The Petal bag by Helen E. Riegle is all this and more. Availabe in both sturdy, yet sophisticaed hemp canvas or a luxurious, eco friendly (and animal free) ultra-suede, the bags are trimmed out, handles and all, with natural tree tap rubber from the amazon. Four well placed inner pockets of varying size keep all your “stuff” in order, and a clip for your keys keeps them always in reach(halleluliah…no more digging!) Big bags are in, and with this one, you’ll still fit through the door! Shop for the Petal bag at Greenloop right now! (PS….you can save 15% on it if you sign up to receive the e-newsletter….)

“Fashion is political; that’s got to be part of the reason why people buy the clothes,” she says. “When I launched, I’d tread softly; now I’m much more straightforward. I’ve seen the miserable conditions people live in, making the products that we buy on the high street.

Minney believes that a growing number of people are turned on, not off, by this. She doesn’t go as far as to say that the clothes aren’t as stylish as they could be, but she agrees that people fall in love with them after, not before, they put them on. “The feel of the clothes is a strong point; we don’t use synthetic materials, so people are rediscovering hand-embroidered fabrics and organic cotton,” she says.

Read the article “From rags to righteous” at timesonline.co.uk

Presented by Wildlife Works, Indigenous World and the United Nations Environment Programme took place in San Francisco on June 10, 2006, at The Galleria at the San Francisco Design Center as a call to action for “consumer powered conservation”, as stated by Wildlife Works founder Mike Korchinsky.The event showcased successful individuals, programs and lifestyles for a sustainable future, and featured the 2^nd annual Catwalk on the Wild Side, an eco-fashion runway show that featured several Greenloop brands, the favorites being Carol Young, Anna Cohen and Del Forte Denim. A good, green time was had by all.

View photos at wireimage.com

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Each style has been hand crafted from sustainably harvested woods and the highest quality italian lense and components, these shades set a new standard in lux eco design.

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In May SURFER magazine in partnership with Patagonia released its first issue of the magazine printed on recycled paper. In the July Issue of the Magazine female big wave pioneer Sarah Garhardt Ph.D. makes a plea to surfers and the surf industry to start supporting organic cotton and it looks like the industry is starting to take notice. With lines of organic cotton t’s from Sector 9 Organics, earth friendly footwear Green Toe (coming next month to Greenloop) from Simple and due out this summer a line of shirts from Australian surfwear giant Rip Curl being released under the Rip Curl Planet label.

Good on ya’ mates, no one will benefit more from clean cotton then the men and women of the ocean.

More couples are choosing to make their weddings organic and eco-friendly wedding dresses are the show piece.

Los Angeles-based designer Deborah Lindquist whose hemp-silk wedding dress was recently featured in a USA Today article about hemp had this to say about the new trend.

“So many designers that you see use the hemp fabrics have been more into jeans, t-shirts and yoga wear, in the past, the styles have been more granola-based.”

Lindquist who has dressed stars such as Charlize Theron and Sarah Jessica Parker says her intent is to, “save the planet with clothing, one bustier at a time”

Read Vowing to be Green in the June issue of of CommonGround or at commongroundmag.com.

Shop Deborah Lindquist at Greenloop.

Cotton History

Cotton has been used to make very fine lightweight cloth in areas with tropical climates for millennia. The earliest reference to cotton is in India. Cotton has been grown in India/Pakistan for more than 6,000 years since the pre-Harappan period, and it is later referred to in the Rig-Veda, composed in 1500 BC. A thousand years later, the famous Greek historian Herodotus wrote about Indian cotton: “There are trees which grow wild there, the fruit of which is a wool exceeding in beauty and goodness that of sheep. The Indians make their clothes of this tree wool”. (Book iii. 106)

During the late mediaeval period, cotton became known as an imported fibre in northern Europe, without any knowledge of what it came from other than that it was a plant; people in the region, familiar only with animal fibres (wool from sheep), could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville, writing in 1350, stated as fact the now-preposterous belief: “There grew there India a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on the endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungrie.”. This aspect is retained in the name for cotton in many European languages, such as German Baumwolle, which translates as “tree wool”.
Today cotton provides half of all textiles. Cotton is grown on about 125,500 square miles worldwide. That is an area roughly the size of New Mexico. In the US cotton, is grown on about 22,000 square miles, roughly the area of Maryland, Vermont and Connecticut, all together. Over 40 billion pounds is grown annually. The business revenue generated, over $50 billion dollars in the U.S. alone, is greater than that of any other field crop.

