Grabbing a favorite tee from our closet or throwing on a well-worn pair of jeans feels like second nature, but often makes a bigger statement than we realize. The ancient adage, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, takes on a whole new meaning when considering your garments and accessories are outward expressions of your eco-ethos. Not that we all have to walk around eschewing the cradle-to-cradle life-cycle of our 100-percent recycled content, tastefully tucked turtleneck—we do, however, have untold opportunities in this time of reuse, reclamation, and fair trade in textiles to tell a story with our visage.

Local fashion eco-visionista, Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart, founder of the vegan label, Vaute Couture, believes consumers should consider where a garment will end up as well as its beginnings. “’How long will it last? Who made it? Where was it made? What could this fabric lead to?’ These are all questions I ask myself when doing fabric research for Vaute Couture, and these are only the beginning,” says Hilgart.

Lara Miller
Lara Miller is one of Chicago’s most lauded sustainable designers. She prefers to use materials like bamboo, organic cotton and peace silk, which does not harm silk worms in the manufacturing process. Lara is a huge proponent of fair trade, which means paying fair, livable wages to all workers involved in the design and textile process, from beginning to end. Perhaps the most unique aspect of her design aesthetic is the fact that all of her styles are reversible and can be worn flipped upside down, which allows the wearer to style each garment in a variety of ways and make it their own.
laramiller.net

Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart
Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart is an activist first, entrepreneur second and artist always. She approaches fashion design as an inventor, focusing heavily on fabric research to create innovative functional and chic alternatives to traditionally animal derived apparel. The line is also eco-conscious, artist inspired, and made in Chicago on a living wage. Spelled like “haute couture” (high fashion) with a V for vegan, Vaute Couture exists to be a voice for the animals in the industry and push towards more compassionate options and standards. It is spoken “VOTE,” as each purchase made is a very tangible ballot for the processes and structures behind it.
vautecouture.com

Elise Bergman
Chicago native Elise Bergman believes in multi-functional outfits made from sustainable materials like luxurious silks, organic cottons, hand-dyed and hand-woven materials, and rare vintage fabrics. Her signature multi-wrap can be styled over 12 different ways including a strapless dress with either a straight or a sweetheart neckline, a one shoulder dress, and a high-waisted skirt.
elisebergman.com

Melissa Baswell
Chicago-based designer Melissa Baswell’s Mountains of the Moon is a sustainable fashion label comprised of chic, stylish clothing that helps, not hurts, the earth and its inhabitants. Well before the green movement became popular, Baswell was creating earth-conscious high fashion in an effort to break the stereotype of eco-clothing being defined as bland and boring. With a design philosophy inspired by vintage fashion and focused on creating timeless pieces that surpass fads, Baswell designs for the woman who embraces her femininity while remaining strong, empowered and street smart. The theme of the presence of nature in urban landscapes reappears in her designs and is in essence the foundation of her label.
mountainsofthemoon.com

Annie Novotny
Frei Designs features a dramatic array of dresses, tops and skirts made from voluminous feminine fabrics with sleek men’s tailoring. Annie prides herself on avoiding mass-manufacturing in the production of her line, which is fair trade, 80-percent organic, pesticide-free and made from renewable resources using no/low-impact dyes.
freidesigns.com

Vert Couture: An Evening of Fall Fashion & Environmental Responsibility
All of the designers in this story, and more of Chicago’s hottest eco-designers will be featured in this runway show, which is an official event of Fashion Focus Chicago. Vert Couture is produced by Conscious Planet Media on behalf of the City of Chicago and Chicago Fashion Focus as the culmination to Fashion Week 2009.  

Sunday, Oct. 25
from 6-10pm
Chicago Cultural Center, Yates Gallery (Fourth Floor)
78 East Washington St., Chicago

One hundred percent of profits from this show will go to the Chicago Fashion Resource, a nonprofit that provides scholarships to local students majoring in all aspects of fashion.

For more information and tickets, visit ConsciousPlanetMedia.com or brownpapertickets.com/event/82905.

Eco-Fashion Boutiques
Visit these local eco-fashion boutiques to find the hottest designs this fall.

