SUST Organic Apparel

2009-10-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

NOW Showcase - Designer Forum for what is new & sustainable

2009-10-03T19:33:00.000-07:00

NOW Showcase - Designer Forum for what is new & sustainable

Submitted by Rebecca Luke on Sat, 09/26/2009 - 9:03am.

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Last week was an incredible NYC fashion week from the tents i.e. Mercedes Benz Fashion week, to all the other groups and shows around the city. Now we have the trade shows in town where the buyers all congregate to purchase what you will ultimate get to select from at their stores.

One showcase that I have had the pleasure of watching grow is the NOW Showcase. Started three seasons ago, NOW is a designer's forum featuring the newest in progressive as well as sustainably produced, independent collections.

When I stepped into the room the other night, I was amazed at how many designers and lines were showcased there. The product is getting better. Designers are really upping the anti on quality and style. Three lines stood out to me for the evening.

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First, for basics that are well made, feel good and look even better, I like SUST. Out of San Francisco, their basics are yummy to the feel and are designed to fit women. They also have cuts that are simple yet sexy.

Then, for funky and fun pieces, that I personally would wear every day, Jai Active Weary
is the brand I recommend to check out. Designed and made in New York.

And finally, Linda Loudermilk. Linda has been a pioneer in eco-fashion, well, since SSF began seven years ago. Her spring collection is sophisticated, as are her fabrics.

At SSF, we are looking forward to more with NOW and the potential it has to highlight sustainability, fashion and fabulous independent design.

For more on co-founder Rebecca Luke’s style adventures Rebecca Luke Style

Organic TV's Pick of the Week: SUST Organic Apparel

2009-09-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

Organic Pick of the Week: SUST Organic Apparel

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2009 AT 9:43AM

Over the course of my journey toward a more sustainable lifestyle, one of my favorite projects has been greening my wardrobe. And in my opinion, out of the growing number of eco-fashion options, SUSTorganic apparel is the cream of the crop.

SUST clothing is colorful, comfortable and stylish - perfect for an active lifestyle like mine. SUST clothes are versatile too; I feel like I could wear my SUST 'mod dress' to a fancy dinner or to one of our shoots on a sustainable farm. SUST uses 100% certified organic cotton grown in the US, and the garments are manufactured ethically in California.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting SUST CEO Tristan Gribbon at the NOW Showcase in New York. Tristan is one of those beautiful and inspiring women who radiate enthusiasm for their work and support others on the path toward positive change. You can tell that she not only enjoys helping women adapt to a more eco-friendly lifestyle through clothing but that she truly cares about the larger mission of sustainability in all sectors.

Tristan co-founded SUST in 2007. Here's an excerpt from the SUST mission:

"SUST is taking sustainable style to another level with a line of essential pieces in classic styles that will stand the test of time. Each piece of clothing has social and ecological responsibility woven into its very fabric with organic fibers that are produced with fair labor practices in California."

You can purchase SUST clothing online or at your local clothing boutique (if your retailer doesn't carry SUST yet, be sure to ask them!)

-Dorothee

get SUST: A Different Kind of Eco-Fashion

2009-09-09T22:21:00.000-07:00

get SUST: A Different Kind of Eco-Fashion

Native Wisdom from Glacier National Park

2009-09-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

September 5, 2009 at 9:34 am

Glacier National Park is ripe with wilderness, and we’re catching it just at the end of the season when the roads are empty but the sun still shines bright and warm. This rugged landscape immediately stole a little piece of my heart and I was giddy like a kid in a candy shop, trying to take photos from the car as we bounced down a bumpy unpaved road for almost thirty miles to get to our remote campground for the first night of our visit.

The National Park System has made an impressive effort to give Glacier’s rich cultural heritage a leg to stand on as the jagged mountains and crystal clear, deep blue glacial rivers and lakes battle in a competition for your attention. Luckily, the story of this World Heritage Site is as enthralling as its skyline, and that’s what I’d like to share with you.

Historically, Glacier’s passes and trails were well known routes to Native Americans, who used to traverse what they called, “The Backbone of the World” to get from one hunting ground to another. The Natives, among them Blackfeet, Kalispell, Crow, Sioux and Assiniboine people, believed that spiritual beings and values exist in every element of the land. Their stories are rich with animals, anthropomorphized with human characteristics like a chatty raven or a wise Grizzly bear that are embodiments of spirits who can teach important life lessons to humans. One Blackfoot elder has said that, “Everything under the sky has a voice to speak with and knowledge to tell.”

