UK designers Westwood, Hamnett join campaign to save bees

Top British fashion designers Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett joined bee campaigners outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Friday to urge the government to support a proposed European Union (EU) ban on pesticides which harm bees.

Britain is currently one of a group of countries blocking attempts to introduce a Europe-wide ban on the world’s most widely used insecticides, neonicotinoids, arguing their impact on bees is unclear.

A vote takes place in Brussels on April 29 on whether to ban the poisons on flowering crops.

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Peace tartan, inspired by the Dalai Lama, set to appear on the New York catwalk

The World Peace Tartan has been used by the Edinburgh designer Judy R Clark to create a couture outfit, for the Tartan Week showcase, From Scotland With Love.

The tartan will also be worn as a kilt in a catwalk appearance by spiritual leader and political campaigner Arun Gandhi – grandson of Mahatma Gandhi – at next week’s event.

The design is the creation of Victor Spence, co-ordinator of the Dalai Lama’s visit to Scotland last year.

He said: “The Tibetan tradition is to greet someone by placing a white silk scarf, or khata, around their neck. I had the idea that I wanted to welcome the Dalai Lama to Scotland by putting a tartan scarf around his neck.”

Mr Spence, who designed the pale blue tartan himself, will be licensing it for use by others and using the profits for a charity to help Scottish children living in poverty.

Designer Clark, who has worked with Alexander McQueen and designed outfits for chart-topping Scottish singer Emeli Sandé, said she had been inspired to create an outfit with the new tartan.

She said: “I was drawn to the name of the tartan and its striking design. I approached Victor Spence and asked if he would like to collaborate on a piece for the New York show.”

As well as representing the Dalai Lama, Mr Spence has co-ordinated several of Arun Gandhi’s visits to Scotland – which is how the India leader came to be involved.

Mr Gandhi said: “The World Peace Tartan is beautiful.

“Wearing this tartan will be a daily reminder to commit ourselves to working for peace in the world.”

Read more.

guardian:

Casey Legler, the first female menswear model  

Photograph: Julian Broad for the Observer Magazine

Casey Legler is standing, topless, by our rail of clothes, reading them like they’re credits on a film. Some are “drag”, some “boy”. Some she’ll wear if she wants to “serve you ‘girl’”, some she won’t wear at all. As a child, all she wanted to do was sit by a swimming pool in a pink tutu, and read her difficult books. She moved a lot when she was younger, between Louisiana, Florida and Aix-en-Provence, and, noticing that the fashions (and prejudices) in France and America were completely different, Legler “learned early on,” she tells me later, “that what you looked like wasn’t necessarily who you were”. People had “different armour. I realised things only mean what we want them to mean, and it’s not appropriate information for differentiation. What you look like is just what you look like. Then there’s… everything else.”

Legler is 6ft 2in, 35 years old, and the first woman to sign exclusively as a male model. She is muscular and cheery, with the awkward swagger of a rock star. Her voice is soft and earnest, and when she talks, she holds unblinking eye contact. In front of the camera, edges appear. Spikes. She juts her chin; she becomes a boy.

Fashion has always played with gender, from 18th century men in their wigs and make-up, to Patti Smith and David Bowie, through to the recent success of Andrej Peji’c, the male model who FHM named as the 98th “sexiest woman in the world”. Maison Martin Margiela and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons have long manipulated gender codes with their designs, and this year JW Anderson’s menswear collection featured halternecks and knee-length gowns. The most exciting designers today are the ones who cheat gender, who affect our ideas about what makes a man. And while much has been written about 21-year-old Peji´c (who models both menswear and womenswear), he enjoys, he says, a “level of mystery”, and rarely rises to the debate. Which is why Casey Legler, who, at 35, sees modelling menswear as part of her work as an artist, is so refreshing. She talks. She has the vocabulary to describe what she’s doing, why she’s doing it and what impact that might have on the world outside fashion.

