A Total Zero
Date: October 16, 2008 | Category: Bags, Children, Fashion, Featured, Men, Women, ecoMan
Our favorite eco-bag company, Rickshaw Bagworks, has just announced a product that might just revolutionize the satchel industry.
Made in San Francisco from domestically sourced materials, the aptly named ‘ZERO‘ was designed to eliminate waste. Available in three sizes and in an array of colors, the ZERO bag combines minimalist design, monopolymer construction (translation: one material for easy recycling) and wasteless manufacturing to create a bag that is hip yet functional, all while reducing your ecological footprint.
Wouldn’t it be nice if everything had Zero effect on the environment?
Countdown to Eco Chic Shopping SF Style
Date: October 13, 2008 | Category: Accessories, Bags, Fashion, Jewelry, Makeup, Shoes, Skin Care, Women
If you just couldn’t justify turning Columbus Day into an excuse to shop, perhaps Appel & Frank’s Eco-Chic Shopping Event might just qualify as a must-spend evening. A few of us are making plans to attend and indulge in two of our favorite pastimes: drinking wine and shopping for great green finds!
On Thursday, Oct. 23, eco-inclined shoppers in the Bay Area have the chance to spend an evening perusing green fashion items by designers like becauseatom and Fair Tribe, as well as ogle the wares of mineral makeup vendors, ethical jewelers, natural bath product companies, environmental media groups, vintage clothes sellers, advocacy groups, and more.
The event runs from 5-9 p.m. at the Regency Center in San Francisco (1270 Sutter Street @ Van Ness). As incentive to get there early, the first 300 guests to walk through the doors will receive a reusable gift bag filled with green goodies like eco eye shadow, organic tea, Green Zebra guides, Bloomsberry chocolate, and other treats.
You can pre-order tickets online at the two-for-one price of $15. Now you can pick up all your sustainable holiday event gear on an organic shoestring budget.
Greenloop’s Fall Sale Will Save You Some Green
Date: October 8, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion, Men, Shoes, Women
Everyone at ecofabulous is having a hard time concentrating on work today due to Greenloop’s Fall Sale, which starts today and runs through Sunday, Oct. 12. We have found some great deals, which isn’t hard considering the company has knocked 30-60 percent off styles for men and women, including long sleeve shirts, sweaters, jeans, coats, dresses, accessories and more!
We encourage you to stock up on eco-friendly fashions while the gettin’ is good. The sale is both online at www.thegreenloop.com or - if you happen to be in Portland, Ore. you can pop by the company’s brick-and-mortar store.
Greenloop, whose motto is “Green Life. Green Style,” is a purveyor of brands that employ a variety of responsible practices, including sustainable textiles, recycling and reuse, renewable energy, reduction of green house gases, organic farming, sweat-shop free production, and environmental non-profit groups.
Greenloop’s selection of modern, functional, high style apparel, bags, belts, footwear, and jewelry gives you the opportunity to vote with your dollars for a sustainable economy, breathable air, clean water, healthy people, and diverse and thriving wildlife.
Happy shopping with a conscience!
Remember Offhand
Date: August 25, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
Purses are personal, we know. But if you have a penchant for vintage textiles, you might get a kick out of these bags made in Oakland, California. They are stitched in the Bay Area, from reclaimed fabrics and accessories. Offhand Designs incorporates unique embellishments like antique buttons and they are free of toxic glue and inks. Sold in limited editions, each of their bags is lined with re-used leather or vegan materials, at the customer’s choice. The eclectic line includes handbags, totes, clutches, baby bags and knitting bags offered in a variety of textures, including velvet, brocade and chenille. Prices range from around $150 on up, with no two exactly alike.
Time to Bag the Bottles
Date: July 12, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
In an innovative, viral campaign called “Message in a Bag,” non-profit Tappening is selling bags made from 100% recycled plastic toraise public awareness about the impact of drinking bottled water over tap. Tappening originally planned to ship 1,000,000 plastic bottles to the CEO of Coca Cola to send a powerful message, but they decided against this strategy for carbon-friendly reasons. According to Take Back the Tap, the American bottled water industry burns over 17 million barrels of oil each year. What’s more, over 80% of plastic bottles wind up in landfills.
