In the glittery, candlelit Bently Reserve, downtown San Francisco’s new environmentally correct event space, more than 650 of the Bay Area’s well-heeled and well-connected are nibbling on sustainably harvested sushi and sipping organic-vodka cocktails. There’s a sort of zingy electricity in the air that says something Really Important is afoot.

Is it the luminous glow cast by stars like Leonardo DiCaprio, Salma Hayek, and Orlando Bloom, who’ve jetted in from Hollywood to grace this singular event? Is it the energy generated from such an amalgam of digerati (Google’s Larry Page and Yahoo’s Jeff Weiner), glitterati (Vanessa Getty and Susie Tompkins Buell), politicos (Mayor Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown), heavyweight environmentalists (Paul Hawken and William McDonough), Silicon Valley venture capitalists, and green crusaders from surfers to scientists?

Maybe it’s the chance to win an ecofriendly makeover and haircut with nontoxic highlights or five nights at a “green” Fiji resort in the silent auction. Could it be that the guests, who have shelled out anywhere from $250 to $5,000 to attend, are actually enthralled at the idea of doing good for Global Green USA, a nonprofit that raises money for the green rebuilding of New Orleans, among other worthy causes? Or is it that on this landmark night, December 12, 2006, the beautiful people are here for the chance to see their future—and that future is a Save-the-Children-thin model strutting down the runway in a biodegradable, ecofriendly bamboo trellis dress with a spun “peace silk” slip?

Well, yes. The elites have gathered for all the reasons listed above. But more to the point, the event, billed as “Gorgeous & Green: An Ecofabulous Party,” was sort of a coming-out party for a glamorous new wing of the environmental movement. No longer a bunch of plain-Jane crusaders in earnest, nubby cottons and Birkenstocks with socks, this movement is announcing that you can be earth-friendly without sacrificing style; you, too, can be eco-chic. And it should be no surprise that Gorgeous & Green was held in San Francisco. While the city isn’t a fashion capital, the Bay Area, in its passion for everything from organic food to low car emissions to solving global warming, is a magnet for all things environmentally sound.

While the event showcased the best that ecoluxe has to offer, from a $2,000 sustainably harvested bamboo table to the $92,000 Tesla electric sports car, the centerpiece was the fashion show. As the music throbbed, a small cadre of models sashayed down the runway in one-of-a-kind outfits created by several Bay Area designers and one from Los Angeles, including Margaret O’Leary, Lily Achatz, Cari Borja, Tierra Del Forte, and more. On display was an inspired range of fashions—evening gown, cocktail dress, ruffle coat, bustle skirt, denim jeans, and form-hugging knit dress—all created from such environmentally friendly materials as reclaimed curtains (who would have thought Scarlett O’Hara was a proto-ecofashionista?), recycled plastic bottles,

sustainably produced bamboo yarn, and organic cotton, wools, and silks. Save for one black gown, all the clothing on parade was some shade of green, an attempt to announce with a wink that green can be gorgeous. (The clothing was gorgeous, but the all-green theme seemed a bit, well, rain forest.)

This fashion show was among the first of its kind in the United States, but the movement has been several years in the making, fueled in part by some high-profile celebrities and industry types. Acclaimed designer and vegetarian Stella McCartney is leading the way by producing more organic clothing and making nothing with fur or leather. When Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow wear a McCartney outfit to an awards show, the cause inches a few steps forward. And the world takes notice when someone like Ali Hewson, Bono’s wife, launches a line of fashionable fair trade clothing (called Edun, or “nude” backwards).

Inside the industry, high-end Giorgio Armani, with a small line of organic T-shirts, has been joined by mainstream, local giants like Levi’s, which now offers two lines of ecofriendly jeans, and the Gap, which is taking a baby step by launching one line of men’s organic-cotton T-shirts. The most surprising big manufacturer to get involved is Wal-Mart, which buys more organic fabric than anyone else worldwide. After selling out of a line of its Sam’s Club organic-cotton yoga wear in record time, the planet’s biggest retailer saw that ecofriendliness guaranteed big bucks. (For a sampling of ways to buy green, see “The Green List,” below.)