Pivot Boutique
PivotBoutique.com
1101 W. Fulton Market, Chicago
312.243.4754

Skinstinct
skinstinct.com
Water Tower Place
845 N. Michigan Ave., 4th Fl. Chicago; 

3343 N. Broadway St., Chicago
5135 N. Clark St., Chicago

Connect Chicago
connect-chicago.com
1330 North Milwaukee Ave., Chicago

Earth Girls Boutique
earthgirlsboutique.com
The Andersonville Galleria
5247 N. Clark St., Chicago

Eco-Friendly Fashion Terms
— Margaret Mincks
Eco-friendly fashion clothing is comprised of sustainable fabrics such as organic raw materials, natural fibers, recycled or reused textiles, or regenerated fibers that have little negative impact on the environment,  but what do all these (and more) eco-buzzwords actually mean?

Biodegradable: The ability to break down safely and relatively quickly by biological means into raw materials, which can then be absorbed into the ecosystem. Bamboo is biodegradable; polyester is not.

Color Grown Cotton: Cotton that naturally develops shades such as honey, red, purple and mocha during its growth process; contains no dyes.

Closed-Loop Production: An environmentally conscious system used to process raw natural material into fabric; utilized in the manufacturing of regenerated fabrics. A “closed loop” circuit recovers, purifies, and reuses solvent up to 99.5 percent, yielding very little byproduct.

Fair-Trade: Indicates that workers who manufacture the items are paid a fair price and have decent, acceptable working conditions. 

Low-Impact Dye: Produces the least amount of toxic run-off into the environment; for example, 5 percent compared to 50-60 percent in traditional dye methods. Often, these dyes have a high absorption rate into the fabric, which means they generate less water waste post-rinsing. However, many low-impact dyes are derived from non-renewable petrochemicals.

Natural Fibers: Natural fibers fall into two main groups: vegetable fibers (such as cotton, hemp, flax, jute, ramie and soy) and protein or animal fibers (such as silk, wool, alpaca and cashmere). Many natural fabrics may have been grown and manufactured without harmful toxins, but have not been third-party certified as “organic.”

Organic: Third-party certified as grown and manufactured without pesticides or chemicals. For example, organic cotton uses biologically-based and sustainable growing methods such as crop rotation rather than fertilizers, herbicides or insecticides. The term “organic” also excludes the use of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, in the farming process.

Recycled: Also known as “reclaimed,” describes clothing that is resold rather than discarded; term may be used to describe secondhand, resale or vintage clothing. May also refer to clothing that is produced using recycled materials; for example, Eco-fi (formerly Ecospun) is a high-quality polyester fiber made from 100-percent post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. 

Regenerated Fibers: Manufactured fibers produced from natural materials such as wood or cotton. Some regenerated fibers, notably rayon and acetate, are not eco-friendly because they require chemically-intensive manufacturing. Eco-friendly regenerated fibers are biodegradable, rely on eco-conscious manufacturing and may require less pesticide than conventional cotton.

Sustainable: Sustainable fashion addresses the needs of today without compromising the resources of tomorrow. Sustainable fabrics may contain natural, organic, or recycled content. Bamboo is a popular sustainable fabric —it’s one of the fastest growing plants in the world (making it very renewable) and requires no pesticides to grow.

Vintage: Generic term for new or secondhand garments created from 1920 to 1975 (although some dealers extend this cutoff date to the mid-1980s). Vintage is eco-friendly because it requires no additional manufacturing and promotes environmental sustainability in terms of reusing, recycling and repairing; may also be referred to as “recycled” fashion.

The Bad Seeds: Fabrics to Avoid When Buying New
When buying new clothing, always check the label for information about the item’s content and manufacturing. Synthetic fabrics such as polyester, nylon and acrylic are made from petrochemicals, which create nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change) during the production process. Eco-friendly fashion often costs more than traditionally-manufactured pieces because it can be more expensive to produce, comprised of more expensive materials and made in the United States. But, they're certainly worth it—an eco-friendly piece can last a lifetime