Fashion Conscience

The other day I shared a Vogue report on how designers are calling for a moratorium on leathers from the rainforest. Well there are now even more ways the fashion world is looking to make a positive impact for animals and the environment, while helping us keep stylish.


Reported in Vouge:

Fashion-Conscience.com is a website which supplies shoes to shoppers who - like Stella McCartney and Natalie Portman - believe that vegan needn't mean lacking in style.

New York label olsen Haus was founded by former Calvin Klein and Nine West designer Elisabeth Olsen, an outspoken advocate for veganism. Her colourful, non-leather designs have found favour with the US fashion pack and retail from £170.

Neu Aura offers a range of styles crucial to every wardrobe but crucially without using any animal by-products. Wearable colourful mid-heel styles and classic brown and black riding boots are all 100 per cent vegan and are produced in a factory which adheres to eco standards in recycling. Prices start at £87.50.

Melissa's jelly shoe collaboration with Vivienne Westwood has made an impact on the fashion scene lately - not only for their use of recycled plastic and waste-free production, but for its fun and colourful approach. Prices start at £62.00.

All collections are available at http://www.fashion-conscience.com/ along with other vegan clothing, shoes and accessories.

I've liked olsen Haus for a while now and have a pair of the Melissa's, so these do seem to be great options for anyone looking for great design and fun shoes. I'm also glad to have an additional option on top of EcoStiletto.

As I evolve in my clothing and accessory purchases (I need a new black purse for one!), I'm glad to see sustainable, fair trade and vegan options available that are pretty and interesting and more my style. I'm seriously considering those olsen Haus green velvet booties right there.

If you have any great designers that fall into these categories, please share them in the comments.

Vintage Inspiration

What do you think?

Was this....



inspired by something like this....?



Discuss!



Image via HBO and from 1950s Vogue via DesignCracker on Flickr

Bravo!

I haven't been a huge passionate fan of Daphne Guinness but I think I'm a little bit in love right now. She does have a fearless style, and the body and money to pull them off of course, but I love love love her attitude as reported here by Vogue -

As the modern fashion industry becomes increasingly globalised, style maven Daphne Guinness, writing in the Financial Times, is celebrating a return to individuality.

"Between couture fashion and street fashion, there is a certain continuity. It's great to go to London's Camden Market or downtown New York and see what the kids are wearing," she says. "Today, you don't even have to travel to do this; all you have to do is look at fashion blogs."

"On one site you might see a hipster in Williamsburg, New York, for example, in very tight, very shrunken jackets and trousers, and then you jump to another and see a different type of person wearing an oversized shirt, belted with silver tights. It's like a bunch of ad-hoc experiments going on all the time."

With the media focusing increasingly on which celebrities are wearing which labels - or, indeed, collaborating with them - seeking out individuals with style is more refreshing than ever before, Guinness adds.

"Celebrities almost never look good unless they are 'out' at something or other, while real fashion animals always look a little interesting, even if they are only going to Starbucks. Individuality will always exist," she asserts. "It's more that it has become very underground and doesn't infiltrate the mainstream as much as it should, so you have to search it out, which is getting more difficult, but also more rewarding."

"It's exciting to see people inhabit their look, wearing clothes from morning to night. Fashion at its most interesting and purposeful, whether it's the most expensive clothes being made or the least expensive, is not about showing off - it's about creation."

Now, if only the mainstream fashion industry would see and respect the role that individuals and blogs can really play. I think it's getting there but there is still a bias. But I feel that this is changing. I know that I'm inspired far more by how people are getting dressed and having fun with it every day rather than a whole bunch of celebrities and stylists.

Getting off on the wrong Foot

Oh, Manolo, how we love you.



As a purveyor of some of the finest footwear the world has ever seen, Manolo Blahnik reveals he is less than impressed with the recent vogue for clumpy shoe shapes and chunky heels.

"They don't even look like shoes," the designer says. "It's like talking in Chinese. I don't understand them at all. The past few years have been aesthetic hell for me. It's because designers have forgotten about the importance of the harmony of extremes."

And the modern media doesn't fare much better, in his opinion. "I'm totally confused," he admits in Style magazine. "I don't even know what taste is anymore. Frankly, I can't bear to buy magazines. I get so upset."

