When I make my weekly trip to Safeway, I bag my vegetables, buy my tofu and always end up in the organic food aisle, browsing for novelty items such as organic soy chips. When I am not drinking soymilk, I imbibe Horizon organic milk, mostly in an effort to avoid pesticides and hormones that are not good for the earth, cows or me. This food awareness is no longer sufficient if I hope to be truly eco-friendly, though: Organic fashion is the next trendy manifestation of the green movement.
New York’s fashion week in the spring of 2005 saw big designers such as Oscar de la Renta present apparel made from corn, bamboo and organic cotton. Linda Loudermilk has a new line of whimsical couture made from organic materials like recycled bottle caps and wood. And Loomstate, a company that uses organic cotton to make jeans, appeals to the hip and environmentally-conscious at once with the mission statement on their website, “people who give a shit are sexy.”
If one wanted to dress “green” before the recent fashion interest, it usually entailed shapeless, colorless, potato-sack-like garb. But the designers who are hoping to capitalize on accelerating eco-consciousness have caught on to make the organic designs chic and fashion-forward. What fascinates me about this trend is that these designers are making organic “cool” to buyers who may never have cared that cotton cultivation was ever damaging the earth.
The entertainment industry exercises strong pull on contemporary culture through the mass media. It seems that, hand-in-hand with the fashion world, the entertainment world has caught on to this growing trend. According to Linda Loudermilk’s website, a new magazine entitled “Luxury Eco Life” will be launched soon to report on celebrities, products and news that “glam up green.”
I am in full support of this growing trend, as the declining quality of our environment is perhaps one of the biggest problems in the world right now. Any way to draw attention to it, be it through political campaigns, documentaries or eco-fashion, is valuable.
Like all trends, this one suffers the risk of being left in the dust for a new idea next season. But for many people, green living is not a trend, but a philosophy. It can start small and, like a seedling, grow. Maybe fashion followers will invest in a pair of organic jeans, but pair them with a cotton shirt whose production single-handedly used a third of a pound of pesticides and fertilizers. Still, every action helps, and I hope that just as organic agriculture is sustainable in the earth, this trend will survive and thrive.
