Green Cotton

February may be cold, snowy and somewhat dreary, but spring fashion is already in stores and fall fashion is already being paraded down the runways. So instead of moping over gray skies, get ready to shine in some new eco-fashion finds. Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but these sweet styles continue to evoke that romantic feeling for days to come. Here are just a few things we’re loving this month: coats, sweaters, accessories, even makeup! Take a look:

Red is showing up all over the Fall 2010 runway in New York, so get ready to see (and sport!) a lot of this cheery hue. You can get started with Indigenous Design’s adorable little knit dress in ruby, made from organic cotton and Tencel. Keep it subtly sexy by pairing it with opaque tights or leggings and a snuggly sweater coat. We like Indigenous’ red alpaca sweater coat for its bright color and beautiful details. You’ll swoon over the soft, handwoven alpaca wool. This is perfect for a night in or a day out and about.

Not to get all matchy-matchy, but while we’re embracing red, we simply can’t leave out another great knit by Indigenous: the Soho wrap in ruby (pictured below). This organic cotton poncho echoes what we’re seeing on the runway, but it’s functional enough to get you through your day.

As the weather starts to warm up (wishful thinking!), you may want to trade your heavy winter coat for some lighter attire. Even though there’s snow on the ground here in New England, we’ve had some 50 degree days that officially make it sweatshirt weather!

A great piece to have on hand for such days is Prairie Underground’s long cloak hoodie, made from organic cotton jersey. This is the perfect transition piece, and its navy color matches the nautical items you’re likely to encounter in stores’ spring collections. This would look adorable with a Breton striped tee atop leggings or skinny jeans!

Another returning trend for spring is the lightweight scarf. When it’s time to pack your wool ones away, reach for the silk “rose wasabi” ruffled scarf by Sevya (pictured below). Pink and green will be everywhere in a few months, but you can start sporting pastels now with this fair trade, handmade scarf. And even though it’s still cold outside, silk is easy to layer and will keep you warm.

Fair trade Sevya Silk Scarf

Put a little more spring in your step – or on your handbag, hat, sweater, dress – with a hand knit flower pin (pictured above), also by Indigenous. These charming pins are a cute way to add a pop of color and style to your winter wardrobe, while dreaming of real spring blooms…

No ensemble is complete without the shoe, and we’ve scouted some good ones… eco-friendly, vegan boots by NeuAura. Now is the perfect time to go boot shopping, as most winter styles are on sale, and you’ll probably still be wearing boots for a few more months! You can score some sleek, stylish booties or knee-high versions at NeuAura. We like the Kaveri Grey style: the low heel means you’ll be able to rock these all day, but the buckle detail adds intrigue and edge. Also check out the Alre Camel: the 3” heel adds height, but the platform ensures a comfortable stride. And the tan color goes well with winter sweaters and jeans but will really pop with spring’s military-inspired cargos and jackets, paired sweetly with feminine ruffled tops in pink, coral and floral prints. To learn more about NeuAura and its earth-conscious and animal-friendly manufacturing process (and to shop for more awesome shoes!), visit their website.

Give your eco-friendly outfit the perfect finishing touch with some sweet makeup that will have you thinking spring and looking hot. We love Tarte’s Flower Child Natural Cheek Stain. This eco-chic product is made with Tarte’s exclusive T5 Super Fruit Complex, a blend of the five most active superfruits: goji, açaí, maracuja, acerola, and pomegranate. It’s blissfully made without nasty parabens, sulfates, synthetic dyes and fragrances and other chemicals that block your glow. Plus it’s the perfect shade of pink that complements every skin tone. Grab a tube at Sephora.com.

Banish dry winter skin with the Body Shop’s new Love, Etc. lotion. Or collect the whole line, including the Eau de Parfum (a blend of jasmine, neroli and bergamot with notes of vanilla and sandalwood) and body wash, currently available at a reduced price. The Body Shop is a great line to support because the company is against animal testing and for sustainability and community trade.

We hope these finds will help you get through the last winter month. Stay tuned for our Fall 2010 runway review, and for more spring fashion finds! And if you have any eco-fashion suggestions, feel free to sound off in the comments below.

