Organic Bags with Small Price Tags
Date: September 22, 2008 | Category: Bags, Care, Children, Fashion, Men, Women
Clean lines meet clean materials in Ecogear’s bags for men, women and children. And the bags even boast features to help you keep the bag itself clean.
The company’s offerings - Ecotech, a line of rugged backpacks, and Ecogear, a line of purses and messenger-style bags - are made with organic cotton, recycled plastics, sustainable wood components and toxic-free dyes. Not only do these bags not damage the environment, they won’t damage your wallet: The bags range in price from just $17.99 to $79.99.
Our ecofabulous tot testers gave piggy back rides to their new ecozoo pals/packs and protested having to return them. Luckily, for a little more than the price of a Webkin they can get a pet that actually helps with school work and doesn’t require constant attention.
NY Fashion Week Goes EcoChic
Date: September 17, 2008 | Category: Accessories, Bags, Fashion, Men, Shoes, Women
New York Fashion Week kicked off at the American Museum of Natural History on Sept. 10 with Be EcoChic, a showcase of sublimely green fashions by some of today’s most celebrated designers.
The event was everything a fashion show should be: form and functionality combined with a flair for the funky, like designs made entirely of seaweed from Linda Loudermilk, or a recycled raffia jacket by Ralph Rucci. And to make it even more fabulous, a gaggle of celebrities - including Lauren Hutton, Adrien Grenier and Patti Hansen - modeled the clothing.
The Be EcoChic fashion show was a national awareness campaign supported by Johnson & Johnson Beauty Care and its brands AVEENO®, Neutrogena® and Neutrogena® Cosmetics, Mercedes Benz, Continental Airlines, Lycra, PJ Madison’s, and the event’s Advisory Board which included Carl Pope from the Sierra Club, Fern Mallis of IMG Fashion, and Kimberly Pinkson of the EcoMom Alliance.
To read more about the show and about other NY Fashion Week news, check out additional coverage on Inhabitat.
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.
Haut Hexagon
Date: July 21, 2008 | Category: Bags, Fashion
With a passion for luxury, Vegan Queen clutched our hankering for cruelty-free, eco-friendly bags right from the start. Last year we dubbed the mini bowler “The Eco It Bag.” Now the VQ is back with a tote that could steal the title.
The dramatic No. 5 Diamond Bag is made from soft vegetal leather (devoid of the PVC often found in faux leathers). Embossed with the signature VQ monogram, this lovely hand-held is lined in organic cotton terry and finished with antiqued brass hardware. All the fashionistas on Fifth Avenue will be green with envy when they see you carrying the bag recently displayed in Henri Bendel’s window. Even the dust bag is made from 100% organic cotton for the ultimate eco-jet setter.
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.
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Founded by green design guru Zem Joaquin, ecofabulous.com is the online destination for sexy, sustainable style.
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