According to many regional tribes’ philosophies, humans are but a single instrument in an ongoing orchestra of life and are themselves responsible for keeping in tune and playing correctly in time with the magical production that is life on earth.

I was really moved by this fundamental aspect of Native philosophy and the harmonic picture it paints of days of yore when humans thrived alongside nature. Setting off on this journey around the country, I wanted to visit as many national parks as possible in an attempt to regain a certain level of appreciation for the earth that in daily life is too often paved over and landscaped between city blocks. I got the feeling sometimes working a nine to five that I’m walking on a concrete shell instead of the earth itself and it left me hankering for something else, something wilder, maybe something more human than what civilization has built.

Spending so much time immersed in natural landscape makes me think that somewhere down the line, humans as a species had broken off and started our own band and that our beat no longer matches that of the greater orchestra, that we can’t even hear it anymore over the din of our city streets and factory pumps. Today’s society doesn’t offer its young the opportunity to venture off into the wilderness like Glacier’s Chief Mountain for a rite of passage or a vision quest, our life trajectories have become disentangled from the rest of the wild and we’ve lost touch with our place in the natural world.

Maybe what this movement for sustainability needs is a sibling uprising, a call to return back to nature and to rediscover our roots. The media plays a big part in driving the movement with fear, of rising seas, record temperatures and the threat of global epidemics. But, maybe what we need is not another reason to be afraid, but instead to simply fall back in love with our habitat and to come to want to live benignly out of kindness and respect for our land and our peers in the animal kingdom.

Last year, I traveled all the way to Patagonia to experience a wilderness that exists quite comparably in my very backyard. Every day that I travel on this journey and simply sit in beautiful little nooks and crannies of this country, I’m stunned to silence by the extraordinary splendor of our home, and the need to make conscious, responsible daily choices is internalized more and more. So, although the season is almost over, I urge you to go outside and get even one more taste of the warm summer sun on a tall mountaintop. Soak it up! Fall in love again.

I don’t think anything can move people to do such incredible things and complete seemingly insurmountable tasks as love, and maybe that’s what each of us needs to help us get back to our roots, to pick up our instruments and play again, in tune with the orchestra of life.

SUST appeal

2009-09-02T14:57:00.000-07:00

Sust Appeal

The word on the street is about sustainable style with sass appeal.Sust is a super cool clothing line made with love and loaded with eco-conscious luxury. Ecostyle is loving this line...from the buttery-soft tees to the skinny stringbean pant...leggings that just say love me forever. Sust is 100% organic, sustainable, and proudly made in L.A. with a flair for fashion forward. Need a style to go ga-ga for every season? Keep it real. Get Sust.

Shop S U S T and Save. Click Below to Shop My Faves.

2009-08-26T12:02:00.001-07:00

Getting Back To Our Roots: The Sustainability Across America Tour

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

2009-08-22T21:52:00.001-07:00

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

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SUST is on it's way to MAGIC!! Come see us!!

2009-08-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

SUST is on it's way to MAGIC!!

2009-08-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

Are You Suffering from Investment Banker/Yoga Master Disorder?

2009-08-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

In Interviews on August 19, 2009 at 9:47 am

Gifford Pinchot, President of the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, sat down with me to talk about academics, BGI, and the dilemma that sustainability faces in the world today. We sat in BGI’s Seattle office on a rainy Thursday afternoon and I set about asking him about their MBA in Sustainable Business and the future of the movement in academia. Our conversation started out by delving into BGI’s roots, the humble beginnings before accreditation, and what it is that makes this institution what it is today: the number one graduate school in socially responsible business.

Just five minutes into our talk, Gifford made a statement that struck a chord about the split state of the sustainability movement today.

He said, “What existing traditional schools can’t do is integrate sustainability into the curriculum.”

In researching BGI, I encountered a number of other schools jumping on the so-called “green MBA” bandwagon, both Ivy League and otherwise. It seems as though our academic institutions would be the best tool for indoctrinating the youth with a new way of life, and if we lacked participation in that crucial realm, how would the movement progress? I pressed on, and he responded with this anecdote, a little story about an investment banker who doubled as a yoga master.

