EcoSalon’s top bathing suits for summer ’11 are made from sustainable fabrics, locally sourced or fair trade.

Warm days are here and it’s that magical time where we prance around in our underwear and call it a bathing suit. Yours a little worn, tight, faded? Well, we’ve compiled an up to date list of what we consider the best (sustainable), summer ’11 bathing suit lines going.

You can thank us now or later.

Kelly B

Kelly B attacks environmental and social consciousness via her line’s flattering silhouettes and subtle sexiness. “Clothing is a form of art that everyone can relate to. Everybody wears it. It’s a platform to get everything that is important to me out there,” says Kelly. Looking stunning in her bathing suits beach side is another way to further carry out her green views.

Mociun

Caitlin Mociun of Mociun has niched out our closets already with some of the more graphic and forward thinking styles available in the eco fashion world but she’s pushing us into a deliberate love for her bathing suits too.

Karla Colletto

Karla Colletto is a luxe swimwear line that combines high fashion with figure-flattering cuts. The result is runway-ready swimwear that will make women of all ages wish they were as style savvy as you. She offers lots of different suit options but her cut-out suits are a sure standout from the rest.

Emobi

Emobi prints are all original and designed in-house, using a range of environmentally friendly water based dyes, that minimize the impact on beaches and waterways combined with premium breathable UPF 50+ fabric.

Olga Olsson

Each Olga Olsson bikini is totally unique and hand painted by fair trade artisans in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. All bathing suits are made to order so the line can create as little waste as possible.

Lina Rennell

Sure you could have a traditional bathing suit as you bask on the beach but then what fun would that be? Lina Rennell’s swimwear line is always full of surprises from vintage cuts to graphic prints that meet to form the world’s cutest bathing suit.

Meadow

All of Meadow’s designs are proudly sewn in Miami, where the brand focuses on local production and sourcing. Meadow only works with sustainable materials such as bamboo, soy, organic cotton and upcycled fabrics. Her entire line features a coastal vibe for laid back luxe pre and post beach.

Niksters

Nikster’s bathing suits are made from soy, organic cotton, bamboo, and other natural fibers to further promote your sustainable lifestyle.
These exotic bikinis are accessorized with shells, pearls, stones, bamboo, coconuts, and other hand-selected elements from tropical destinations around the globe. Some of the designs are also carefully hand-finished through macramé stitching, embroidered beads, or hand-painting.

Top Image: Cali Dreaming

The post The Best Eco Bathing Suits for Summer 2011 appeared first on EcoSalon.

Jeesh. Yesterday I was flooded with friends’ and colleagues’ emails begging me to write a rebuttal to what they thought were one or two writers slamming the eco-fashion industry.

It had already gone pretty viral by the time the emails came in and only this morning did I really take note. Sometimes knee-jerk reactions can prove disastrous, even if you want to be the first to herald the crappy news and the news is simply: nobody knows what eco-fashion is. Big deal.

For those of you who care what I have to think about eco-fashion, here it is:

Eco-fashion is a veritable hell mess defined sadly and mostly by archaic industry professionals who like the game to work for them.

It’s also called self-serving eco-branding.

Greenwashing? No.
Survival? Yes.
You know who you are.

Note that I wrote “mostly.”
The people interviewed in the first article, which debuted in Financial Times, were fantastic representatives of the “mostly.”

Here’s how FT’s writer Vanessa Friedman quoted them as defining eco-fashion:

Frida Giannini, Gucci creative director: “Quality items that stand the test of time – it is this concept of sustainability, symbolised by a timeless handbag that you wear again and again, and can pass on, that I am always thinking of when I design.”

Oscar de la Renta, designer, brand founder: “Sustainable fashion implies a commitment to the traditional techniques, and not just the art, of making clothes. I work today in the same way that I first learnt in the ateliers of Balenciaga and Lanvin 50 years ago. We need to ensure that the next generation of seamstresses and tailors have the skills necessary to develop clothes that are not only beautiful but extremely well made.”

Anya Hindmarch, designer, brand founder, and initiator of the “I am not a plastic bag” initiative: “I would define the ideal as locally sourced materials that don’t pollute in their creation or demise (preferably recycled) and with limited transportation to achieve the completed product.”

And, lastly, designer and brand founder Dries van Noten: “Most of what we may currently refer to as sustainable fashion is a contradiction in terms. It refers to how the fabric used for a new garment has been produced … Yet, I believe, we need to consider this issue from a more macro and profound perspective. Though a cotton may be unbleached, we need to examine how it arrives to the manufacturer or to us the wearer. What was the “˜carbon imprint’ of its delivery, for example?”
Not all the same, then.”

I agree with all of these responses.

