How to Green Your Wardrobe

Here she is, dolls! The first of my 34 video series for About.com has been born! We’ll be rolling out one episode a week for your viewing pleasure. The first (below) is How To Green Your Wardrobe (with a handy transcript for ya’ll – plus links to some of my favorites!) I’ll be dishing out my best advise (generally in under five minutes or less!) for green living newbies from How to Green your Beauty Routine to Eco-Friendly Party Planning, Green Lifestyle Nutrition Tips for the Whole Family and more!

The series was created exclusively for About.com, but you’ll be seeing it on GirlieGirlArmy.com as well. This is the first lifestyle series for About.com with an eco-friendly focus and they are “overjoyed” to be affiliated with GirlieGirl Army. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard of and visited About.com. About is the premiere resource for expert driven content on the internet and is one of the most established tech companies in the online publishing industry. About is 17 years old and has more than 86 million users each month accessing information on a wide range of topics, from parenting and technology to healthcare and cooking and more!

Isn’t it exciting that 86 million people are going to be privy to my extremely seductive vegan wiles? ;)

Transcript;

“Green fashion is the newest frontier in sustainable living. There are amazing, amazing innovative fabrics happening right now that are available on the market, like fabric made from corn; soy cashmere made from excess from the food production world, which is just as luxe and supple and traditional cashmere. There is coconut shell fabric; there’s bamboo which is microbal, which helps you sweat. There are organic fibers, there’s linen which is actually flax seed which takes a lot less water to grow; and microfiber, which is an amazing alternative to leather as well as wax canvas. It’s biodegradable, so it doesn’t sit on the earth’s surface forever. It eventually biodegrades and it’s also made in a cleaner, greener way.

One of the things I’m really excited about is innovative technologies like OlsenHaus which just looks like a cool, edgy shoe from a modern designer, but actually it’s made from microfibre and PET which are recycled TVscreens and recycled water or soda bottles, which is just so cool. I love Beyond Skin. Look at these chic shoes that are made from plant-based fibers — how awesome.

Cri de Coeur, another really cool line; Mink shoes out of Los Angeles. There are so many ways of thinking about sustainability, from buying Fair Trade ethically mined diamonds to these amazing necklaces and this jewelry by Adina Mills, which are all found stones. They are imbued with so much wonderful energy. Or these pieces that are made from recycled plastics. Or Dirty Librarian Chains, a sexy name, right? Buy this designer out of Brooklyn. All of this is made locally from found dead stock of pieces, so maybe a jeweler closed down 50 years ago, and there’s all this dead stock. She makes amazing, super couture pieces from it. I’m sure you guys have seen these on the market. These are fantastic beads, beaded necklaces that are made in Rwandan cooperatives by women who are learning a skill and making these amazing, very cool looking beaded necklaces.

There are so many innovations every day happening in vegan fashion. But really the most exciting innovations in fashion have always come from vintage inspiration like florals are really hot this season, so I’m excited to get to wear my grandma’s jacket. Some pretty good stuff, right? This didn’t cost me anything, and it’s as green as it gets to buy vintage or wear vintage. So, always start in your mom’s closet, like I found this gem from the 80s, this Norma Kamali piece with these awesome long arms. My mom’s closet — how awesome. But then there are amazing designers who are doing really interesting things, like Dalia who’s a Los Angeles based designer who does all vegan gowns. They’re all eco friendly vegan gowns, and she has thousands of options that are just so chic and so innovative. I also am really excited about Eco Swim which is a plant-based recycled bottled swimwear line. This is one of their cover ups. They make super sexy bikinis, just in time for summer.

If you’re saying, “I miss my leather, I want to wear leather,” well you know you don’t need them now for your shoes, but what about sexy things like leather skirts or leather pants? There are so many options. Karen Kane makes great faux leather skirts. This is a faux crocodile print miniskirt which is sexy for next season. And I’m a big fan of Hatch maternity wear when I’m pregnant with my boys. These are just sexy, straight leg maternity leather jeans, vegan leather jeans, which are fantastic.

Of course, the dress that I’m wearing today is Daniel Silverstein’s Zero Waste, which is an innovative style of fashion where there’s zero waste in the production of the design. I love a designer named MiaKoda out of New York City, because she makes all of her things here in New York. They’re not made in a factory abroad, so she’s really doing things by hand using really light earth, light fabrics that are not hurting our planet. They’re all cruelty free and they’re so chic, and the design is so fashion forward and linear.

I really love this line Naketano, out of Germany, because he does things like great men’s hoodies with leather vegan hoods. There are no skins used in his designs whatsoever; no fur, no feathers, no wool, no silk. Cruelty free fashion does eschew all animal byproducts. But clearly, it doesn’t stop us from looking fabulous. I also really dig Claire Farwell designs. She’s a London designer who uses really progressive fashion forward fabrics and no animals have to die.

A lot of people buy their clothes on flash sales right now, which are amazing ways to get insane deals on your favorite designers. But now, you don’t have to just scroll your regular, general flash sale website to find them. You can look on green flash sale sites, and join them and get down with a new eco designer every day. And the exciting thing is, you get to learn so much and explore new, really innovative fabrics, and almost superior ways of making clothes and making people look fantastic.”