“Back in my consulting days I wanted to move my consulting practice a little bit in the direction of spiritual evolution and the like. I had a friend who was an investment banker and a very advanced yoga teacher and a spiritual type guy. So I hired him, and what I discovered is that I had hired two guys. He could be an investment banker, ruthless, heartless, ripping the heart out of the competition kind of guy, or he could be a yoga master and sweetness and light with no connection to finance or market share or any of those sorts of things. But he had no way to bring those two parts of his personality together because they had been educated separately and so they existed as separate domains of thought and probably in separate parts of his brain.”

And so, the plight of the movement today.

Society, it seems, may be experiencing the same kind of split-personality disorder. Our industrial and socio-environmental minds have evolved separately, and have existed in separate realms so that we sit today in a dilemma: We cannot continue operating as one mind who neglects to acknowledge that the other exists. Further, we cannot simply integrate elements of one mind into tenets of the other. Instead, we must embark on a complete restructuring of the way we think, the way we live in conjunction with our environment, and the way we do business. And that is exactly what BGI endeavors to do, “To change business by changing business education” by essentially wiping the slate clean, and educating with the triple bottom line in mind.

In many ways, BGI is a far cry from your typical academic institution; a place “where the assumption that the faculty know more than the students is neither made nor true,” and Pinchot comments on how the culture they have created lends to the success of the institution. As it turns out, culture and community play the lead role, a neat little theme we’re continuing to see throughout our journey into the movement.

Gifford delves into his story.

“What happens is when [faculty] come to BGI, they are allowed to teach with their full values and expression and obviously we’ve selected them because they have values that fit the movement. And once the genie is out of the bottle, they can’t get it back in. We also give them the opportunity to teach a different kind of student. So, in their home universities, there’s a pretty wide variation as to whether people believe in climate change and whatever. Here you’ve got an entire group of people who have been dealing with at least one of the two issues- sustainability or social justice- rather environmental responsibility and social responsibility- for a very long time with very few exceptions. Occasionally, we get the corporate executive who reads some book on sustainability and has that sort of road to Damascus experience where a lightning bolt comes down and the arrow in their heart, they can’t go on doing what they are doing and they come to our school. But they are rare compared to the folks who have been involved in the movement and the discovery they make when they come to BGI is “Wait a second, you can do this through business? You don’t just have to do it through government or non-profits?” or whatever, when, in fact, business is an essential part of putting sustainability into practice.

Morning circle at BGI

“In a traditional school, a student falls behind in accounting and everyone else cheers because after all, that’s going to change the grading curve. In our school, completely a different situation takes place, they invite the student over to their home for the weekend to tutor them because they don’t want someone graduating from our school who doesn’t know this material because it would damage the brand- and this is their brand. And more important, they don’t want someone who is their friend to fail, and that taking care of each other, “leave no one behind, hold no one back” is a motto that exists in this school. In addition, we have gone out of our way to teach community building, the way in which we conduct the school, we begin every day with a circle, if you take a look on that wall you can see what that circle looks like. And that if someone announces in morning circle that, “My parents were just abducted in Lebanon and I don’t know where they are,” it changes the whole nature of the educational experience that day.

“And people in the school say that they’ve never seen anything like it. I can remember one prospective student who walked out of a classroom that she had been in for an hour and she said to me,” I have never been in a room with forty people, all of whom loved each other.” And if we’re going to do sustainability, we need to teach people how to build that community, because that’s what it’s going to take. To build that community inside a big oil company, of people who care about sustainability and so they support each other and if the system goes after one of them, that they offer protection, and if they can’t offer that person protection in that company then that they are part of a larger network and they find them a job.

“My old mentor, Bob Schwartz from the Tarrytown School for Entrepreneurs, said ‘Entrepreneurs appear at their appointed hour like swallows at Capistrano,’ about a third of the way through a period of major social change, when it’s time to stop talking about it and start doing something about it.”

That time, according to Pinchot, is now. He speaks from the heart about what he sees as landmark events in the movement for sustainability to this point in time; included in his perspective are Hurricane Katrina, the work of Al Gore, and reading the Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock.

“That’s the first time I really realized that we’re talking about the possibility of the end of civilization in my grandchildren’s lifetime. And to me, it’s hard to say that you do not have a significant responsibility once you’ve spotted this fact, right? And so I’ve begun to think, now what am I doing? I’ve chosen a place to stand, which is that business has to do something about this, and started the preeminent green business school with others and continue to play a role in it. And is that enough? I’m a little scared. And i don’t know what more I could do anyway. You know, I don’t think that dousing myself with gasoline and burning myself on the White House lawn is exactly the right approach, not only to say that it’s unattractive from a personal point of view. So, I think that what’s happening, is that an increasing percentage of intelligent people are in the period of transition that I’m in myself, that are realizing that this is not just a problem, this is a civilization ending problem.”

