This isn’t going to be easy for me, because I know little or nothing about fashion, let alone sustainable fashion down under, so bare with me… You’ll have to do most of the typing. I know Australia for a few things, it used to be a prison planet… it gave birth to Mad Max and a whole new fetish fashion set… there’s weird tales of magic in the vastness… all of this must inspire a new green fashion magazine to reconnect with the elements… am I far from the mark?

Ha! Well funnily enough the screenwriter of Mad Max has said that the script was based on “the thesis that people would do almost anything to keep vehicles moving and the assumption that nations would not consider the huge costs of providing infrastructure for alternative energy until it was too late”. Sounds eerily spot on! I wish I could say it wasn’t the case here in Australia, but I think living in the city is the same anywhere – we have all lost touch with our surroundings and the magic of the land. I grew up in New Zealand so probably had more of a connection with nature while growing up, but it tends to get lost in the everyday living of city life. Then I had a baby… having a young child tends to make you look at things differently, you want everything to be clean, green and chemical-free. So I started looking into organics and other aspects of fashion and the environmental and social cost. The more I researched, the more I realised I couldn’t turn a blind eye anymore, so I dove in head first, and Peppermint was born! 

Does Australia have its own garment industry, or does it like the West, job out most of it to Asia? And how can we control quality, organique-ness, fair trade practices? What are the mechanisms in place that enable a certain level of trust in the fabrics you are really getting are as advertized… free of pesticides and other toxics?

Unfortunately a lot of garments are still being made off-shore, the majority of which will not be fair trade, but there are a few watchdogs that local companies can get certification from, like the No Sweat Label which ensures the clothing is made locally by workers getting a fair wage. I do feel there is a movement happening though, as slowly more and more designers are making their ranges locally, to keep tighter controls on the conditions of the people making them, and also to reduce the garments footprint by cutting out shipping. With organics it can be just as tricky, the best way is to check to see if the manufacturer has received proper certification to make sure they aren’t just greenwashing and jumping on the eco bandwagon! 
 
What constitutes a green fashion magazine? Who are the top green designers and models… cosmetics companies and photographers in Australia… and can we steal them from you? ;o)

By all means – we are happy to share! It’s an exciting time as eco fashion is still in it’s infancy in this part of the world, so there are some fabulous new designers emerging now as the ‘green’ consciousness spreads – leading the way would definitely be Gorman, Akira, Bird Textile, Skin & Threads, Bassike, Darling Clementine, Elsom; all of which are world-class designers. However there are lots of small labels that are appearing too – like Heidi and Seek, Fourth Daughter (photo: upcycled vintage kimono), Mother Maria, Kara Smith, Moneypenny, Thea & Sami, Rebecca Ward Jewellery… I could go on and on! There are some great green designers in New Zealand too - Untouched World, Starfish, and Kowtow all deserve a mention. Natural skincare and cosmetics is definitely an area that is well-represented in this part of the world, with beautiful chemical-free products coming from companies like Miessence (the world’s first skin care range certified organic to food standards), Sanctum, Jurlique, Living Nature, and Perfect Potion. Model, photographer and activist Hannah Fraser is someone we hope to work with (known for her trip to Japan with Hayden Panettiere) and of course Isabel Lucas, who you may have seen in Alter Eco on Planet Green.
 
Here in America, and also in France and the UK, many regularly scheduled sustainable fashion shows have surfaced… Did the same thing happen in Australia? What are your most green conscious cities and neighborhoods? Any great eco-boutique and sustainable fashion blogs you want to tell us about?

They are slowly starting to pop up, last year there was a fashion show staged by the Green Pages directory, which show-cased some of Australia’s top eco designers. And earlier this year Leeyong Soo organised Fashion Fights Fair – a parade to help bring Fair Trade and sustainable practices onto the catwalk. We were lucky to have our launch at the opening event of The Green Precinct here in Brisbane – where a group of like-minded businesses have joined together to become Australia first green living precinct – one of which is Bliss Ecowear – Brisbane’s first eco-boutique. In Melbourne are several gorgeous eco clothing stores – Hunter Gatherer, I Like You and Bird Girl being a few standouts. We also have lots of cute handmade/crafty blogs here in Oz, like Indie and Meet Meat Mikes. There are a few great online fashion boutiques emerging too Lovethreads, Eco Girl, Chicativist and lots of fabulous online independent handmade design stores Made It, Leeloo, Felt and Georgie Love… I better stop before I give away all of my secrets!!

How is print still relevant in an electronic marketplace? It’s courageous launching a new print magazine that uses up pulp resources… but then again, nothing is more beautiful than a wonderful fashion magazine on paper… that’s what’s missing these days from the mainstream fashion titles, they are victim to a gradual systemic loss of the sensual touch… because in my opinion, to have these sensations, you must also have that connection to the Earth. Tell us about Peppermint!

Printing Peppermint on 100% recycled paper using soy inks was something that we insisted on from the beginning – we all love a good magazine to have and to hold, and we wanted to do that with minimal impact. We also need to stand next to other fashion magazines to try and educate people and show there is another way – and I believe we can only do that by giving them an alternative to reach for on the magazine stands!   
 
Fine lines between fashion, goth, metal, tribal cultures have crossed long ago, there just isn’t any publications out there yet that reflect these changes in cultural sensibility… Everything is still compartementalized when in fact young people today are mixing it all up again into a global universal look… Mass media keeps trying to put old wine into new bottles, when what’s truly beautiful to me, is new wine in old bottles, the whole steampunk movement. Is this present yet down under? A return to the aesthetics of the past with new textiles and technologies… in harmony with what’s left of nature. Can we expect revolutions erupting all over which once again New York will have to chronicle to keep up? Or will the capital of fashion be left behind as the world becomes  a lifestyle hologram?

There is definitely change in the air, there are a lot of grassroots ethics re-emerging where people are realising that our grandmothers who handmade everything themselves were not so silly after all! And I also think that situations under pressure tend to produce the most innovative thinking – often out of necessity. So we are seeing new technological advances in fabrics (bamboo, textiles from recycled plastic bottles,  and other sustainable plants) mixing with the ethics and practises of the past (handmade techniques, using vintage and upcycled fabrics), with the intention of creating pieces that will be treasured and worn from season to season, and not just discarded when the mass media tells you it’s out of fashion! Peppermint’s focus will be on the good, not the good-for-now. 
 
Australia recently joined the ranks of New Zealand and South Africa in declaring itself a nuclear free zone, free of nuclear imperialism… To me there is no greater statement possible in fashion today that anti-nuclear activism… the cancer consequences of radiation aare a worse health problem than carbon emissions. There’s a gorgeous fashion magazine in France called NUKE… They’re so fed up and trapped over there… using saintly Carla Bruni to distract from her husband’s sad nuclear salesman schtick… politics and fashion have always mixed, and fashion trumps politics at every turn, so what can we to do as fashionistas to bring sanity to the world before we self-distruct? Don’t we all love a man in a uniform? Feel free to jump in anytime…

Politics and fashion have always been linked, as it involves many aspects from agriculture and exports to social conditions. Everything is linked and the sooner we all become aware of that the better! So what can we actually do? A lot – every t-shirt counts. Reducing our consumption is the best way to go, but that isn’t always easy for dedicated fashionistas! However your wallet speaks very loudly, so voice your concerns with every dollar. Shop locally to reduce air-miles, learn to sew and make your own clothes, revisit vintage, buy fair trade, and hunt out organic and sustainable labels. Buy well. The planet will thank you for it later. Going green is gorgeous!