual Catapult Design fundraising event to see some of the latest design work with a social impact and see some of the coolest people in the Bay Area in one room together. Catapult Design is a maverick design studio devoted to creating “human-centered” designs and to addressing the issues facing nearly 2 billion people around the world without clean water, food and shelter. See you there!

Indie Summer – Come outside for the Bay Area’s last outdoor fashion event of the year. Showcasing the skills of the local DIY community, San Francisco’s Indie Mart will host 100 vendors this Sunday, October 9^th. In addition to the food, beer and bands the event is known for, there will be original goodies available from local creatives like SeedStore, Gangs of SF, Pretty Penny, San Franpsycho, Indosole, Workshop, Black Jet Bakery and plenty more. Get it while it’s still hot.

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Last weekend’s Portland Fashion Week endeavored for the title of most cohesive runway show on the West Coast and demonstrated the area’s evident talent pool with four former Project Runway competitors showing. Reiterating the event’s green consciousness was last season’s winner, Seth Aaron‘s debut of a dramatic Gaga-esque solar energy-inspired collection.

While Aaron’s collection and the headlining unique, solar-powered catwalk construction were a blazing argument for the need for new collaboration between the energy and fashion industries, the most radical thing to see was legendary Oregon textilist Pendleton‘s collaboration with Opening Ceremony and local luxury knitwear line Souchi – demonstrating that local companies can produce eco-wool clothing successfully.

Perhaps it’s timing. With chunky knits ruling the AW 2010 runways from Prada to Chloé, and the trend for heritage looks, the use of wool for clothing seems exciting again. As a natural, renewable, and fully recyclable fiber, wool’s green credentials are obvious. Are the knitters on to something?

“I’m not sure it’s necessarily cheaper to produce than cut and sew – it’s actually a bit more expensive especially locally,” says designer Casey Larkin, whose knitwear line, Adie + George, produced 100 percent in California, launched last year. “Looking at the big picture of the manufacturing process, knit wear is probably a good place to start in this recession because a knit house is usually a vertical program that handles the entire process from start to finish – making the process more efficient and therefore less expensive in the end.”

Larkin’s partner, textile artist and designer Sasha Duerr, outlines the many benefits to keeping production in America, “Just as with regaining our local food system, the initial cost for quality ingredients in our collection is higher – just like with organic and local food – but the exchange is that we are able to participate closely in the process of where our yarn comes from, where it is spun, where it is knitted, and finally dyed.” Duerr, who founded the Permacouture Institute and is devoted to reviving organic and natural dying processes, continues, “There is a true storytelling that comes with choosing local materials, working with local farms, reviving fiber mills, and domestic knitwear houses, and supporting other facets that support true economic recovery. Our vision for Adie + George is aligned with how we would like local and domestic fashion production to be in the near future. The whole process is hands-on and extremely satisfying.”

Above image Pendleton for Opening Ceremony

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While we’re still frothing at the mouth over Portland, Oregon’s own Gretchen Jones winning the last two week’s Project Runway challenges, Seth Aaron, winner of last season’s Project Runway is doubling the energy in the City of Roses.

Looking forward to Portland Fashion Week, Aaron will be presenting a collection inspired by SolarWorld as a reaction to “Pressing energy, environmental and economic challenges facing the country,” and because of his interest in exploring solar technology’s aesthetic possibilities.

The collection will be unveiled October 9 in PFW’s Sustainable Fashion Showcase in Portland.

This isn’t PFW’s first foray into promoting alternative and sustainable fashion, there’s a whole page of information on their site that will educate you more about their initiatives including having a show at Portland City Hall (with Portland’s Mayor, City Council and press in attendance), to educate policy-makers on planet-friendly practices in fashion to their construction of runways with eco-friendly materials and even using sustainably-certified hotels for their guests.

We caught up with both Aaron and PFW Executive Producer Prasenjit Tito Chowdhury to see just what to expect over the next few months.

EcoSalon: Can you talk about how PFW will be the “World’s first carbon-neutral fashion week production?” What are some ways you’re going to make this happen?

Prasenjit: Portland Fashion Week is the first comprehensive sustainable production of a fashion week in the world. We take look at all the elements of the fashion week production and make steps to minimize the impact. PFW uses eco-friendly styling products on models, sets are made of sustainably harvested wood, printing is done on recycled paper, there won’t be any plastic bottles at the venue but you’ll find compostable corn-cups for drinks, low voltage LED lighting, electric connections through non-plastic-tape connectors, and sustainable swag bags, to name a few.

Regarding a carbon neutral Portland Fashion Week, the Bonneville Environmental Foundation has provided BEF Water Restoration Certificates(TM) and Green-e Energy-certified BEF Renewable Energy Certificates generated from 100 percent clean, renewable energy for the energy and water used to produce Portland Fashion Week. Both BEF and Green-e are sponsors of PFW.

Prasenjit: In addition to Seth Aaron’s solar-inspired collection, eco-conscious designers and labels like Pendleton, Amai Unmei and Ethos Paris will be putting their fashion on the PFW runway. Others are coming as well who have committed and we are looking forward to releasing their names once we ink our agreements.

EcoSalon: Seth, you say in a Fibre2Fashion article: “There was inspiration from the second I stepped foot in the SolarWorld factory.” Can you share with us how some of that inspiration will come into being for your collection at PFW?

Seth Aaron: Things just jumped out at me – impressions – It was all hyper-futuristic. There were intense graphic grids, hard lines, very clean and crisp, structured. It was metal and robotic and just an impressive space! There were also bold color palettes – the deepest blues, blacks, and almost science-fiction silvers – that your eyes just fall into.

EcoSalon: I love that you partnered with both SolarWorld and PFW to do this collection. To bring fashion to the forefront of sustainability, would you suggest more designers partnering with innovative companies to showcase themselves and the company’s mission?

Seth Aaron: The partnership with SolarWorld has been awesome and sure I would recommend that others establish relationships with world-leaders in sustainability or business – I mean it’s been pretty incredible to see the story of my fashion collection turn up in everything from the BusinessWire section of Forbes, to conventional fashion mags and blogs, eco-lifestyle and fashion sites, all the way to German business wires and renewable-energy, techno-geek publications!

EcoSalon: Am I reading correctly that there’s going to be a completely solar paneled runway for October’s PFW?

Prasenjit: Oh yeah. The runway will be covered in SolarWorld’s all-new black monocrystalline solar panels. Imagine the look of polished obsidian.

EcoSalon: Nice.

Image: Fred Joe Photo

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