Fleet footed and ready for speed.

We like to think of these Rachel Comey Pegasus platforms as an invitation to see life fast and fashionably.

Designer Rachel Comey is known for her shoes and rock and roll meets vintage womenswear collection that is popular with everyone from David Bowie to indie girls such as Michelle Williams and Kate Bosworth. Regardless of who is wearing it, we find these lust worthy.

Submit your favorite Lustable to tips@ecosalon.com

The post Lustables: Rachel Comey’s Pegasus Platform appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’ve got sustainable versions of 7 gorgeous belt trends spotted on the runways.

Belts are one of the season’s hottest accessories, seen all over the runways. They are also an easy way to dress up an outfit, giving it that little extra something that will set you apart from the crowd. Leather is and will continue to be a topic of controversy. If the leather is sourced and treated sustainably and the belt carefully made by hand, it’s a good investment piece since natural materials like leather do last for a very long time.

The fun thing about belts right now is that there are many different styles from which to choose — from ladylike double-wrap belts to bondage-like harness belts. Here are seven of our favorites.

Double Long Salmon Skin Belt by Leila Hafzi
Double-wrapped belts were seen at Victoria Beckham’s show, perfectly complementing her ladylike dresses with an edge. This one by Leila Hafzi is made from vegetable dyed salmon skin, a sustainable alternative to leather.
$110, Juno & Jove 

Bow Skinny Belt by Brave Leather
Almost every single look at the Burberry Prorsum show featured a bow belt, in a variety of colors. While it’s still cold out, wear it on top of a jacket or trench coat, and for summer pair it with a dress or light blazer. We like pairing this belt style (available in a rainbow of colors) with an outfit that is not-so-sweet for a nice contrast. Brave Leather belts are hand crafted in Canada by skilled craftspeople, in a safe, ethical factory.
$60, Brave Leather 

Wide Leather Belt by De Palma
Celine — which still seems to be every fashion editor’s favorite line — showed wide belts, worn low on the hips with wide-leg trousers and simple boxy tops — a look that I will personally copy this spring (while regretting what I said about low-waisted pants earlier). This simple, understated wide leather belt is hand made in California using vegetable-tanned leather coated with beeswax. Available in four different colors.
$143, De Palma Leather 

Kim White Equestrian Belt
This look by Paul & Joe perfectly shows how to take the too-sweet edge off a girly summer dress. Cinch the waist with a corset-style wide belt in a metallic hue. This one by Kim White is handmade in the U.S. and has a gorgeous pewter-finish with just the right amount of shine.
$110, Kim White

Ashley Watson Obi Belt
Zac Posen’s Asian-inspired collection featured several different styles of traditional (and not-so-traditional) obi wrap belts. For a look that will work in real life, try this quilted one by Ashley Watson, made from super soft, guilt-free reclaimed leather. Also available in brown suede and light tan.
$124, Beklina

Leather Harness by Norisol Ferrari
Bondage-like leather harnesses were, somewhat surprisingly, seen on the runways of designers like Herve Leger and Monique L’huillier (as seen above). We like how a tough piece like this can add a definite edge to an outfit. This custom handcrafted leather harness by Norisol Ferrari was designed in collaboration with harness master Zana Bayne — she made the one Lady Gaga wears in her You and I video.
From $1200, AhaLife 

Handmade Native American-Inspired Beaded Belt
Our bet as to what all the fashion bloggers will be wearing this season is a Native American-inspired beaded belt. They look great with low-waisted denim and summer dresses alike. Support the people whose heritage inspired this look and order yours from Native Arts Trading, who custom makes hand-beaded belts (and hat bands) to order.
From $395, Native Arts Trading.

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Titania Inglis, winner of this year’s Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award in Sustainable Design, gets street cred with her first New York Fashion Week show.

The show started early for Titania Inglis. Bedecked in black – lots of stylized black – guests waited upbeat, mingling behind black curtains. It was Inglis’ inaugural New York Fashion Week show, made possible by her recently announced 2012 win of the Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation Award in Sustainable Design. It was clear that something award winning was about to take place. And, it felt as if we were part of Inglis’ cheerfully somber production. So, like good cast members we waited in the entryway of the Eyebeam Art & Technology Center, a non-profit enterprise and one of the country’s leading media art centers.

The stage was set for Inglis’ own shade of black, uplifted and far from bleak – a seamless blend of preppy plaid and gothic darkness. It was as if two, vastly separate, high school cliques instantly merged into one, very cool and non-cliquey band of fashion mavens. So, it came as no surprise when I overhead Inglis characterize her collection as “My So Called Life all grown up.”

Street-tough models bedecked in vegetable tanned leather from a farm in France, (where they guarantee the entire cow has been used, from food to fashion), in herringbone, recycled cotton plaids, asymmetrical skirts and soft fabrics like raw Japanese silk and Cupro glided by effortlessly.

Inglis, I discovered, has a special affinity to Japanese design – in part attributed to her preference for minimalism and in part, as she says, because “Japan just makes high quality textiles.  They also know how to work with the shorter organic cotton fibers in a way that we don’t in the U.S.” Despite her penchant for The East, she brings it back west with local production in New York City.

With just one month to put her show into motion after winning the prestigious 2012 Ecco Domani award, Inglis didn’t seem to cut corners.

“I wanted to create something clean, sophisticated and wearable for the everyday,” Inglis told EcoSalon. Simple as it sounds, the beauty lies in the details, like the contrast piping inside the garment and her attention to each piece’s “skeleton,” as she calls it.

