The Red, White, and Green

Eco-friendly fashion is very much à la mode for this fall, from established high-end labels like Yves Saint Laurent recently unveiling its “New Vintage” collection that recycles fabrics from past YSL designs, to online clotheshorse destination Shopbop.com featuring an entire “Earth Friendly” category on its site.

And while sustainable manufacturing processes and fabrics are something I’d certainly like to see more of (conventionally grown cotton uses 25 percent of the world’s insecticides and more than 10 percent of the world’s pesticides), my green fashion philosophy stems more toward buying well-crafted items that you can love, wear, and repair for years to come. A beautiful classic handbag that you can hand down to your daughter is a far more sustainable investment than a dozen trendy organic cotton tops that may never make it past this season.

So imagine my thrill when I  stumbled across this fun featurette in the September issue of Glamour:

Added bonus: You’ll have an easier time sticking to that recession budget. And don’t feel bad about “shopping your closet,” as fashion magazine editors like to say; green- and budget-conscious fashionistas have been wearing recycled clothes for years (we just call them “vintage”). 

–Jennifer Grayson

Related posts:
The Red, White, and Green: The careful consumer
The Huffington Post: Why Quality Matters, Even in Tough Times

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