Hi Starre, you’re Eco-Chick, one of the most widely read, prolific and respected green fashion bloggers on the web. Yet, you’ve been writing about hard core environmental issues for many years… you have a BS in Geology, a minor in Biology from Syracuse and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia. What made you pick sustainable fashion, of all things, as your preferred avenue to chronicle green change?

I am a total science nerd and I love being outdoors, learning about rocks, plants, insects and ecology. I taught environmental science to kids and worked as an environmental scientist when I first got my undergraduate degree. But I feed on change, and I’ve always loved writing, and creative endeavors seem to be endlessly challenging and they keep my restless mind entertained. I come from a family of artists and scientists, and I’ve always wanted to combine the two (and am fascinated by those few souls who also look at the world this way). So how could I bring together science, design, visual art and show my love for this amazing planet?

Fashion seems ideal to me since it has the science (fabric and fibers, production and dyeing of textiles, growing plants sustainably–or not) combined with design and artistry. I have a very strong aesthetic sense even though I was never a visual artist (my father and stepmother are illustrators and painters though). I was raised by my grandmother who taught me to sew and fostered an appreciation for clothes and design and as a child. I wouldn’t really go shopping for clothes- we would go to the fabric store and I would pick out - even when i was just 5 and 6- fabrics and dress patterns and she would make them with me. When I wasn’t making clothes and quilts with her, I was off in the woods, covered in mud, exploring the wetlands that my house was built on.

My grandmother also designed our home herself, and it was built in 1967 so it was super-modern, but at the same time totally integrated into the environment it was sited on; she was inspired by Russell Wright (no relation to Frank Lloyd Wright) who produced the iconic American Modern dishware line and also built an incredible house in the town I grew up in called Manitoga. Every room in the house has an indoor and outdoor component (even the bathrooms!) and a tree trunk is a main support in the center of the house. Rock floors, and seasonally-changing cabinets were design elements. The house I grew up in had similar features and was built on a rock ledge, so we were totally integrated into our surrounding landscape. We kept huge organic gardens and ate local meat and eggs from our neighbors. All of these influences and dichotomies- a modern house on a dirt road, art and design coupled with fresh food and the real physical labor of gardening, freedom to create and respect for the local ecosystem….It was an incredible place to form an aesthetic!

You’ve been writing for both web and print, with bylines in some of mainstream’s top fashion magazines. The landscape at newsstands is being greatly affected by the Internet. There just isn’t as many print titles as there used to be on newsstand shelves. But there still is no better medium to showcase editorial fashion photography than the printed page. So how do we bring both mediums into a sustainable mode? How do you see fashion, both online and in print, intertwine into a sustainable future?

I’ve always loved magazines, and I hope they evolve into a more rarefied medium that is more art and design-based (and all printed on recycled paper!!). I say “hurrah!” to the decline of print magazine circulations for publications like Newsweek or the NYTimes- why kill a tree to record news that’s just going to change tomorrow? But just like great books, I think fashion, art and design deserve a static medium and right now, online just doesn’t cut it- I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels like they can’t properly ’see’ fabric, light, drape, and detail on a computer screen.

How can we encourage newsstands like Barnes & Noble and Borders to recycle unsold titles? Shouldn’t all this be a well oiled eco-machine by now? Why is it still an issue in 2008?

You’ve got me. I’m guessing people in charge are being lazy, narrow-minded and putting profits before people or the planet- which the capitalist system in it’s short-sighted way tends to encourage. I always imagine in the future, people will sift through our huge piles of garbage and find perfectly preserved magazines in landfills (if air can’t get in there, NOTHING ever biodegrades!) which will become collector’s items.

What roles do models, modeling agencies, photographers, and make up artists now need to play to expand environmental responsibility in the fashion industry beyond fair trade and sustainable fabrics?

I think all the people that make the creative visions happen, and in their inimitable way, add to one person’s idea and make it an organic, growing, beautiful thing need to realize how important they are. And vice-versa I think the top designers, stylists and tastemakers should acknowledge that they are not working in a vacuum with makeup machines and androids, but real human beings with talents and valuable perspectives. Many people in creative fields are much more sensitive in general, and specifically sensitive to the changes happening in the environment, yet to keep their jobs, they often feel like they have to keep their mouths shut.

One way a model, makeup artist, photographer or modeling agency can influence larger changes is by changing what they can in their lives and businesses, and then TALKING about it to everyone who will listen. In a nice friendly, nonjudgemental way, passing information onto younger models, photogs or MUAs on what they do, how they do it, and why. These people work so hard that I think they sometimes forget that they are on the top of the ‘influence pyramid’ and that everything they say and do has an impact on all the people down the line from them, ending with the girl who holds a fashion mag in her hand.

ELLE, Marie-Claire, Vanity Fair, many others, have published so-called “green issues”, yet none of these large publishing houses; Hachette, Hearst, Conde Nast, have switched over to recycled paper stock, or instigated some form of internal green editorial policy with their advertisers. What’s the hold up? Why can’t they walk the talk?