But despite all the hoopla, you have to wonder whether a few organic T-shirts and eight beautiful outfits at a San Francisco fashion show can persuade an insanely profitable industry to begin producing clothing that not only looks good but is also good for the planet. The fashion industry taps into such eco-unfriendly desires—to keep up with trends, to always want something new (the average shelf life in the industry is four weeks), to look good at all costs—that it almost seems like ecofashion is too oxymoronic to succeed.

Equally far-fetched is the notion that Americans can consume their way out of environmental annihilation. Conceivably, we could produce and sell loads of organic, sustainable products. But that would still leave us in a never-ending cycle of production and consumption, which also taxes the planet. Megastores with bargain-basement prices, like Target, H&M, and Mervyn’s, don’t help: with prices so low, clothing is just something to dispose of and replace with each new trend. (Bay Area designer Cari Borja makes this point by incorporating reclaimed vintage materials in her clothing.) Ironically, your schlumpy friend who scours thrift shops and hardly ever buys anything new may be making the most eco-chic statement of all.

Still, the movement’s champions, primarily a handful of smart, idealistic, and—let’s just say it—beautiful 20- and 30-something designers and environmentalists, many with earthy names like Summer Rayne Oakes, Zem (which

means “Earth” in Czech) Joaquin, and Tierra Del Forte, insist we’re about to see ecofashion take off. “It’s ramping up very quickly,” says Gorgeous & Green’s co-chair Joaquin, who is also the editor-in-chief of EcoFabulous.com. “Being ecologically conscious is now seen as very cool.” When Al Gore makes the cover of Vanity Fair, looking at once serious and, well, sexy, you know something’s going on. First, there’s the fear factor. Gore’s sobering documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, along with daily headlines about decimated rain forests and melting ice caps, have made the mainstream public wake up and take notice. Then, there’s the more comforting message from style makers: Don’t worry. You can save the planet and still wear a nice suit.


So what exactly is ecofashion? With all due respect to marketing directors and PR spinners, one thing it’s not is the color green. During the 2006 holiday season, Neiman Marcus heralded green as the season’s hot color, in deference to the environmental movement, and featured splashy pictures of a green-hued Teslar watch, a green handbag, green barware, and a green dress in its catalog. The only problem is, except for a small collection of Stella McCartney items, the store, according to a Neiman Marcus spokeswoman, does not carry any ecofriendly clothing.

In its purest form, an ecofashion outfit would be environmentally and ethically produced. That means it would be made locally, with zero impact on the planet and no harm to those involved in its manufacture. Synthetic fabrics would be replaced by more sustainable ones like bamboo, hemp, soy, and birch, as well as organic silk, cotton, and wool. Dyes would be natural, not chemical. But this is where the definition gets muddy. All eco-clothing displays at least some of these characteristics, but rarely all. If the cotton is organic, for instance, were the workers who picked it given fair wages? If it’s sustainably produced bamboo, which grows back quickly, is the bamboo also organic? If animal products were used, were the animals treated humanely? And if the garments were produced in China or India or Africa, how much fossil fuel was burned to package and transport them? In other words, it’s almost impossible to attach an all-purpose label that assures the consumer the garment she holds in her hands isn’t responsible for some form of ecological harm or human misery.

“There’s no such thing as completely sustainable fashion,” says Oakes, a self-described ecomodel and sustainable-business consultant based in New York City. “There’s always something that could be improved.” This is one reason the organic food movement has had an easier time picking up speed: the government has refined the labeling process for foods to the point where you can now be pretty sure of what you’re getting.

One of the biggest environmental offenders, and so an obvious one to tackle, is cotton. The $334 billion worldwide cotton industry uses more pesticides and synthetic fertilizers than any other, laying waste

to air, water, and the food supply. Twenty two percent of the world’s insecticides are sprayed on cotton, with more than 50 million pounds applied yearly in the United States. (It takes approximately a third of a pound of pesticides to produce enough cotton for a single item of clothing.) And heavily polluted regions like the Central Valley not only are uncomfortably close to home, but also have been tainted with headlines about cancer and other illnesses. Worldwide, unregulated pesticides, chemicals, and defoliants used in growing cotton include a long and terrifying list of toxins (including Agent Orange) that kill everything from the soil to bugs to birds, and so on up the food chain. And the cotton industry continues to employ millions of people at poverty-level wages, mostly in Third World countries.