We’re sitting in a London pub after the shoot; the fizz of Legler’s Berocca is deafening. I was concerned, when she was sorting through the clothes, that in asking her to wear women’s clothes, our fashion editor was pressing her to do something she didn’t want to do. I had a flash of a 14-year-old model being pushed to show more flesh, just a little more shoulder, an inch of breast… Legler nods. She disagrees, but she nods. Part of her job, she says, is to have that conversation. Sometimes it happens, she explains. “Sometimes I get hired as a male model, then they try and put me in dresses and heels. But they’d never do that to a boy. So you have to have this conversation.” This conversation is about gender, about reading a woman as a boy. “I am the person who has to introduce this. They want to shoot me because I have a narrative, and implicit in that is a conversation,” she explains. “I’m not androgynous,” she stresses, holding her drink with tattooed fingers. “There is no ambiguity with me.”

Legler has had many lives. Until she was 21, she swam for France. One of five children of a professional basketball player, she was home-schooled to accommodate her training, but, after a time in the “swamps of Louisiana”, she started school in Florida, at the first high school to test out metal detectors. “When I was little I auditioned for a male role in a play that I really identified with,” she says. “The director picked a boy, and got me to be a hypersexual 35-year-old woman. I stopped acting after that.”

At 13 she was presented with her life plan until the Olympics. The problem was, she hated swimming. “It was really painful for me,” she says. “I’m not competitive, I don’t like exercising, and the water is cold. My coach was an artist too, and I’d want to have conversations with him about that. He’d be like, ‘Can. You. Just. Go. Swim?’” There’s a photo of Legler, aged 19, at the Olympics. She’s in the water, holding on to the side after finishing last in a race, her head shaved to a tight, smooth sphere. Her mouth is open and she looks relieved.

At 21, she gave up swimming. It meant giving up her scholarship to college too, and getting a job in a supermarket – it meant starting again. She studied architecture and set design, she got a scholarship to law school, and started medical school; she moved to New York and worked on her art, music and writing, and when her friend, the photographerCass Bird, asked if she’d let her show some photos to a modelling agency, she took a breath and said yes. “I’d said no for the longest time.”

Emily Novak at Ford Models signed her to the men’s board immediately. “She has an incredible presence and personality, and, most importantly, she is confident in who she is,” Novak tells me. “Being the first woman on a men’s board is the least-surprising bit to me – it’s me,” Legler laughs. “I walked in. It seems so obvious. I have the vocabulary.” Now she’s saying yes to acting again, too – she wants to be the first female Bond.

Read More.

guardian:

Morning Tumblr!

There are some great pictures up this morning from London’s first plus size fashion weekend. Take a look.

Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty images

mothernaturenetwork:

Bradley Cooper in eco-fashion at Golden Globes

Livia Firth’s Green Carpet Challenge kicked off its fourth year with the surprise recruitment of actor Bradley Cooper to wear a sustainable design to the 2013 Golden Globe Awards. 

The 38-year-old “Silver Linings” star donned a two piece “eco-tux” by Tom Ford made from OEKO-TEX® certified, low environmental impact, European spun and woven wool suiting. Cooper joins such notables as Javier Bardem, Colin Firth, Kenneth Branagh and Demian Bichir who have all gone green on the red carpet. 

“One of the names we are proudest of working with is Tom Ford,” writes Firth on her Eco-Age site, “something of a mentor to us in our quest to merge ethics with aesthetics; he really ‘gets it’. He will never compromise and that’s what we love about him. It’s a sure-fire way of making sustainability raise its game.”

Since starting the Green Carpet Challenge, Firth has inspired fashion houses from Stella McCartney to Valentino, Gucci, and Chanel to consider alternative materials and increase their use of ethical and sustainable manufacturing. ”A designer will create a gown for an actress anyway. So what we do is to work with the designers to switch the fabric to eco-alternatives,” Firth told CNN last year. 

With the Globes now behind us, attention will now shift to the Oscars - with Firth likely to have more celebrities showing off gorgeous sustainable designs. Last year, Meryl Streep was the surprise big name in a green Lanvin gown. The Green Carpet Challenge was further elevated when the 63-year-old won the Best Actress award for her role in “The Iron Lady.”

Pantone, the authority on color, announced that emerald is the official color of the New Year.

After conducting poll and research, the institute picked emerald, which it called “lively, radiant and lush green,” for the color of 2013.