This very personal insight leaves us some of us at an impasse. We cannot continue down the same path, living an unsustainable lifestyle- yet government, academia and much of the business world has not yet come to terms with this critical issue. What is the average global citizen to do?

I dare say that Gifford would offer a solution. He posed a few ideas that would encourage us to act, despite our leaders who have not, and to coordinate and co-create the world that we aspire to live in.

When BGI was a burgeoning institution, before accreditation or an established curriculum, they relied on co-creation to build the school and make it what it is today. Their approach was both unique and inspiring; first, they admitted to their students that, “We don’t really know how to create a business school.” Then, they made a proposal, “So, what we’re going to do, is we’re going to build this together, and you’re going to learn as much from participating in the process of building this school as you are learning from the subject matter you’re studying.” Et voila. The Bainbrige Graduate Institute was born.

From it’s inception, BGI has been built upon the sum of its masses, its collective wisdom and this spirit of collaboration. And, perhaps, this is why it is the preeminent green business school today. But this concept of co-creation is not just about building a successful school, or a business or a movement- it’s also about learning what Pinchot deems one of the most important lessons there are in life. That lesson is of the internal locus of control, in his words,”that you are in fact in control of your own destiny and the thing to do if something is not working is to do something about it, not sit there and complain about it.”

Let’s not wait for change to come from the top. Let’s capitalize on what Gifford says, “a natural aspect of human behavior to care about making a contribution to your community.” Why? Because, “it’s deeper embedded than the desire to make money. Corporations beat that and schools beat that out of people, but you’re not going to be able to get the level of innovation necessary to achieve this next step in the movement except by helping people actually express their values at work. It’s the key to retention, it’s the key to motivation, it’s the key to recruitment. It’s the key to having people not come into work in the morning and take off their brain and hang it on the hook and say, “What would you like me to do today, Sir?”

So, who are you today? Are you suffering from investment banker/yoga master disorder? Or have you begun to merge your values with your lifestyle? Next up on the blog, we’re going to talk with Rebecca Luke of the Sustainable Style Foundation to discuss just that. Stay tuned.

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

2009-08-19T12:12:00.001-07:00

The Collective | Stories About Movement | Nau.com

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NBC BAY AREA on the Sustainability Across America Tour

2009-08-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

Road Tripping for Green Fashion

Redwood City-based fashion firm SUST goes on a cross-country roadtrip to promote sustainability

By ALEXIS QUIRING

Updated 1:48 PM PDT, Wed, Aug 12, 2009

BUZZ UP!TWITTERFACEBOOK

Mike Coyne

While plenty of clothing companies are talking the talk about sustainability these days, Redwood City-based fashion firm SUST is literally walking the walk.

The company's Sustainability Across America Tour (SAAT) is something in between a road trip and a traveling town hall. Brand ambassador Laura Jones is driving a van across the country for three months to converse with retailers, designers, and "greenistas" in a crusade to link eco-awareness from coast to coast.

The interviews are taped and then shared with the public via various social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The most recent interview took place in Portland with Aysia Wright, founder of sustainable fashion siteGreenloop.

According to SAAT's newest Facebook update, the van pulled into SeattleWednesday morning after Jones visited Mount Ranier National Park.

Companies co-sponsoring the tour include Indigenous Designs, Guayaki Yerba Mate, Restore Clothing, Cmarchuska, EcoSalon, and Ryann Clothing.

Lexie Quiring is the owner of Shop San Francisco With Lexie where she plans custom shopping trips around the City. Find out more atwww.shopsfwithlexie.com

First Published: Aug 12, 2009 11:14 AM PDT

2009-08-10T03:49:00.000-07:00

Getting in the Greenloop with Aysia Wright.

August 8, 2009, 7:08 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

Aysia Wright, Founder of Greenloop

“Dipping into the waste stream. That’s what excites me.”

These are the words spoken by a true eco-pioneer, Aysia Wright, founder ofGreenloop- a Portland based retail and ecommerce resource for sustainable fashion. Why fashion? Well, because this Environmental Policy lawyer and longtime activist thinks fashion is an ideal vehicle to have a conversation with people and to create a platform for change, with natural market forces driving a shift towards sustainability.