One local designer who decided to tackle the problem is ecostar Del Forte, whose luxury organic jeans, in the words of People magazine, “mean never having to choose between the environment and how good your butt looks.” Having worked in the denim industry for years and seen the working conditions of factory workers abroad, Del Forte said she had an epiphany in her 30s about how bad things really were. “Though this is a glamorous industry, so much of it is not.”

To start a company employing local workers and using sustainable fabrics, she contacted everyone she knew in the industry and, after much effort, found quality organic denim with the requisite stretch, an essential in form-fitting jeans. Today, one of Del Forte’s major resources is Oakland’s Organic Exchange, which has done much to push the organic-cotton movement forward. Founded in 2001 by Rebecca Calahan Klein, the Exchange is a nonprofit that supports the expansion of the sustainable-cotton market worldwide. Del Forte gets 95 percent of her cotton from California and Texas, which is processed in American mills, which means that workers are paid fair wages and the cotton doesn’t have far to travel. And she’s gone out of her way to make sure her jeans look every bit as stylish and sexy as any other designer denim; she’s been in the business long enough to know that women won’t buy a pair of $190 jeans just because they’re organic. “At the end of the day, people vote with their tastes,” she says.

San Francisco designer Margaret O’Leary is also moving toward eco-conscious production, though she’s vexed by the commercial constraints of the business. O’Leary’s was the show-stopping trellis dress at the Gorgeous & Green event, and she’s creating a small line of environmentally friendly accessories—belts, scarves, and loungewear—for the 2007 holiday season. But survival, she says, comes down to whether you’re making a profit. “If consumers tell me they want green clothing by going to the cash register,” says O’Leary, “I’ll make it.”

Yes, it is an inconvenient truth that

the most compelling green for designers is money. And small-scale, exclusive designers say they can’t find high-quality, sustainable material at an affordable price. (Right now, only .1 percent of the cotton market worldwide is certified organic.) That’s why large-scale cotton manufacturers will have to get involved. “As organic-cotton mills begin to see companies willing to buy in huge quantities, they make fabrics available to designers,” says Organic Exchange’s Klein; this drives prices down, allowing more shoppers to go au naturel. At the moment, although Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue both carry Edun and other organic lines, the ecofriendly pickings at large department stores remain slim.

That’s why the biggest excitement in the industry now is on the fringe. “The people making this happen aren’t major designers,” says Oakes, who plans to publish a guidebook to green fashion. The Pradas and the Guccis long ago established a business model that works, she says. But younger fashion-forward men and women starting their own companies and creating high-end clothing, like local designers Lily Achatz and Cari Borja, are willing to try something new.

As they proceed, however, vanity, not guilt, must be their calling card; the ecofashion movement knows it is selling the equivalent of a cotton-poly blend: 90 percent style and 10 percent do-gooder guilt. Hammering fashionistas with the news that every piece of clothing they own has ravaged the water, soil, and air and exploited underpaid workers only gets you so far. So that’s where the present battle lies, in convincing luxury consumers to transform themselves into Carrie Brad­shaw with a conscience: the shopper who will tread oh-so-softly on the planet in her $450 microfiber sling-backs.

No simple feat. It’s doubtful many of the pretty people attending Gorgeous & Green had peered into their closets before getting dressed and thought, “Did the worms that spun the silk in my couture gown dine on organic mulberry leaves?” or “Did the dyes used to create this particularly rich indigo in my suit leave behind a toxic sludge that will poison the drinking water in a village in India?” Indeed, most anyone who wants to wear something more stylish than a hair shirt gets dressed with a single question in mind: Do I look good?

Still, even if the masses haven’t gotten their credit cards out yet, 650 people came to the party, and that’s a start. Perhaps this will be one of those historic moments, and fashion experts will soon look back and say with nostalgia, “It all started with that bamboo trellis dress. Can you believe we ever wore anything else?” 

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4 SHADES OF GREEN DESIGN

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Ecofashion may be a budding movement here, but that doesn’t mean buying locally necessarily means buying green. Still, Heather Stephenson, cofounder of the online eco-info newsletter Ideal Bite, argues, “Without a doubt, locally made goods trump all other

efforts at eco-consciousness,” since their footprint is the smallest. Here’s how local talents who market themselves as “eco-designers” measure up on the green spectrum.