“Green is the most abundant hue in nature - the human eye sees more green than any other color in the spectrum,” Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, said in a statement. “It’s also the color of growth, renewal, and prosperity - no other color conveys regeneration more than green. For centuries, many countries have chosen green to represent healing and unity.”

Several fashion designers’ spring 2013 collection’s featured the color including, Tracy Reese, Nanette Lepore and Tadashi Shoji.

Last year, Patone selected Tangerine Tango as the official color of 2012.

Ethical Fashion Show creates platform for ecofashion

The Ethical Fashion Show Berlin is celebrating its third season from 15 to 17 January 2013 in connection with Berlin Fashion Week. Under the direction of Messe Frankfurt, 70 international labels will present their sustainable 2013/14 autumn/winter collections to the trade public at Ewerk.

Together with the GREENshowroom, the trade fair has established itself as a trend-setting platform for ecofashion in Berlin. While the GREENshowroom will cover the entire spectrum of the high-end fashion segment in the Adlon Kempinski Hotel, the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin will showcase a mix of street and casual wear labels at the Ewerk venue. Boasting a total of 97 brands, both events have grown substantially.

“The GREENshowroom and the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin have a very clear profile and they feature important issues for the textile industry. In January the spotlight will be on sustainable footwear, upcycling and denim,” says Olaf Schmidt, Vice President of Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt.

Renowned brands including Studio Jux and Elementum will take part in the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin next January, and the green trade fair will also be able to show many newcomers, such as Aikyou, Stormie Poodle and Milde. The event organisers are particularly pleased that the Lanius label will be presenting its eco-wool product innovation at the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin for the first time. Ecowool has been developed based on years of experience and expertise in the green fashion segment. Lanius uses the fine Merino wool from organic livestock farming to create puristic feminine basics.

This season, the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin will focus on sustainable footwear production; despite rising awareness for sustainable consumption, many consumers are still reaching for cheap shoes with a short lifespan. Socially and ecologically dubious approaches are not only associated with the leather tanning and dyeing processes using toxic chemicals which have a very negative impact on people and the environment in the manufacturing countries, they often can also be traced right back to how livestock is farmed.

Renowned exhibitors – such as John W. Shoes, Caboclo and Grand Step Shoes, as well as new brands including Austria’s Boombuz or Sweden’s Kavat, who will be exhibiting at the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin for the first time – have taken an important step. Their shoes are sustainable in every respect, starting with fair working conditions and fair wages at the manufacturing facilities in Europe to using environmentally friendly materials, such as chrome-free, vegetable-tanned leather, all the way through vegan shoes made of ecologically degradable, compostable synthetics. The high-quality workmanship that goes into these labels’ shoes complements the standard of quality that lasts far longer than the next season.

The subject of upcycling is once again being given a forum by the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin in January. Upcycling is a waste avoidance strategy that diverts used consumer goods back into circulation while improving them with clever design processes. Doing so not only protects our planet’s resources, it also gives rise to innovative new products. Labels including Bag to Life, Aluc, Daniel Kroh Reclothings, Milch, Nico Ney + Tibe Tan and Renata Campos use old textiles such as used shirts, trousers and discarded life vests from the textile industry and make a clear statement with their collections against a throw-away society and for good design.

Jeans are basics that can be found in virtually any wardrobe. But it so happens that uniting fashion and environmental protection is particularly difficult when it comes to denim, and that has to do with more than just organic cotton. The blue all-rounder has to undergo dyeing processes, washes and finishing before it hits store shelves.

In an elaborate process, they are first dyed in dark indigo before lye and chlorine bleach is used to lighten them to the desired hue. Up to 40,000 litres of freshwater go into manufacturing just one pair of jeans. And all the caustic chemicals end up back in the groundwater of the manufacturing countries. The sandblasting necessary to achieve the stonewashed effect also generates a toxic dust that is harmful to workers.

Labels such as Sey or Nurmi take a different approach. By using organic denim made of high-quality and fair-trade cotton for their jeans and forgoing toxic materials, they can offer jeans enthusiasts sustainable and stylish alternatives.

nbcnews:

From farmer to supermodel: China’s latest fashion sensation is 72-year-old granddad

(Photo Courtesy of Lv Ting)

Liu Qianping is a retired farmer from China’s Hunan province. But after jokingly modeling a range of ladies’ wear, the 72-year-old has become an online sensation.