Back in the day, Aysia was a Birkenstock-wearing, animal rights spouting environmental progressive who pursued higher education and practiced law in an unrelated field until realizing at age 30 that she’d lost touch with her advocacy roots. So, in 2004, she opened up Greenloop to fill a hole in the market and create a retail solution for finding trend right, fashion forward sustainable clothing. Today, Greenloophas a booming ecommerce division and is opening up a new storefront in downtown Portland, occupying the “closet” space of a new eco-friendly resource concept store under the Seven Planet umbrella.

Over an hour of conversation, Aysia set about debunking trendy misconceptions about sustainable fashion, defining the ultimate importance of the triple bottom line, and painting a picture of the sustainable movement that solidifies it as the hippest and most essential issue since civil rights. Her story as follows…

LJ: Describe the retail environment when Greenloop began operating in 2004 and tell us how it’s changed since.

AW:In this fast fashion culture that we live in, there’s too many garments that just go straight to the landfill. Right now, there’s more of a generalized awareness of what it means for a garment to be certified organic cotton, as opposed to your milk or your bread or your vegetables. When we first opened doors, so many consumers were asking “How could that be organic? That doesn’t make any sense.” and that was really because there was a misconception about what is organic in the first place.

In general, there’s more understanding now of the options available and an awareness that there is a difference between sustainably and ethically produced fashion and and conventional fashion, there’s a growing acceptance that we need to be more conscious in terms of our decisions and voting with our dollar.

In terms of design, about two years ago there was a pretty solid upswing in the availability of quality textiles and solid design getting together to produce designs that could actually survive in the mainstream fashion scene. Whereas initially it was either very yoga-pilates centered or it was environmentalists designing apparel as opposed to designers designing environmentally responsible apparel. So now you’ve got both and they’re learning from each other so you’re seeing quality product coming from both arenas now.

Really, [this progress shows that sustainability is] not a dead movement, it’s not a trend. It’s something that’s becoming more deeply entrenched within the fashion community itself.

LJ: So, over the years, organics have really grown in the food industry and the fashion industry. What do you think will be the next big thing to evolve as the movement grows?

AW: We’ve seen a lot of innovative use by designers dipping into the waste stream, looking at dead stock or getting creative with waste materials that otherwise might have gone straight into the landfill. And I think we’re going to see more of a sophistication of that model as opposed to seeing more one-off, crafty, I made this in my basement type pieces. I think that there will be a more professional application to that, that people are getting wiser about making recycled goods a larger part of the commodities market, to make that process more efficient.

There’s probably going to be a pretty strong emphasis on rebuilding the recycled commodity market because ultimately, it’s a time and resource saver both in terms of raw commodity, reducing strain on natural resources, reducing pressure on landfills, on reducing water and energy inputs, and there’s a great story to it. People love the fact that something has been reincarnated into another product and you can’t really tell.

LJ: The movement for sustainability is really growing and evolving new technologies and efficiencies. What kind of role have you seen yourself and Greenloop take in educating consumers and increasing awareness about sustainability?

AW: I really see Greenloop’s role growing in the advocacy piece for designers, we really are working to develop a platform so that people wanting to get into the sustainable design arena can come to us to source their textiles, to find out which manufacturing facility in the United States they should work with, to find out which distributor they should work with, to facilitate their wholesales. There are a ton of creative people out there that have the skills and the passion and the talent to create a successful line, but it’s a huge endeavor to put all of those pieces into place, so that’s where I see us going in the future.

LJ: The idea of being sustainable is permeating a huge range of industries and markets right now, do you see this growth as a social movement, and industrial shift, or both?

AW: I see it as a social movement but I also do see companies understanding the concept of corporate social responsibility when it comes to their bottom line and really trying to embrace this notion of a triple bottom line (People, Planet, and Profit) because there are some real limitations to operating business as usual. This linear system that sprang up at the beginning of the industrial revolution is this constant input of energy, both human and fossil fuel based, and natural resources along a system that ends up in the dump. It’s not a closed loop, it doesn’t recapture any lost energy and it creates harm along the way to people and planet.

The companies that are going to be ahead of the curve are looking at how they can increase their profitability by becoming more energy efficient, using less resources, embracing recycled products. They will naturally realize that economic success and ecological responsibility are not counter intuitive, they are actually very much interrelated.

LJ:Tell me a little more about the community aspect of sustainability as a social movement.