Lazy, money-hungry, lack of forward-thinking behavior, the people that make these decisions are sacrificing the future for a few more pennies now. It’s disgraceful and embarassing. Body and Soul, Plenty, Audubon Magazine, E Magazine all have a serious commitment to the kind of paper and ink they use- this shouldn’t even be a debatable point in 2008. All I have to say is, all you publishers who work soooo hard to give your kids a bunch of gadgets and a private school education- they’re going to be pretty mad at you when they grow up and realize you could have made decisions to reduce your industry’s impact on the Earth- and you didn’t. Because your kids are going to spend lots of their time in the future cleaning up your mess.

Bookers at modeling agencies have models separated into two categories… will do fur - will not do fur… How far are we from a green modeling agency to surface, or for modeling agencies to create green divisions? Are the large sustainable business associations like LOHAS or Gaiam paying attention to the sustainable practices of the models, modeling agencies, photographers and make-up artists they hire for their branding and publicity purposes?

Green is not a passing trend; sustainability has to be part of doing business, and as more companies of all stripes catch on to the fact that the landscape has changed in this way, business practices deep within corporate bowels change (I’ve seen this happening everywhere already).

I don’t know if the solution is a green magazine, a green modeling agency, or green MUA collective, which makes ecofriendly stuff a separate category. I’d rather see these industries model what has been happening with forward-thinking mags, which is that now you see green integrated everywhere. Recent issues of New York Magazine, Wired and Vogue are some good examples; all have featured ‘environmental’ topics or products without making a big deal about that aspect. They just assume people are interested (I think correctly) in how clean their water is or that this device will save energy- it’s rapidly becoming old-fashioned to ghettoize green.

The majority of the clothes on our backs are now produced in Asia. We’ve out sourced the work force while trying to hang on to the design and marketing aspect of the garment industry. Isn’t it fair to say that with the rising cost of transportation, control over all aspects of clothing production will slip into foreign hands? Do you sense New York’s fashion community doing anything to hold on to its reputation as the fashion capital of the world? Or will it all gravitate to Shanghai if we’re not careful?

My family immigrated to Manhattan in the late 1800’s and despite our obsessional wanderings, there have always been some of us here, so I’m biased. I think NYC will always be the fashion capital of the world; you can’t outsource incredible talent, energy and culture. All creativity is about collaboration and influence- there’s still so much going on in NYC that sometimes after a day out-and-about my brain is exhausted! And I know I’m still missing plenty.

You grew up near Indian Point, the nuclear power plant 25 miles North of Manhattan on the Hudson river. You’ve been a big supporter of Rock The Reactors, our campaign to bring attention to the existence and dangers of the plant, opposing its new license. We made green into a cool fashion statement. How do we follow that up to by making nukes uncool?

What could be less cool than a method of producing electricity (which we wouldn’t even NEED if we took conservation seriously) that costs millions and millions to build, gets its fuel from mining the crap out the Earth, needs insane amounts of water which is superheated and spewed out into the ecosystem, killing fish and destroying plants and the Hudson River’s health, and then generates a waste product that is so toxic that we still don’t know what to do with it AND remains toxic to all life for thousands and thousands of years? Sounds like a really dumb way of producing electricity to me. And for all that, it’s not even cheap!!

The problem I see with nuclear, coal, natural gas, or any other plant is similar. Besides pollution (whether toxic waste or global warming gas), energy shouldn’t be concentrated. Centralizing energy just means that profit-making companies control the means by which we run our lives and ‘electricity’ is just something we switch on and use without thought. If we all produced our own energy by whatever means is locally feasible (solar in Cali and Arizona, wave power off the coast of CT, Maine, and Mass., geothermal, well, everywhere) we would be conscious of how much energy we can make and use, AND individuals and local communities would have control over their own supplies; we wouldn’t have to rely on another state, or another country, and it would be sustainable. Also, energy would be lower cost or free. I’ve studied the power grid extensively and it is a seriously flawed and wasteful system. Let’s bring power (literally) back into the hands of local communities and individuals, which would lessen dependence and engender smarter decision-making. Few would build a nuke plant, even a small one, behind their house, for example. And if you were burning coal for electricity, and choking your neighbors, that would come to stop pretty quickly.

You have a book coming out on St. Martin’s Press, tell us about it.

It’s called “The Eco Chick Guide to Life: How to Be Fabulously Green” from St. Martin’s on August 20th. It’s a fun guidebook for young women who are interested in greening their lives without making themselves (or the people around them) nuts. There are chapters on eco fashion, beauty products, entertaining, decorating, and travel.

I’m currently at work on my next book, which is a look at mechanization and modernization’s effects on the five senses. I think the distancing of our perceptions from the natural world is one of the reasons we’re in this environmental mess to begin with. Not that I’m a Luddite by any means; I’ve been blogging since 2003 and see amazing and infinite possibilities with better forms of communication, and the Internet is a huge part of my world. However, I think we need to take a critical look at how we choose to alter our senses and why, and I think that right now, not much of that is happening.