Green Fashion - part I

Being a fashion photographer and leaning (a lot) towards being "green" - it's only natural that I find ecologically responsible designers so fascinating.

I did some research in the past few days, looking for "GreenER" designers, what they do and how they do it to stay responsible, and trying to answer a question - what does "green" mean both to me (as a consumer) and to a fashion designer. Is it all about natural fabrics? Being eco-friendly? What is it?

My knowledge was pretty limited to "Stella McCartney designs with only non-animal derived fabrics". I'm still to understand what does "organic wool" mean in terms of being vegan (where does it come from if not from an animal?)... but her pieces look incredibly cool and I'd love to photograph and/or wear them.

Turns out - there's much more to it than just "green" fabric. There's saving on shipping back and forth by keeping the production local to the designer; there's recycling of anything that can be reused. There's making the quality garments that last a lifetime as opposed to cheap stuff that falls apart after 5 times you wear them. There's a fair treatment and payment to the garment workers; using the alternative energies... And the question about dry cleaning clothes without doubt makes the red light come on. Would making clothes that can only be dry cleaned be ever considered green?

And I really love it when one item can be worn in many different ways. I've stopped by one local fashion designer's studio and she showed me a dress that I (as a photographer and a woman) was all over. Not only it's cute and soft (100% silk!) but the design lets you wear it on a casual summer day, then convert it to a party dress and then all of a sudden it converts into a skirt (WOW!!). Now it's a dress that in my eyes is definitely worth buying. And in how many ways can you photograph it too! *lol* (I'll show it to you when I get to photograph it *wink*).

And I think that taking all above mentioned into account - the garments still need to look fashionable and be affordable, otherwise the trend won't stick and all the "greenER" efforts will have no effect on the society.

All of that said - uff - I'm going to go out there today and see if the grass is being "greenER" in the other part of my photographic interest. The ShowBiz Expo is today and I'm not going to miss it!

Other than that, I'm going to see an opening of Francis Hills's exhibition "Alan & Me" featuring his work with Alan Cumming (http://www.figjamstudios.com/). Can you see why I'm all excited this morning? :)