AW: I’ve talked to a lot of people in the conventional fashion industry that got out because it was just an ugly scene for them. It was very cutthroat with no sharing of resources or information, whereas my experience has been that this community is mission oriented. And, when something is mission oriented for the greater good, while also providing you with a living along the way, that there is just more incentive to make sure that everyone is successful. For example, Greenloop can’t be the only eco-retailer- no eco-designer would survive if that was the case. So it’s in my best interest to hopefully support all the other eco-retailers that I would typically consider my competition. It’s in designers’ best interest to share their resources so they can ultimately reach an economy of scale and make their whole production processes more efficient, so that each one of them survives to retain and gain a piece of the market. So from that perspective, I think that there is definitely a distinction that makes this social movement, this collaboration, unique and inspiring because it feels good to talk to people and work with people who are working towards the same ends as you, and it’s not just a selfish ends.

LJ: Today there is an emphasis in collaboration and community within the movement. How do you see the youth shaping the growth and development of sustainability in the future?

AW: Well, the Greenloop platform, Project Green Search is our way of communicating the message that it is possible and it’s beneficial to align your career choices with your environmental, social, humanitarian ethics, whatever cause inspires you. I think it’s possible to create this next generation of young people in the workforce who hopefully can refuse to go to work for companies they don’t believe in because they are going to bring their skills to grow companies that are doing the right thing. I think that there’s been a shift in the way that we are educating young people right now so that they are learning from a very early age that they are global citizens, and that we’re providing them with the knowledge and hopefully the desire and the drive to contribute to something that is greater than just themselves and their piece of the pie. And, I think we’re seeing a lot of that in terms of teen participation and fundraising and outreach efforts, like the organization Teens Turning Green, that are reaching out to teenagers on a variety of issues like Teens for Safe Cosmetics or Buying Sustainable Fashion for Prom, or Greening Dorm Rooms who are working with Greenloop on Project Green Search. I think the opportunity lies in that we are going to hopefully develop this entire generation of young people who don’t have to break habits like we do.

LJ: Speaking of bad habits, do you think the current patterns of consumerism are going to change, along with the notion that “more is better?”

AW: I do, but I think it’s going to take a while because it’s really going to require a societal shift in terms of what constitutes success. A lot of people attribute material wealth and acquisition to be success, and that definition of success to happiness and it’s a very Western first-world, developed-nation ideal, and it’s going to take a while to move away from that so that people start developing themselves and their happiness and their definition of success in other areas. Some of that is going to be enforced or imposed because we’ve already got more people on this planet than we can support, and we’re already using three quarters of the world’s natural resources, and that’s inherently unsustainable. If society is able to adopt this concept of quality over quantity and we don’t need to live in a 3,000 square foot house and we can live instead in a 1,000 square foot house, it will be a grassroots movement with parents hopefully instilling these ideals into their kids because ultimately, that’s where it starts.

LJ: What do you predict will be the movement’s biggest obstacle in reaching that kind of societal shift?”

AW: The use of the media. We’re seeing a pretty drastic change in media right now, especially in printed media. A lot of magazines are going under, and I think with them hopefully you’ll lose some of this driving force behind the consumption machine. I think that the speed of news right now will help, with the accessibility of news and information on the internet, especially information from sources that aren’t well funded, that can articulate and present this different lifestyle concept is more readily available to people than just picking up your mainstream magazine off the rack. I went to the Sundance Film Festival and saw the Inconvenient Truth when it debuted, and I think that film was a tipping point, quite frankly, and a very poignant example of how powerful media can be when used in that capacity.

LJ: Can you tell us about some unique or unusual materials that are up and coming in the sustainable fashion industry?

AW: You know, I don’t think it’s about being unique at this point. I get that question a lot, like “What’s the new sustainable textile?”, and for instance, bamboo, is a great example of something that is new that is not necessarily better. I think it’s about taking a look at textiles like hemp, for example, which has gotten this horrible wrap for years and years and years but there are some amazing fabrications now using hemp that you would not believe in terms of its strength and hand and luster and quality. So I don’t think it necessarily has to be this new technology or complicated advancement, you know you have other designers going for this very sort of high-tech “what are you talking about fabrics?” made out of milk or made out of seaweed and you know, that’s buzz. I’m trying to stay away from the buzz factor, making sure that you hone in on those textiles that over the long haul are going to hold up. And they can still be beautiful and sexy and trendy, but they don’t have to have all the buzz attached to them. I think it’s being wary of anything that’s new and cutting edge, when it comes to textile production that is not yet tested, and that doesn’t have a transparent process because it’s not necessarily better.