- Courtesy Vogue.com UK

Shut Your Trap already!

I never was a big Vogue reader until shortly before I started writing here. Then I subscribed. I was always more of a "practical" mag reader, like Better Homes and Gardens, Domino, Blueprint, Martha Stewart, with some shopping mags (Lucky, InStyle) and some Sauver, Travel and Leisure and National Geographic thrown in.

And while I can appreciate where they're going with things, much in the same way I view a Couture show, more and more I find them vulgar, out of touch and repugnant. And now I feel they are ignorant as well.

I know this is an "aspirational" magazine for most and the way things are written and what are featured are selected as such but when I read the articles I am, at best, amused and, at worst, sickened.

Recently there was the feature story on Kate Hudson. In the article the sycophantic suck-up writing the piece made a point of praising her "tiny" jeans and gas-guzzling Escalade driving. This just seems so ridiculous given today's issues of anorexia and the conservation green movement.

But I find Anna Wintour and André Leon Talley the worst. Their manners and writing expose them as the most vain, self-centered and self-important people I've ever seen. While I'm sure they hold sway in the fashion publishing arena, outside of that they should really keep their traps shut.

Talley I merely find to be a one dimensional caricature with his know-it-all pomposity but Wintour has truly outed her ignorance in February's Editor's letter. In it she chides Hillary Clinton for refusing to "appear" in the mag (and probably to styled in some ridiculous designer fashions) and that she is pushing back feminism because the country is ready for a woman Senator/President who dresses femininely and Hillary shouldn't dress as conservatively (a.k.a. masculine) as she does.



Is she kidding me?

The US, on many levels, is anything but progressive and open minded. Has she even been to a "middle" state? I'm sure there are fashion-forward, progressive folks there but many are not.

And politicians certainly are not or feel they can not be. Sadly we're barely ready for some of these candidates much less a campaigning woman in flow-y pants. Maybe if Hillary is elected she will "loosen up". And I'm sure Anna Wintour and the fashion mags and industry are dieing to get their mitts on her and turn her into a billboard and vehicle to sell more stuff. But they have to remember, these are politicians not starlets. They have jobs and degrees and represent bible-quoting constituents.

This is D.C. not LA.

Anna, you may have your little fiefdom, but Hillary Clinton owes you nothing and probably cares even less about your opinion on how she should dress. And this is politics, as in the real meaning of the word, not office politics about who was caught wearing last season's whatever. So leave the assessment of what you think this country is ready for to the experts. Because, clearly you are out of your depth.

Go back to your sandbox.

Photo source: NY Magazine & Getty Images

So Frickin' Cool

That's me, baby!

Click the image and see why!

Luv,

Poochie

War 'n' Peace

So in my internet rambles I've started to see a new theme trend popping up.

As we all know, skulls are kind of over and done with (unless you're really cool and ironic like me) and aren't we glad because they were ev-er-y-where on everything from scarves to shoes to earrings.

But the new motif I'm just starting to see around is the peace symbol. The symbol, which reached it's heyday in the 60's/70's is now coming back into vogue with our reclamation and reinterpretation of the fashions of those times.


If you use Polyvore, you know you can search through hundreds of pages of clothes and accessories. I found 15 pages of skull-related items and less than a page of items with peace symbols.

Here are just a few of the pieces at the head of the pack:

1. Donald J. Pilner Jibon - $225 (he has boots and flats with this too - Neiman Marcus)




2. Isabella Fiore Peace Embroidered Flat - $375





3. King Baby Studio Peace Dog Tag - $725



4. Isabella Fiore Peace Out Shoulder Bag - $595



5. Mickael Kors Danbury - $164




6. The Sak Peace Bag Shopper - $315



7. Koolaburra Peace Sign Boot - $425



We're rehashing the past. I didn't jump on the bandwagon for skulls, and I know I won't be getting in line for these. But it's interesting that we went from a sort of grisly image which followed a period of war and strife world-wide and now there is a big push for ending the war, mimicked with a resurgence of the peace symbol.

Ya heard it here!

P.S. A big shout out to Elaine, Sky High, Edwin Star (huh!), and Mr. Tolstoy for being fashion trendsetters.