Recycling Material For Designer Fashions
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
Eco-fashion is becoming a hot trend these days as more and more designers veer towards the use of environment-friendly and recyclable materials.
The term ‘eco-fashion’ is defined by STEP (Sustainable Technology Education Project), a non-profit organization, as a stylized type of clothing that takes into serious consideration the environment as well as the health of the people who will be wearing them. This type of clothing style makes use of environment-friendly fabrics combined with clever clothing production techniques.
Alternative Eco-Materials
Bamboo, organic cotton, and tencel have all been used by eco- designers in coming up with new fashion trends. In the coming years, they will be looking into the usability of alternative clothing fabrics as well as other eco-friendly materials like tagua, tweeds, milk proteins and flannel, which will be used in creating clothes, shoes and even accessories for the fashion market.
Wool Funnel and Recycled Tires
A shoe manufacturer referred to as Simple Shoes will be ushering the use of recycled car tires and plaid wool funnel for their upcoming sneaker collection. The shoes will be shipped in recycled boxes to promote a more eco-feel.
Heritage Tweeds
Fall season is all about the use of tweeds, which is incorporated in both regular as well as eco-friendly fashion designs. Top designers, Eloise Grey, has launched her autumn collection which features the ethical heritage tweeds as the main material. Heritage tweeds were introduced in the fashion scene about two years ago.
Milk Proteins
Meanwhile, FIN – a Norwegian eco-lox brand – is currently experimenting the use of a gauze-like material, derived completely from milk proteins, in their upcoming spring and summer collection scheduled to be launched next year. One great benefit of using milk proteins as an alternative material for clothing production is the fact that it can help free up lands that can be otherwise used to grow cotton fields, the material of choice when manufacturing clothes.
Sustainable Materials for Eco-Friendly Accessories
While many designers still continue to use cotton as the primary material when producing their clothing collection, new alternative eco-friendly materials are now being introduced in the fashion industry. In fact, their use is not only limited to clothing production since they are now being utilized even in the manufacture of eco accessories. The Andrean Collection, a famed jewelry designer, will be introducing an environment friendly line of fashion-forward and colourful pieces made from sustainable materials – jabon, tagua, acai – harvested from the rainforest of South America. This new line of accessory has been previewed at the Nolcha Fashion Week in New York last September.