Del Forte Denim
Tierra Del Forte walks the walk. When the former designer for Mudd jeans decided to start her own luxury denim line, she wanted to make a commitment to sustainability that would be new for the jean industry. Del Forte jeans are made of domestic, organically grown cotton, and production is done in Los Angeles. With the care she puts into every stitch, rivet, and new sale (she offers 10 percent off a new pair to customers who send in their old jeans, which are used for one-off projects), we can forgive the fact that the finishing process, which includes the dyes, isn’t yet sustainable. Her wonderfully flattering jeans are sold at Villains Vault, Azalea, AB Fits, and the Candy Store. For store locations, check out www.delforte.com.

Grace Trance
Using incredibly soft hemp, bamboo, soy, and organic-cotton fabrics, as well as fiber-reactive dyes (which are far less harsh on the planet than traditional or even vegetable dyes), Grace Trance constructs flirty minidresses, flouncy tiered skirts, and swingy jackets. Her small  operation’s use of these earth-friendly fabrics shows amazing commitment, for which Trance was rewarded with an invitation to participate in last year’s Ethical Fashion Show in Paris. Although many of her fabrics are imported, all of Trance’s manufacturing is done locally. Her creations can be ordered from www.gracetrance.com.

House of Hengst
Not all the materials used at this six-year-old company are organic, but it uses U.S.-produced organic cotton and is one of the biggest local eco-brands. House of Hengst is also looking into the prospect of recycling fibers to make shipping boxes, as well as other ways to make its business more sustainable. Delicately ruffled blouses and batiste tops made in San Francisco (and a few items made in New York) are among the spring essentials at its Mission storefront. 924 Valencia St., S.F., 415-642-0841, www.houseofhengst.com.

Lilja
This creator of colorful, Missoni-esque, body-skimming knitwear has been working with soy- and bamboo-based yarn, and its layering tees are made of organic cotton. Even though much of the production is done in the Bay Area, some is done overseas (the baby alpaca line is made by artisans in Peru), and the cashmere sweaters don’t comply with organic standards. These pieces can be found at Dish, the Candy Store, Two Skirts, and many more. www.liljadesigns.com.

BY Sarah Mueller Bossenbroek

 

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THE GREEN LIST

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Where to start greening your own wardrobe? Patagonia, the ground­breaking, environmentally friendly California company has set the bar high for the rest of the industry with everything from organic recycled clothing to its green distribution centers (www.patagonia.com). But over the last few years, designers have been filling the gap between couture and hiking garb with pieces you can use to make a green statement every single day.

Levi’s: Both its stylish Red Tab and Capital E lines are made from organic cotton. Available at the Levi’s Store (300 Post St., S.F.) and major department stores like Macy’s.

Wildlife Works: This Bay

Area company makes everything from yoga wear to pencil skirts out of organic cotton and hemp. Though the mills are in impoverished regions, all workers are paid fair wages. Wildlife Works also donates large portions of its profits to conservation efforts. Available at www.wildlife-works.com and at Destina­tions Clothing (900 North Point, S.F.).

Stewart + Brown: This partnership has built its entire line on recycled, organic, and green fabrics. And since all of its clothing is either recyclable or biodegradable, it won’t hurt the environ­ment after it leaves your closet, either. www.stewartbrown.com.

Stella McCartney: This strict vegetarian has a policy of using no fur or leather in any of her designs, though she hasn’t gone completely ecofriendly yet. Available at Saks Fifth Avenue (384 Post St., S.F.) and Neiman Marcus (150 Stockton St., S.F.).

Edun: Thirty percent of Edun’s jeans and tees are made from organic materials. The company’s manufacturing plants are in developing countries and follow fair labor practices. Available at AB Fits (40 Grant St., S.F.), Azalea (411 Hayes St., S.F.), Bryan Lee (1840 Union St., S.F.), and more.

Undesigned, by Carol Young: Young’s urban women’s designs are recycled and organic—right down to the bamboo denim used in her jeans. Available at Bianca Luna (1829 Union St., S.F.), UKO (2070 Union St., S.F.), and Shibumi Gallery (1402 Fifth St., Berkeley).

Linda Loudermilk: Using exotic sustainable materials like sasawashi, sea cell, and soya in her designs, Los Angeles–based Loudermilk produces edgy, runway-ready dresses in a domestic factory that follows strict fair labor practices. Her line, though mostly couture, is sprinkled with some casual everyday pieces. Available online through www.lindaloudermilk.com.