But, please understand that these designers are so far removed from their lines. They do not design their lines, their designers design the lines and their marketing professionals decide which campaign could benefit them. And the flavor of the year, for them, is light green.

They are too big to care what the hell eco-fashion is, so they invent off-the-cuff definitions to support the little they do to contribute to this new, darker green world.

(Next time, Vanessa, call me and I’ll give you a different list for interviews.)

These fashion giants – minus Ms. Hindmarch – have a lot of money and could be doing a lot more, by the way, than using “traditional” techniques. As for the others, the not “mostly’s” who live and breathe what it takes to be sustainably designing, there aren’t enough sermons in the world to dedicate to you.

They are smaller design houses, independents, creating from small studios all over the world.

They are supported by indie boutiques all over the world.

They are broke.

They are struggling to be artists, to make really beautiful clothing from organic materials. They are juggling their lines by being coffee baristas and part-time brokers.

They are not necessarily committed to, as Maria Moyer, one of my favorite new people recently said, “Picking a lane.”

What this means is that these same designers, first and foremost, need to design. If they can then use an organic fabric, cut down their carbon footprint, give percentages to the homeless, work with water-based dyes, incorporate alternative energy at their facilities, manufacture locally and make it in the U.S. well, all the better. But designers must first design.

When they focus on that, they are able to create objects of worth that transcend trends and can be used not only to satisfy our urge to adorn but to outlast so we don’t need more.
We, the consumers, also need to be more conscious of what we buy. We play a big part in this, too.

When writers proclaim prematurely that “nobody knows what eco-fashion is,” they fail to realize it’s just more fuel on our fire.

That it only makes our community stronger and more willing to design sustainably because it does matter so much for our health and for the environment.

Because this isn’t just about defining eco-fashion. This is about conscious consumption, and we Americans know nothing of it.

Therein lies our eco-fashion paradox.

Our own fashion burden to bear.

Image: CoCreatr’s

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At the Shift launch party Friday, November 6th

For all the eco there is, it still isn’t easy being green.

I say that knowing this will change, but I needed only to open my own sustainable boutique to discover, “Houston, we have problems.”

My background is such that I write, market, sell and do coaching with and for designers who seek to prove they are just as good as any other designer doing forward fashion out there. That’s been great for many years.

The tables sure turned when I started my own shop, Shift, and I had to buy from them: I wanted things like reclaimed or organic silks, prints and the ever elusive non-skinny pant.

How about color from water-based dyes?

How about knits that are affordable?

The pieces of my boutique’s puzzle are slowly coming together to form a whole. But, here are a few things I found out along the way that has made living the eco-entrepreneur life very challenging:

A tired Amy DuFault ringing in the eco-goods at the launch party

Patterned fabric

There’s not much patterned fabric out there at an affordable price. If it’s out there, it’s typically very expensive. A few designers I spoke with said they can’t all buy the same print because they want to be creating different pieces from each other (but of course).

Thanks to a lack of demand for the small amount of sustainably printed fabrics out there, suppliers simply choose not to offer many. Think about that the next time you hit the local eco-boutique and you see all solids and heavy accessories buying.

I have a new appreciation for all my eco-boutique buying comrades out there.

Knits

In a perfect world, we could all buy chunky sweaters and luscious scarves at digestible prices. The handful of knit designers out there I love, like Lars Anderson and Souchi, ring in at different price-points that seem fair to me – but what will the shoppers tell me when they’re confronted with the tag? Well, on Cape Cod in the winter, they’re going to tell me plenty.

The knits ring in at a higher price point ($250 and up) because the designer often contracts locals, pays them a fair wage, finds pesticide free yarns and so on. $19.99 does come at a price, just one that consumers don’t see.

Construction

The last thing I want to be guilty of is using standard paints, virgin-paper business cards and bags, incandescent bulbs or anything, frankly, brand new. Being eco through and through means even the building has got to be green.

Thanks to a local carpenter/artist designing a wall unit and dressing rooms from reclaimed wood, and a steady influx of consignment furniture from a local eco-home store, we got there!

Recycled PET plastic hangers? Check.
Dress forms off Ebay? Check.
Recycling bins? Check.
Vintage mirrors and merchandising accessories? Check check!

Goodness, by the time all is said and done, my business partner and I will be running a green business initiative making other businesses on Cape Cod comply with a green certification. (For real. We’ve just been hired.)

And thanks to undergoing my own “greening” I will feel no sympathy.

This is all so worth it. Moreover, despite the challenges, it’s doable. The more we all support the people willing to conserve energy, reuse materials and be part of the solution when it comes to lightening their carbon footprint, the better people we will be.

At the very least, we’ll have some nice sweaters.

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