Tappening’s blue reusable totes sell for $49.95, with 100% of proceeds going to “the fight against bottled water.” On each bag is inscribed: “Made with 100% post-consumer recycled materials: yesterday’s discarded bottles and yogurt containers.” So even if you don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, you can still wear your politics on your shoulder!
Reuse Your SKN…Bag
Date: June 18, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
With so many reusable totes out there, how do you choose among them? SKN Design makes it easy with its new organic cotton tote line - the bags are made with 100 percent organic cotton grown here in the U.S. Available in five designs - carrot, blueberry, tomato, lemon and asparagus - SKN’s totes can hold up to 40 lbs (oops, I guess I should stop trying to stack watermelons!). Co-founded by Christopher DeGregorio and Jennifer Stevenson, SKN Design works with American Forests to plant a tree for each order. The bags are available at retailers in New York and California and can also be ordered at GetSKN.com.
Brown Bagging It
Date: May 23, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
We all love leather bags (except the vegans among us). Unfortunately, leather is not exactly the most eco-friendly material, given the amount of chemicals and water used during the hide-to-leather process. And leather scraps that don’t make it as part of the bag itself end up clogging landfills. That is why we were excited to find Zanisa, an online environmentally friendly retailer (whose web site is powered by wind) that focuses on eco-friendly, sustainable, fair trade and organic products. They currently feature a Cognac Satchel designed by Stefano Nati. Though people aren’t going to confuse it for a Marc Jacobs tote, it has that modern crispness that is ever popular among hipsters. This bag is actually made from regenerated leather (ground from waste leather) and combined with a small amount of natural rubber to give it a clean, durable finish, making it ideal for everyday use. Best of all, this simple and elegant Italian design goes for only $65. Sleek, eco-friendly and affordable!
Green is Good, So Bag It!
Date: May 20, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
If you’re looking to replace one of your canvas totes that you use to bag your groceries in, check out Hayden-Harnett’s Green is Good bag. Made with 100 percent organic cotton and printed with soy-based ink, all of the proceeds from the tote go to Farm Aid, which promotes sustainable, organic, and local farming by educating and training individuals. So support a good cause and snatch up one of these stylish canvas carriers.
Honesty is Best
Date: March 4, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
Shouldn’t the thing you sling over your shoulder most often reflect your ideals? The chic, structured satchels by Helen E. Riegle are made with eco-friendly inks, glues and solvents, wherever possible. The Honesty purse is made with Cradle to Cradle-certified wool, trimmed with vegan leather, and lined with recycled PET. Rather than be a bag hog, you can invest in one of Honesty’s staple colors and have a bag to go with almost anything - they come in either moss with gold lining or espresso with chartreuse lining. And to ease the twinge of guilt after you drop dollars on a new lux bag, just remember that two percent of the company’s sales are donated to environmental and youth-oriented causes.
TED Loves Rickshaw’s Bag that Represents Hope
Date: February 28, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
From an old warehouse in San Francisco’s Dogpatch district, the newly formed Rickshaw Bagworks has been busily designing their first line of lifestyle bags from an office that overlooks what will soon be their very own factory. “Rickshaw” means “human-powered-vehicle,” so it’s no surprise that CEO Mark Dwight is an avid Cradle-to-Cradle and sustainable business advocate. While the Rickshaw collection will be available in stores this coming April (check the website for updates) they chose to launch this week at TED, the renowned conference in Monterey, California where innovation is a guiding principal. In that vein, the Rickshaw official conference bags feature DesignTex C2C fabrics made entirely from recycled water bottles - they created two each of 800 unique color combinations. TED attendees are being encouraged to find their “bag twin” and spark up a sustainable conversation. I have been strolling around TED with my bag squarely shouldered, hoping to locate my “twin,” but no luck yet. This bag is a physical representation of the focus of the conference - evolved systems thinking. Though it is not fully Cradle to Cradle, this bag is a big step in the right direction. Soon I will post about some of my favorite TED topics, but for now I will leave you with the knowledge that no matter what subject the speakers are covering - physics, architecture, beauty - they all end up addressing the fact that the earth is fragile and needs all of us to be conscious individuals, aware that we are part of many systems.