Cotton, the not so natural fiber

Cotton’s effect on the environment has been devastating. Here in the U.S., 53 million pounds of toxic pesticides are applied each year to conventional cotton fields. Cotton uses less than 5% of the Earth’s agricultural land, yet it consumes 25% of the chemicals applied.

In growing conventional cotton, it takes 1 pound of chemicals to produce three pounds of cotton - enough to make a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Not only are huge amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides used on cotton, but defoliants, cousins of Agent Orange, are also applied during the harvesting. And that is only the beginning. In the spinning, weaving, dying, and curing process another arsenal of toxic chemicals are used in conventional cotton. There is a growing percentage of the population that has become so chemically sensitive that wearing conventional cotton immediately brings hives and swelling to their body.

Cotton’s sustainable future

The organic approach starts with a holistic vision of the farm. The farm is seen as a living organism, not a factory, whose care and long term health is in the hands of the farmer. The bottom line is important, but it is not the only measure of success. Under the farmer’s stewardship the farm is cultivated to be healthy, sustainable, and beautiful. The tools the organic farmer uses are always sensitive to the inter-relatedness of all aspects of the farm. This includes the use of all organic soil additives, the practices of composting, inter-cropping, and crop rotation. The organic farmer watches his farm and always acts with appropriateness through the diversity of the crops and animals he raises. The organic farmer is at the center of a delicate balance between science and art, economics and life.

Organic cotton is already successfully being grown in 18 countries around the world, including the USA, Turkey, India, Peru, Israel, Egypt and Uganda. The USA has been the initiator in cultivation, though the marketplace here has been limited. Currently about 16,000 acres of organic cotton are being planted in the US. 900 acres of organic cotton were planted in 1990, 3,290 in 1991. It reached a peak in 1995 with 25,000 acres planted. But the market collapsed as supply began to exceed demand. Much of the crop had to be sold at conventional prices and so the farmers lost money. In 1997 planted acres dropped to 9,000. Today, the market is again growing.

Despite this growth, organic cotton currently amounts to about .1% of the acres grown in the USA. We believe that this is only the beginning. With support, the farmers could turn that amount into 20% or 40% or more. The question we must ask is, “If organic cotton can be grown, why isn’t organic cotton clothing more readily available?” Ten years ago that same question was asked about organic foods in general. Now organic produce is available in nearly every supermarket from California to Maine.

This article was built from sources found at wikipedia and mindfully.org

Eco-fashion has been a hot topic lately, even in mainstream media with Green issues by Elle,Vanity Fair & Wired magazine in April & May this year, and in the last year, the movement and those behind it have received coverage in other publications such as Newsweek, USA Today, Lucky Magazine, and more!

The recent buzz is all about celebrities, politicians, trend-setters, and every day people looking to help move us toward a greener more sustainable economy and way of life are using their dollar to vote. In the eco-fashion world these last couple months, it’s all about Loyale, featured in the May issue of Elle, April issue of Shape (Ibiza Dress), and the April issue of Plenty (Ibiza Dress). Stay tuned for tidbits on who’s sporting hemp jeans or slathering on organic she butter. Does it matter who’s wearing what? Nah, but it is sorta fun to know, and hey, if it supports the cause, we are all for it! Send us your green fashionitsa/o scoop and maybe we’ll include it here!

This post was taken from the first edition of our monthly eco-fashion newletter “In the Loop” Click here to sign up and we will keep you up to date on the Buzz in green fashion news, show you what’s new at Greenloop, give you the insider’s view on what’s coming, and will contain a special offer or coupon ONLY for subscribers to In The Loop!