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What do New York Fashion Week, a sheep sanctuary in Britain, and destruction of the Indonesian rainforest have in common? The GreenShows, the first semi-annual fashion event "exclusively committed to eco-friendly, ethically sound, fair-trade fashion in New York City."
Check out this video from Wallet Pop:
Fashion that happens to be green
We'll get to the fashions, but first a bit of background...
The brainchild of EdMedia Inc. founder Eric Dorfman, The GreenShows was created to fill a gap to help eco-fashion designers show their collections during New York Fashion Week by providing them a venue, runway production, public relations and backstage support such as hair and makeup, which would otherwise be a financial burden to undertake during fashion week.
Unlike other eco-conscious shows in the past, The GreenShows is not a group show but individual shows slated at different time slots. It will take place twice a year during NY Fashion Week.
During a quick phone chat, Dorfman explained that he got the idea for The GreenShows after walking into a downtown real estate building that had provided free gallery space for green artists. He started researching green fashion and worked with experts to come up with criteria for entrance into his new green fashion shows. Vetted by Eco designer and fashion expert Bahar Shahpar, designs at The GreenShows contained the following elements: Vegan/Animal-Free (meaning no leather, animal tissue, or animal abuse), Ethically Produced, Fair Trade, Organic Materials, Recycled Materials, Ethically Produced Wool, Natural Dyes, and Carbon Footprint Conscious (brands that are consciously taking action to curb their carbon footprint by limiting the resources
used to produce their goods.)
Dorfman also corrected me at one point, stating that The GreenShows was not promoting green fashion, but "fashion that happens to be green." You can be the judge of that after checking out the designers and their work below.
Fashion's impact on the rainforest
Olivia Zaleski, Kate Dillon, Michael Brune, Summer Rayne Oakes
Originally uploaded by Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network (RAN) hosted The GreenShows opening night event on September 15, promoting their new campaign "Don't Bag Indonesia's Rainforests." RAN is reaching out to over 100 fashion and luxury product companies who, some unknowingly, are using custom paper packaging such as shopping bags, made from the pulp of trees felled in the endangered tropical rainforests in Indonesia. Driven by market demand from the United States, the rapid destruction of Indonesia’s rainforests is causing massive global greenhouse gas emissions, destroying Indigenous communities, threatening unique ecosystems and pushing species like orangutans and Sumatran tigers to extinction.
I spoke with RAN's Margaret Smink, who told me that model/activist Summer Rayne Oakes was the catalyst for their participation in the GreenShows, making the link between green fashion and the paper bags provided by the high-end stores that sell those fashions. She said that Indonesia is actually the world's third largest greenhouse gas emitter, after the U.S. and China, because of deforestation.
As Summer explains in her blog post, "If the Fashion Industry were a Celebrity, she’d be scandalous...
I suppose that we can go with the age old adage (augmented with a little nip, tuck, and botox) that “Any press is good press,” but that’s not the case when the fashion industry’s pretty little digits get tarnished with a DOE (read: Destruction Of Environment).
So together we [she and RAN] reached out to fashion companies letting them know that they seem to be purchasing products (according to customs data and related information) from companies exploiting Indonesia’s rainforests. Tiffany, H&M, Levi Strauss, Gucci and others responded immediately - and our inaugural event in New York at the Green Shows helped bring more awareness to the campaign.
Summer's blog is chock full of gorgeous photos from the event, as is RAN's Flickr site.
But what about those paper bags from Indonesia? What's the alternative? After all, don't all paper bags come from trees? Margaret Swink says that in addition to asking stores to switch to bags sourced from companies who can prove they are not using pulp and paper from the rainforest, RAN promotes a 3-phase program: 1) Reduce consumption
