Posh Swaps Blog

Picture from Facto Magazine

Fashion Pulse Daily tests (and loves) the new Burt’s Bees Super Shiny Lip Gloss in Juicy Peach — find out why!

Factio Magazine checks out all of the vintage and eco-friendly fashion during Lollapalooza!

Runway To Retail says, “Deep green is the new black”, for nails that is. Sephora recently pumped out several new products on their website.

Looking Sharp! is back to school cool with this upcycled Frito-Lays pencil case found at Target

Posh Swaps has been really busy creating some sustainable style with her DIY Project – refashioned and recycled T shirts

My Beauty Bunny shows you how to get some fab beauty products from LUSH, help orangutans in Borneo and get 15% off!

Quinta Trends (En Espanol) remembers vintage years with Re_cuerda

It’s great to see so many of the nominees for the Innovation awards using recycled materials this year. The competition was lauched by the Ethical Fashion Forum this year to support new fashion designers whose work exhibits both outstanding design and sustainability. The winners will have the opportunity to show at Estheica at London Fashion Week in September and will get support from an expert consultancy team.

The sustainable fashion using recycled materials, include:

• MIA - combining second hand clothes purchased from local markets in Malawi with traditional Malawian textiles to create contemporary womenswear.
• Dandi Maestre - handmade jewellery and accessories made from natural and recycled materials including reclaimed wood.
• Henrietta Ludgate - based in a crofting village in the highlands of Scotland and using surplus fabrics from mills including fleece and tweed.
• Hetty Rose - Handmade shoes using mainly reclaimed, recycled and vintage materials with very little waste including Japanese Kimono fabrics and recycled leather.
• Lu Flux - clothing made using upcyled vintage material.

picture - Lux Flux

Just incase you were in any doubt as to how trendy eco fashion is, it had now been confirmed by the launch of a collection made from recycled clothes at Topshop. Topshop is considered the most cutting edge and innovative of the high street fashion store and it’s introduction of a line of recycled clothing proves that being green is red hot. It follows in the footsteps of Oxfam’s recycled DIY collection which has recieved plenty of publicity lately.

The collection is by the Eco brand My Only One, that used second hand and women’s vintage clothing to create beautiful and fresh new designs. The ideas come from a team of innovative and emerging designers.

The collection will launch at the Oxford  Street store of Topshop and will be called Sport Noveau. It will feature stylishly reconstructed sportswear.

Here at Posh Swaps we have been harping on for some time about the importance of reducing waste and being stylish at the same time. Now the designers are also starting to catch on too. Traditionally the fashion industry creates quite a lot of waste in the form of offcuts from cutting out the patterns. Designs like Mark Liu and Caroline Priebe are coming up with innovative and creative ways to reduce waste and make use of these offcuts.

Mark uses a a method of cutting a jigsaw pattern from a single piece of fabric in order to create all of the components to be assembled in his design and engineered screen printing to predraw the patterns onto fabrics. His designs are intricate, interesting and very beautiful, proving yet again that eco fashion can be as good design wise and in many cases better than conventional designer clothes. There are so many different types of eco fabric to choose from but when it comes to being really environmentally friendly you can’t really beat the 3 r’s reduce, reuse, recycle.

Here are the best of the weeks posts on eco fashion and sustainable style - enjoy!

Check out the natural and handcrafted bath and beauty products from Billy Jealousy, a cruelty-free men’s grooming line.

Fashion Fille just adores the Alex and Ani spike bracelet, which happens to be made from all recycled materials!

Fashion Pulse Daily has gone ga-ga for green with the new Keds Green Label Collection

Looking Sharp! is supporting the local library by going purple!

Runway To Retail has the scoop on Jessica Alba’s interview with Vogue about going Green!

RedPoppy Fashion loves the all British and organic bath and body care range Figs & Rouge.

Posh Swaps has been thinking about sustainable style and investigates by asking the question What is Eco fashion?