When asked about her recent win, she appeared nonchalant and merely acknowledged, “My life has gotten a lot busier.”

In a show of support, last year’s Ecco Domani winner for Sustainable Design, Tara St. James of Study New York, congratulated Inglis and, as Inglis told me, offered words of caution over previous phone calls.  “The award is great, but it’s also just the start. It doesn’t guarantee you success,” Inglis paraphrases.

It may just be the beginning for the young designer, but it also feels just right.

Here are some highlights from the Titania Inglis show below:

Images: Jennifer Barckley

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ORGANIC by John Patrick gives us his “beautiful vision” of sustainable fashion.

To the toe-tapping tunes of The Beatles, designer John Patrick debuted his Fall 2012 ORGANIC collection at a boutique event space in the Garment District for New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

Under the heading “A Beautiful Vision,” the show featured a romantic collection inspired by a Julia Margaret Cameron photograph called A Beautiful Vision, Julia Duckworth, taken of Cameron’s niece (and future mother of painter Vanessa Bell and writer Virginia Woolf) in 1872.

Using the photograph as a starting point, collaborator and illustrator Mike Ellis interpreted his own “beautiful vision” in graphics for the invitation and show set. “When the illustration came I was stunned at how magically he captured what I was thinking and feeling,” Patrick said in a press release.

The fall line itself was heavy on textures and textiles, with a dizzying array of eco materials parading down the runway, including handmade metallic lace, sustainable recycled wool, biodegradable cotton cupro, vegetable-tanned leather, hand-loomed Angora, and a kaleidoscope of digitally printed silk from London. Patrick also worked with North Carolina-based Raleigh Denim on a handful of jeans in the collection.

The event marked the first New York Fashion Week runway show for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalist – he had previously hosted presentations – and featured environmentally conscious model/actress (and long-time John Patrick fan) Shalom Harlow in the front row.

Here, some of our favorite looks and snapshots from after the show.

Images: Jessica Marati, Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs

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When a new crop of shoes comes out, I start blubbering.

The Naya shoe line is completely drool worthy, and it’s also completely sustainable. The brand was “born from the belief that shoes should be beautiful on your feet, soft on your step and gentle on the environment. Because you should never have to choose between what looks good, what feels good and what is good for you and for the earth.”

Hear, hear!

The current Fall collection includes “Origami Rose,” “Tailored Temptation,” “Beautiful Bows,” “Super Soft Suedes,”  “Rugged Resource” and “Kimono Knot,” each collection a comfortable and trendy take on what’s hot.

Naya’s sustainable points:

• Vegetable-tanned leathers and linings
• Natural or recycled content fabrics
• Water-based cements
• Footbeds containing natural cork
• Outsoles containing natural materials
• Boxes made with 80 percent recycled paper pulp, soy-based inks and water-based glue
• Reusable shoe bags and shoe forms made with recycled PET

Naya means “renewal,” and the only thing they’ve asked in return for giving a lucky EcoSalon winner a $285 Naya gift card towards the purchase of one pair of shoes or boots is that they make a comment on renewing as it pertains to some aspect of their lives.

So leave an inspiring little comment below relating to the theme because if you don’t stick to the rules on this one, you don’t qualify.

(Legalese: contest rules and FTC compliance.)

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Doesn’t matter where you live, there’s always a yard sale, flea market, beach trip or fair to be had where you need to carry lots of stuff. You might not always want to throw these treasures into cheap plastic bags for a host of eco-friendly reasons, so you need options. And while there are lots of reusable and sustainably designed bags out there, how great are these? Just the name sucked me in: Fleabags.

Frustrated by the inconvenience and environmental hazards of accumulating several plastic bags while flea market shopping, Brown University grads Shira Entis, a fashion designer and Alex Bell, a lawyer, craved a convenient and fashionable tote that could fit all their wares.

Fleabags were designed as their ideal solution – “dapper, large, lightweight and sturdy carry-alls – that are also eco-minded,” in that they’re sourced in the U.S. and made in New York of certified organic cotton/hemp canvas, vegetable-tanned leather and water-based silkscreen ink. The gals also use no glues or toxic paints for their Fleabags, just good old fashion sewing.

The first run of Original Fleabags are made for Spring/Summer 2009 in Limited Edition by hand and with the Edition Number written on each bag. Four color ways are offered: White, Saddle, Coffee Bean and Pebble.

Newly created with both women still working their day jobs in New York City, they hope the line takes wings (but something bigger than a flea’s wings).

I caught up with them recently.

How do Fleabags work for yard sales/flea marketing/trips to beach?

We actually designed the bags originally for our own flea market trips! We just wanted something hot to look at and eco-friendly and convenient to lug around our purchases. There was a real blank spot in the marketplace. We designed Fleabags to be sturdy carryalls, large enough to fit a lot of things – towels, books, laptops – but still be easy and lightweight enough to throw over your shoulder and run out of the house. The organic canvas we use is heavyweight, and there are nickel feet on the bottom of the bag to protect the leather. The greatest thing about them is that they aren’t precious – you can throw them in the trunk of the car, take them to the beach, and they will hold up perfectly.

What was your main inspiration to design them?

I looked at a lot of things – tool bags, vintage luggage – and tried to design a woman’s version of a utilitarian object. Fleabags are vertically oriented, because I wanted them to elongate a woman’s silhouette while she carried it, not widen it as happens with horizontally-oriented bags. My background is in fashion design and I have been working in that industry for the last 4 years starting with an internship at Tuleh. Just like in high fashion, it was important that these bags were seamlessly crafted. When the details aren’t refined, customers notice it.

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