“I never dreamed all this. I used to be a farmer, but now, after coming to the big city, I have become famous,” Liu told NBC News.

Read the complete story.

mothernaturenetwork:

Spray-on clothes unveiled on chemistry lab catwalk

As the fashion pack leave London for Milan, one designer and a professor of particle technology unveiled their own unique collection made in one afternoon with spray-on fabric. The pair, Manel Torres and Paul Luckham, are perfecting a fabric that can be sprayed onto skin and other surfaces to make clothes, medical bandages and even upholstery.

 

Torres, a visiting academic at Imperial College London, approached Luckham, an Imperial College professor of particle technology, to help him realize his dream of a spray-on garment that can be taken off, washed and worn again.

 

“Couture these days is almost dying,” Torres said. “I think here we have a good way of creating instant clothing — that is not very expensive.”

 

Torres demonstrated the process in a lab at Imperial College, spraying a T-shirt onto a model in a matter of minutes. An experience the model described as “nice, actually.”

 

“It’s like second skin,” she said.

 

The system uses short fibers, such as wool, linen or acrylic, mixed with polymers to bind them together. A solvent which evaporates on contact with a surface allows the fibers to be sprayed out of can as a liquid. The spray can be applied using an aerosol can or high pressure spray gun and the texture can be varied by changing the fibers and the numbers of layers of spray. The whole process also allows the material to be recycled.

 

“The beauty about this material is that…I will tear it into parts and I will dissolve it again with the same solvent and I will spray some of it in Rome in two days time,” Torres said.

 

Fashion is just one use of the technology and the pair have set up a company to explore other applications, such as medical patches and bandages, hygiene wipes, air fresheners and upholstery for furniture and cars. Luckham says the technology could see a change to the way we think about using fabric — for example a sterile duster could be sprayed onto a surface which needs to be cleaned.

 

“The advantage of having it in an aerosol can is that once the material is inside nothing can get in and so no germs can get inside,” he said.

 

The material can be hand-washed and Torres says more work is needed to ensure it can withstand a washing machine.

nativeamericannews:

Native American magazine launches online

Growing up on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, Kelly Holmes spent hours thumbing through the latest issues of Seventeen or Vogue. She noticed the models didn’t look anything like her and the stories had little to do with her experiences in the vast, sparsely populated area hundreds of kilometers from any high-end retailer.

So Holmes, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, set out to create her own fashion magazine geared toward Native American men and women and non-Native Americans who want to learn about the culture. Native Max focuses on indigenous people, places and cultures with the same sleek photography found in fashion magazines, but without the stereotypical headdresses and tomahawks sometimes seen in the mainstream media.

The premiere issue, which is online only, features interviews with Native American artists, musicians, designers and models, as well as sections on health, beauty and sports.

“There’s really no magazine, a Native-owned and operated, Native-designed magazine. There’s nothing like this magazine out there. The ones that do have stuff focused on younger people, they’re really vulgar and very revealing,” Holmes said.

The first issue features Mariah Watchman as the cover model. Watchman, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation out of Oregon, catapulted to fame in Indian Country after becoming the first Native American woman to compete on “America’s Next Top Model.” While the magazine aims to present positive role models and uplifting messages, it will touch on controversial topics, Holmes said.

In the premiere issue, Holmes interviewed two women who started a campaign called Save Wiyabe Project to highlight violence against Native American women. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates one out of every three Native women will be raped and one out of every four will be physically assaulted. Rhonda LeValdo, president of the Native American Journalists Association, said Native Max and other Native-focused media show American society that Native Americans are regular people, too.

“They want to be models, movie stars, artists. I think that’s showing the regular side as opposed to that stereotype of just showing us in our dance regalia,” she said.

The magazine’s staff come from all over North America, including the Navajo Nation in Arizona and the Otomi and Yaqui nations in Mexico. Ad director and writer Angelica Gallegos, 20, of Denver, said she has enjoyed learning about new and up and coming Native American artists and musicians.