If you love eco boats, you have to check the Botas Dacca’s interview inQuinta Trends

We are are delighted to have joined Green Chic.  Each week we will bring you best of eco fashion and sustainable style. This week we have eco friendly trunk shows, vegan shoes, a Phillip Lim collection and lots more.

picture from Looking Sharp

Fashion Fille lets us all know about a Libertas Earth-friendly trunk show! Woo, sale clothing! Woo, helping our planet!
Fashion Pulse Daily is in awe of Phillip Lim’s eco-sensitive collection, Go Green Go
Fashiontribes steps out in fabulous shoes…that just happen to be vegan.
Join the green movement with Factio Magazine! Sign up to win this natural, green chair from IQMatics!
Looking Sharp! has an eco-chic giveaway featuring BeadforLife
Posh Swaps loves clothes swapping and gives you 10 great reasons to swap your clothes Why not try it. It’s Eco friendly, it’s frugal and it’s fun.
Quinta Trends shows Chilean eco bags: Modulab

Whilst buying, selling and swapping second hand clothes is probbaly the ultimate in eco fashion with the least effect on the environment, there some items of clothing that even the most dedicated eco fashionista and recycling fanatic will want to buy new.

Pants and underwear are not the most popular second hand and swap items for obvious reasons. But you can still make sure that the underwear that you buy is produced in an environmentally friendly and ethical way. One way to fo this is to opt for an organic fibre like cotton or bamboo. By also opting for Fairtrade, you can be sure that the farmers growing the raw materials are receiving a fair price for their crop, helping to erradicate poverty. This pants to poverty underwear is a great way to support a good cause and minimise the negative impact that your underwear has on the environment.

Plastic bags are so last year. They never were exactly stylish but as consumers realise their devastating impact on they environment, they have become even less fashionable.

Plastic bags have become a huge problem with over 13 billion used in the UK each year. They can clog drains an dcause flooding and pollute rivers and streams. They can also kill animals and destroy plant life. They have a very short lifespan sometimes only minutes yet they can take a very long time to photodegrade.

 There are so many alternatives to a plastic bag for carrying your shopping in. I particularly like the idea of using a bag made from recycled materials for a really unique and stylish look and double environmentally friendly points.

Here are some of my favourite and very stylish reusable bags or alternatives to the plastic bag.

This Floral Recycled Shopping Bag is made using 100% recycled plastic bottles. It is available in a variety of designs but i love this cool retro style pattern. It is strong and light weight so can easily be rolled up.

If you like bright and colourful, then this shopping bag is for you. These stylish bags are made from recycled juice packs by a womens co operative in the Phillipines. The bags are strong and available in variety of shapes and sizes from large shopping bags to smaller handbags. The juice packets that they are made from contain foil and plastic which is non bio degradable and would otherwise go into landfill or incinerators.

This Re-sail tote bag is the ultimate in recycled and stylish alternatives to the carrier or plastic bag. It is made from 100% recycled sail cloth. Only a few of these bags are made and each one is totally unique.

This reversible vintage tote is made from recycled vintage materials. It is designed and handmade by Pouch. It is fully lined with recycled denim and the straps are made with recycled denim.

The Centre for Sustainable Fashion was set up by London College of Fashion to help promote sustainable fashion and act as a catalyst for change. It is recognised internationally and integrated with the fashion industry giving it maximum impact.

The Centre was launched in 2008 and has published two reports Fashion and sustainability a snapshot analysis detailing levels of activity across the UK fashion sector in relation to sustainability and fashioning the future, details of the the designers, artists and thinkers who contributed to the Fashioning the future summit in October 2008.

The Centre for Sustainable Fashion blog is  really interesting and informative read for anyone interested in sustainable style. It also has a great list of sustainable labels.

Patagoniais a company that leads the way in environmentally responsible clothing manufacture. Not only does it use a number of environmentally friendly fibres including hemp, bamboo and organic cotton for their outdoor and sports clothing, but they also actively promote and facilitate the recycling of their garments.

In 2005 Patagonia launched their common threads recycling program which is a scheme where customers can return their used clothes to be recycled It started by recycling just the Capilene® Performance Baselayers but then expanded  to include the worn out Patagonia® fleece, Polartec® fleece clothing (from any maker), Patagonia cotton T-shirts, and now some additional polyester and nylon-6 products that come with a Common Threads tag. The garments are recycled into new clothes.

Patagonia has a great company goal of taking responsibility for every product that they make and I think there is certainly a lot that other clothing manufacturers could learn from Patagonia. They don’t just talk the talk, I think they really walk the walk when it comes to environmental responsibilty with 1% of their sales going to preservation and restoration of the natural environment.