About ecofabulous

Date: February 18, 2008 | Category: Lifestyle, Stores & Resources

About Us:

ecofabulous was created and exists today to help navigate the constantly expanding world of green products. ecofabulous is your design consultant, personal shopper, authoritative voice and friend, dedicated to finding and sharing sexy, sustainable products and services. Guided by stringent environmental criteria and a chic design aesthetic, when it falls under the ecofabulous moniker, you can rest assured that it has been tested for style, functionality and sustainability. We will always do our best to find you an online resource and occasionally a local outpost. Please feel free to engage in a dialog with us about products, as well as concepts and constructs. We sincerely enjoy sharing this information with you and value your feedback. Please feel free to contact us anytime at :
[email protected]

Zem Joaquin
Founder / Editor-in-Chief

Inspired and mentored by William McDonough and a cadre of deep, but optimistic, environmental thinkers, I have developed a lens that makes it impossible to view products as I once did. In one way or another I have always worked in design, whether it was as a critic or promoter. Cradle to Cradle means that everything that comes from the earth (and what doesn’t) should go back to the earth as a biological nutrient - or should include a plan for the next incarnation of the technical nutrients (translation: should not end up seeping chemicals into a landfill for thousands of years). I believe the time has come to reinvent the way we think about design. As a board member of Global Green, Healthy Child, Healthy World and Teens For Safe Cosmetics, I have access to the latest and greatest information about green innovations. I am certified by Builditgreen as a green building professional and study both online and off line, exhaustively. I apply this knowledge in my eco-consultancy business, as green contributing editor at Domino Magazine, on television and radio spots and, most emphatically, on www.ecofabulous.com.

My closest confident and THE authority on fabulous, Gina Pell, convinced me to leave my life of fashion in Milan to help her build Splendora.com. The experience taught me never to settle for mediocrity. I have also lived in London and Paris where Jil Hales, of Barn Diva, inspired me to critique every product, place and experience that I encountered with a discerning, aesthetic eye. But being born on Joan Baez’ commune in Palo Alto, to a real earth mother, gave me organic roots.

ecofabulous is growing, and, as such, I have found a dedicated team to expand with me. ecofabulous will stay true to its uncompromising mission of connecting conscious consumers to products that reflect their values. Our editorial content is tried and true and based on our own experiences. Our opinions can never be bought! Any advertising we choose to accept will clearly be separate from our editorial and will be selected with our usual discerning eye. Growth is exciting, and, for ecofabulous, it reflects the expansion of a planetary awareness about current circumstances. People are listening, and they want to be the change. We are committed to helping our readers find the products and information they need to make wiser decisions that reflect their concern for the environment, by lending fashion-forward, stylistic and useful opinions about merchandise that is up to ecofabulous standards and fulfills their expectations for quality and practicality.

Our Team:

Emilie Cowan
Director, Business Development

Emilie brings a broad range of expertise to manage our team. When Emilie worked for Senator Carl Levin in his Washington DC office, on environmental policy, she quickly realized the importance of being conscious about one’s community and how one should build and design within it. She spent time working overseas on community development and advocacy projects, specializing in resource management and sustainability, and occasionally living in alternative conditions (such as sharing a hutch with a chicken), in India. While completing her Masters in Business Communications, she worked for BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, focusing on the development and implementation of a large Sustainable Development program throughout Australia (she did not live with any marsupials but did develop a penchant for kick boxing - coincidence?). Upon moving back to the US, she continued her career in high-end real estate sales and development for Starwood Hotels and Resorts. It was there that she refined her passion for new business operations, project management, client relationship development and strategic partnerships. She then turned her ardent attention towards ecofabulous, to help us implement a plan for the continued growth of a green information service - and hasn’t looked back.

Andrea Manitsas
Associate Editor

Andrea joined the ecofabulous team with an incisive passion for sustainability and the written word. It’s no surprise that she graduated from New York University with a self-designed major in Environmental Ethics and Creative Writing, not to mention, a pretty intense fashion fetish borne of her affair with New York City. Working in boutiques to supplement her collegiate lifestyle, she saw her first tricklings of eco-fashion (on the outermost fringe!) and was instantly a more conscious consumer. In her travels that followed, she witnessed the destruction left by the tsunami in Thailand, lived in communion with nature on the Big Island (Hawaii) and returned to where she was originally native, San Francisco. At ecofabulous, Andrea uses her critical sensibility and word savvy style to track down the freshest eco-finds and inform our avid readers of all the treasures she comes across. She also contributes to Common Ground magazine and various travel sites, and is starting work on her first novel (she assures me that it will not impact her productivity - to this I say, remember, energy can neither be created nor destroyed).

Dena Smolek
Contributing Writer - LA Correspondent

Dena Smolek is a freelance writer/editor based in LA who joined us in 2007. She is a fashion fanatic, shopping pro and beauty product connoisseur. As a senior contributing editor for Splendora, a contributing editor for The Tip Jar, a contributing writer for California Apparel News, a contributing reporter for Refinery29 and the editor of The Jewelry Book magazine, she is beyond busy, but loves her work and is compelled to share her eco-chic discoveries with those who most appreciate her research. Her blog, D~Luxe List, is a chic guide to beautiful things, lust-worthy accessories, fashion, the best beauty products and spa treatments. Dena’s work has also appeared in C Magazine, Malibu Magazine, Robb Report Vacation Homes, Woman’s Day, California Home & Design, The San Francisco Chronicle, Trendcentral, Citysearch, SOMA and Daily Candy, among others.

Emily Blakeney
Copy Editor

Emily joined ecofabulous at the beginning of the year and, with a degree in Liberal Studies and a minor in Education, she practices her skills as an editor. She’s also my little sister, and I’m not playing the nepotism card - she’s good at what she does. I’m proud to say that she has fallen for my passion, and recently, she has become dedicated to making the world a greener place and has made ecofabulous the catalyst for her mission. Like the other members of the team, Emily is in love with fashion and has always been a conscientious consumer, I’d like to take a little credit for that. Ecofabulous is just her style.

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