LJ: So buzz or no buzz, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a plethora of sustainable fabrics on the runway this year in Portland’s Fashion Week. Tell us a little more about Project Green Search.

AW: This year at Portland Fashion Week, we are working to concentrate all the eco-designers for a Sunday night event, on October 11th. And Greenloop is hosting a green model search, called Project Green Search which is part of a greater movement to get people to think about aligning their careers with their environmental and social ethics. And a model competition is a natural expression of that’s because a model is sort of a tangible representative of the company they are working for. It’s launching on Friday, August 7, 2009, and it’s open to women age 17 and older. There’s a lot of talent out there that’s more than skin deep, so each model has to submit an essay, a video and volunteer for an environmental organization in their area and share their experiences, so she’s not just going to be a hanger.

The point is to really light that spark for people so that they think, “Wow, I have these skills and this passion and I don’t have to go and work for XYZ coal mining company, I can support another company.” I think there’s this huge opportunity we have in the midst of this recession to reshape our landscape, both in terms of the job talent pool and the companies that are going to come out of this and be successful.”

The Project Greensearch finale will coincide with Portland Fashion Week, dubbed the “Greenest Fashion Week in the World” where sustainable fashion brands will bring the week to a close in an eco-event on Sunday. Follow the competition, and stay in the loop with GreenLoop on their blog.

2009-08-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Crater Lake National Park

July 28, 2009, 8:38 am
Filed under: National Parks | Tags: Crater Lake National Park, Lichens, Black Bears, Biodiversity,Oregon

If I had only one word to describe Crater Lake, it would be vibrant. This dramatic mountainous landscape is painted with lively color in every element. Silvery stone, bright green evergreen trees blossoming with new sprouts, vast hilly meadows blanketed with wild flowers in yellow, purple, white and pink. Even tired, sun bleached tree trunks laying at rest teem with neon lichens that crawl across them and bring them back to life.

Crater Lake is acclaimed as one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world, with royal blue depths maintained only by snowmelt and rainfall. The lake as we saw it was still and glassy, dark at the center depths with colors that striated into aquas and sky blues as the waters slowly lapped the rocky shores. These waters are home to only two species of fish, rainbow trout and kokanee salmon, the lone survivors of an attempt to introduce six species between 1888 and 1941 when, originally, the lake contained no fish.

This national park is home to a diverse range of plant and animal species, from tiny American pika, alpine dwelling relatives of the rabbit to black bears; and tall whitebark pine trees to the lichens that grow on their bark and branches.

Last summer, three lichen experts and a group of volunteers teamed up for a one-day BioBlitz where they recorded different 61 species of lichen to add to their existing inventory of 64, bringing the park’s lichen biodiviersity list to 125 species. These bright, colorful organisms are hardy and useful to ecologists as potential bioindicators, helping to gauge the health of the park and its ecosystems. They also provide food for animal, furnish nesting materials for birds and, although they look parasitic, they are actually composite organisims formed by a symbiotic relationship between a fungus, which provides structure and protection to an algae, which manufactures food for the fungus via photosynthesis. Lichens were one of my favorite parts of Crater Lake, as you walked around the forests you could see dozens of different kinds in all shapes and colors hanging from tree limbs like tinsel.

Way on the other side of the biodiversity spectrum are the park’s black bears (Ursus americanus). Both visitors and staff have reported sightings of black bears at Crater Lake National Park, but it’s only now with the establishment of a newly established wildlife program that they will be conducting a survey to estimate the population by collecting hair samples in snare traps and analyzing DNA. This survey began this summer in 2009 and by fall, they park should be able to size up this population and even their distribution across the park. Sorry I don’t have any photos to share of this one: I wasn’t one of the lucky ones to spot a black bear during my visit!

Bottom line: Crater Lake is worth a trip. The drive through tall forests and hikes up the tall cliffsides are simply beautiful and nothing really compares to the deep blue calm of the lake itself as it sits nestled in its spot on this dormant volcano. However, the water is freezing! So, if you’re looking to go for a swim, we suggest visiting Crater Lake’s younger sister, Diamond Lake, just off the north shore.