“I like how we want to involve a lot of people in the community and get ideas from them,” said Gallegos, a member of the Santa Ana Pueblo and Jicarilla Apache tribes. “I also like the aspect of getting to know different artists and Native people around the country and how they’re contributing to their people in different ways.”

But LeValdo, a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, said it was imperative for any new publication to have financial backing to survive. A few years ago, one of her students started a Native American music magazine but was only able to put out two issues before it folded.

Holmes has been searching for grants and investors but so far has had no luck. She said she invested about $1,000 of her own money to get the magazine going but hopes that advertising and sales will keep it afloat and maybe even provide a profit by mid-next year. Beginning in December, the magazine will switch to a print-only format, with issues mailed to subscribers at a cost of $10 each.

Native Max has fewer than 100 subscribers at the moment, but Holmes said she hopes to boost that with fashion events at various locations across the country. She said the obstacles in getting the magazine launched haven’t tarnished her dream.

“There are Natives out there who are talented,” she said. “I want it to be inspirational and to show to others.”

Google’s Project Glass shows up at Fashion Week in NYC

We first caught sight of Google’s Project Glass back in April. After months of rumors regarding a HUD, Google finally uncovered the secret project and revealed that it was working on perfecting the smart glasses for release in the future. June brought demonstrations from Google at Google I/O, and attendees were even able to pre-order a pair (if they had $1500 hanging around and were willing to trade that cash in for the privilege of being among the first). Other than its appearance at Google I/O, we haven’t seen a lot of Project Glass in the last few months. Until this week, that is.

The product was spotted at Fashion Week in New York City this week, with one designer using the glasses to record her show. According to The Verge, designer Diane von Furstenberg is using Google’s Project Glass to record her New York Fashion Week show from behind the scenes. The recording will be made into a short movie entitled ‘DVF through Glass’ and will showcase a first-person perspective of preparation and participation in the runway show.

Though the movie itself won’t air until this Thursday (September 13), the Diane von Fustenberg Google+ page is awash with first-person perspective shots from the show. Head on over for shots of make up articles, clothes, and models sporting the new Google glasses.

365 days of bow ties: California man is on a quest

(click-through for full story)

Baby with Down syndrome lands a swimsuit campaign

We have a feel-good story for you: Valentina Guerrero, a 10-month-old Miami girl with Down syndrome, is now the face of Spanish swimwear designer Dolores Cortés’ 2013 children’s swimwear collection, DC Kids.

Although she is not the first child with Down syndrome to model, Valentina is considered the first to land a campaign with a well-known designer. Cortés showed her collection during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2013 and even brought Valentina out to walk the runway. The designer told AdWeek:

“People with Down syndrome are just as beautiful and deserve the same opportunities. I’m thrilled to have Valentina modeling for us.”

Valentina’s mother, TV host and producer Cecelia Elizalde (also known as Ceceliz) told the Down Syndrome Association of Miami how she felt when the brand told her that they wanted Valentina to be their spokesmodel:

“I was excited, mainly because the fact that they are placing Valentina on a catalog sends a very clear message of inclusion; all children deserve the same opportunities, regardless of their physical, economic, social, racial or medical condition.”

Cortés has also pledged to donate 10 percent of the profits from the DC Kids line to the Down Syndrome Association of Miami. Check out the collection here.

Innovative conservation: bandanas to promote new park in the Congo

American artist, Roger Peet—a member of the art cooperative, Justseeds, and known for his print images of vanishing species—is headed off to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to help survey a new protected area, Lomami National Park. With him, he’ll be bringing 400 bandanas sporting beautifully-crafted images of the park’s endangered fauna. Peet hopes the bandanas, which he’ll be handing out freely to locals, will not only create support and awareness for the fledgling park, but also help local people recognize threatened species.

Given that the DRC is one of the world’s most impoverished countries, Peet says that the bandanas, which have a number of practical applications, will be an important way for people to promote conservation and raise pride in their rich and splendid wildlife. Mongabay.com recently spoke to Peet, who has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the project, about the innovative idea of using bandanas as a conservation tool and his up-coming trip to the DRC.

(click-through for Interview with Peet)

World’s oldest purse found—studded with a hundred dog teeth?

“It seems to have been very fashionable at the time.”

(click-through for full story)