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

Rebel Without A Pause Fashion’s indomitable “Godmother of Punk, ” Vivienne Westwood, celebrated the opening of her first flagship store in Los Angeles last week. The 10, 000 square foot space on Melrose Avenue makes available all of the Westwood labels including jewelry and accessories to discerning West Coast clients.  An unlikely eco-hero, Westwood has recently revealed she doesn’t wash her clothes very often and thinks that talcum powder makes the best deodorant, adding “I think it is a good thing to buy less and choose well – it’s good for the environment and to be fair it’s also good for me because my clothes are quite expensive.”  In these times of shifting patterns in fashion consumption and use, her down to earth approach reminds us of George Bernard Shaw’s line “Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.”

Pick Up Stitches – The Thread show is coming to the Metreon in San Francisco this Sunday and promises to pretty-up the green scene this weekend.  Held in tandem with the Green Festival on Saturday, the show features the latest items from emerging eco-friendly designers such as COATT, Grammatique, Form & Fauna, and Free Hand Fashion.  If that’s not enough to get you down to SOMA from 11 a.m.– 6 p.m., attendees can enjoy new features like the DIY Lounge, Pop-Up Nail Salon, Live Blogger Style-Off Series, a THREAD Wellness Lounge and a Man Cave for the guys.

A League Of Our Own – With so much discussion about the relentless pace of the garment industry, it’s time to celebrate one fashion event that’s been going strong for 85 years. The Junior League of San Francisco is hosting their annual fashion show A Fashionable Legacy on Friday, April 8th at the Fairmont Hotel. The Bay Area’s most fashionable faces have their calendars annually marked and their dancing shoes ready for this glamorous evening. The event produced by the lovely Junior League ladies and long-time show partner, Macys and local company, Viasyn (who is offsetting the carbon impact this year), is one of the most successful fundraising events in San Francisco and has raised millions of dollars for various charities.

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As Benjamin Franklin said, “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” While Franklin might not have foreseen the attachment future Americans would have to their accessories, the Peasants and Travelers’ cork Doctor’s Bag confirms wine is a gift that keeps on giving.

Peasants and Travelers, a two-year-old accessories label, released the cork version of their venerable Doctor’s Bag design for spring 2010. Owner and designer, Jee Kim, had discovered a swatch of the unexpected material during a trip to Asia. While it intrigued her, she wasn’t sure how she could use it. The sojourn was a break from her steady climb up the ranks of fashion with stops at Gucci, Neiman Marcus, and Banana Republic. But, once she was settled back in San Francisco and working on her new line of bags, she remembered it and decided it would be perfect for crafting a bag.

Made from remnants of wine bottle corks from Portugal that have been smashed down and laminated to retain surface flexibility, Kim says the resulting material, “is waterproof and apparently, floatable.” Although, she doesn’t advise you attempt setting your bag to sail to test it.

Cork has enjoyed a resurgence of late in home interiors and has long been accessible in the shoe industry as wedges, heels, and espadrilles, but what is so unexpected is the luxe and highly refined character it lends the bags.

A good thing gets around fast. It caught the eye of curators at New York’s MoMA who then featured a whole series of cork made accessories by Pelcor, a global cork fashion brand in Portugal, for their “Destination Portugal” exhibit which opened in May.

Our editor-in-chief, Sara Ost, was similarly entranced when she saw the Doctor’s Bag at SF’s Thread show a few weeks ago. Kim offers, “It has a fashion forward look, which you wouldn’t expect. People are so intrigued when they see it in person.” “Its appeal is unisex” says Kim, with men and women coveting its “classic style with a modern interpretation.”

The design is as efficient as it is eye-catching. It’s roomy and travels well, fitting into an overhead storage locker or under the plane seat. It’s part of Peasants and Travelers’ urbane villager line, which includes the paper tote bag, a larger weekender, and an oversized envelope that fits an iPad perfectly.

Nearly every inch of Peasants and Travelers’ bags are composed of reclaimed materials ranging from recycled cork to the repurposed cotton-dress shirt gingham lining “that, unlike nylon linings that rip and tear, gets softer with use”, enthuses Kim. The bags are BPA, phthalate and lead free but their most impressive green credential according to Kim is its longevity – “when you adore something, you won’t want to throw it away.”

Available at 10 locations, including Urban Outfitters.

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