2009-08-06T16:59:00.000-07:00

Walking amongst giants at Redwoods National Park

July 28, 2009, 7:49 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

The SAAT team made our first stop at Northern California’s Redwoods National Park. After hours of driving the windy roads of beautiful coastal Highway 1, we entered the dark, heavily forested shadows of the Redwoods. We planned this particular National Park as our first stop in an effort to gain a little perspective, and nothing comes second to standing next to a giant Redwood tree when you’re looking to be put in your biological place.

These ancient trees stand hundreds of feet tall and shame the SAA van in terms of width. They stand like guardians of the forest, tall and sturdy with a vast canopy that shelters the nascent undergrowth in a protective nursery. It’s easy to live in our society and to lose touch with nature, but walking amongst the Redwoods puts one in perspective about the length of our lifetimes and the impact of our presence, despite our relatively small size.

Walking amongst these giants, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How long have these trees stood where they are now? And how long after I’m gone will they remain?”

At the moment, the National Park Service is engaged in an extensive watershed restoration project to increase the lonevity of this ecosystem, restoring the hillsides and stream channels to their natural condition before the construction of logging roads prior to the establishment of the park. This is accomplished by clearing stream channels that are currently choked by road and logging debris, by recontouring hillslopes that are scarred by road systems and reestablishing natural drainage patterns.

Once the watershed is restored, the unnaturally high erosion and sedimentation rates in Redwood Creek will be reduced and a solid foundation will be created for the protection of the reestablished ecosystem for us all to enjoy years in the future.

Sustainability Across America Tour is on it's way

2009-08-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

Kicking off the SAA Tour

July 27, 2009, 11:25 pm
Filed under: Sponsors | Tags: Fashion, Indigenous Designs, Organic, Solar Power, Sustainability Across America Tour, Sustainable

On Wednesday, July 22, 2009, Sustainability Across America kicked off its national tour with a visit to Indigenous Designs in their beautiful solar powered office space in Santa Rosa, California.

The folks at Indigenous were gearing up for an upcoming fashion show. The office had racks of hand made, sustainable clothing lining the office walls, along with framed tapestries crafted by indigenous hands and personally made, motivational signs posted reminding the team that “Farming Organic Cotton Diverts 1.2 Tons of C02 Per Acre, Per Year!” This is no common apparel company keeping up with the green washing fad. Anyone at Indigenous will tell you, “Our path is chosen. We make clothing that honors both people and the planet.”

What struck me most as I sat down to talk with Scott Leonard, CEO of Indigenous, is his energy as he speaks about the fibers, the products, and the sustainable aspect of the business. It quickly becomes evident that his enthusiasm comes from the reality that Indigenous is not simply a business, but part of a movement that is reshaping the way the world works, one conscious choice at a time.

Scott has been immersed in the green movement for over 15 years and he gets to business setting us SAAT members on the right path, showing us the ins and outs of the industry. With each mention of a name or organization, he is struck by another affiliated or offshoot group and all are working with one another in a cohesive, collaborative method to revolutionize the way we live and interact with our environment. Over the course of a couple hours, he paints a clear picture of what he refers to fondly as “the movement,” and it’s exactly the insider’s perspective we are looking to uncover as we travel to the four corners of the United States. Our conversation bring me back to the roots of this journey, a mission to bring the movement for sustainability to life for us all, to connect with those working to make a difference, and to celebrate our collective success in increasing awareness and responsibility in our daily decisions.

At this critical point in history, our ability to prosper and thrive is dependent on our ability to evolve and adapt to a new, responsible way of life. The stories we will bring to you from the road are those of the pioneers of this new environmentally and socially conscious frontier. This is not a government agency redefining industry standards, this fundamental shift is powered by individuals, by fashion designers and clothing companies like Indigenous, bakeries, boutiques, organic vineyards, authors and others who are making the preservation of our habitat their bottom line. The realities of the businesses they are forging are inspiring and innovative. We hope they will prove to be both compelling and reassuring as we slowly tiptoe closer to a sustainable lifestyle.

Stay Tuned!

2009-07-27T11:23:00.000-07:00

The Sustainability Across America Tour has embarked on it's journey!

2009-04-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

SUST is launching the e-commerce portion of our website on April 15th!

Buy from our immediate stock! See all of our beautiful colors and styles! Check back soon for updates and news on the newest line of organic clothing made for women who have not only style, but sense.

Love our clothing and would love to see it in your store, or in your town? Let us know, we would love to help you set up an account and have our organic fashions available even closer than your computer.