By Erin Dale

While October was officially Fair Trade month, Jute and Jackfruit is continuing to celebrate the cause by hosting an upcoming event that brings together several fair trade companies to delight and inform guests in the Cambridge area. On November 9th, they will host an eco-fashion and Fair Trade event in Cambridge, MA.

Jute and Jackfruit raises awareness on the importance of organic, fair trade and sustainable issues by delivering positive, simple messages about greening and making more ethical our every day lives.

At this upcoming event in Kendall Square, Jute and Jackfruit will present their latest ethical and sustainable clothing collections (including Indigenous Designs, Kelly Lane, Feral Childe and Rebe) as well as provide participants an opportunity to learn more about what it means to be fair trade and organic. Two other fair trade companies will be present to offer their perspectives as well, including free samples of their delicious products.

The participating Fair Trade companies include Dean’s Beans and Theo Chocolate. Each will demonstrate the quality of the products, discuss the ways in which they are fair trade, how they select their farms and more. Free samples of each product will of course also be available.

Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company is a 100% Fair Trade and Organic coffee and cocoa processor and wholesale distributor in Orange, Massachusetts, USA. Since 1993, Dean’s Beans has modeled how business can be a vehicle for positive social change while being profitable at the same time. Besides paying above fair prices for all of its coffee and cocoa, Dean’s Beans works directly with the grower communities to address needed social, economic and environmental concerns prioritized by the farmers (largely made up of indigenous peoples working hard to maintain their culture and lifestyles).

Dean’s Beans provides people-centered development design and funding for the communities in such areas as education, clean water and alternative income generation. The company’s business practices have been recognized by the United Nations and the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

How does Dean’s Beans make the difference?

Dean’s Beans promotes local empowerment and self-reliance through their Fair Trade purchases and their work with local grassroots development and human rights groups. The company also sponsors projects here at home with disenfranchised communities such as Native Americans, the homeless and disabled, and many other groups trying to improve their lives and that of their communities. Every cup you drink and every pound you buy contributes directly to the welfare of coffee growers and consumers.

Each player in the cycle of production and distribution, from the farmer to the consumer, participates in socially just and environmentally responsible trade. Each coffee batch they roast also comes from a unique place and society. For example, Dean’s Beans offers the first certified Organic Fair Trade coffee from Brazil. The grower’s cooperative, Association of Small Producers of Poco Fundo, is an amazing, dynamic group of farmers that has been working since 1985 to gain international accreditation for their work in organics and to be accepted on the fair trade registry. The group’s mission is to improve the social, economic and ecological conditions of the families of Poco Fundo, a small municipality of 15,000 people, located in the southern part of the state of Minas Gerais. This has required an amazing commitment of time, energy and money on the farmer’s part.

Moreover, Dean’s Beans is thankful for being a founding member of Cooperative Coffees, the first roaster’s cooperative created to buy direct, Fair Trade coffee from farmer coops, and make it available to any small roaster who wants to participate in the Fair Trade movement. They are also active members of the Fair Trade Federation, an international organization of dedicated Fair Traders.

Located in Seattle, Washington, Theo Chocolate Company is the first and currently the only organic, Fair Trade Certified roaster of cacao in the United States, sourcing cacao from small farmers in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Panama, Ghana, Madagascar, Venezuela, and the Ivory Coast. Theo’s small team is guided by a passion for chocolate, care for the environment, and dedication to enriching the lives of everyone involved, including cacao farmers and chocolate lovers.

The founder, Joseph Whinney, pioneered the supply of organic cocoa beans into the United States in 1994.
As true chocolate makers, Theo Chocolate takes carefully selected cacao from bean to bar in their own factory, roasting, blending and conching to coax out the distinctive flavor imparted by each growing region. The result is superb artisinally made chocolate with real integrity. Whether you enjoy the 3400 Phinney line of chocolate bars, each “kicked up” with something extra, or prefer the pure cacao interpretations of single-origin and blended Theo chocolate bars, you’ll surely find a very enjoyable tasting experience.

In addition to being ethically-driven, all-natural, and public-friendly, Theo’s offers deliciously inventive chocolate. Classic flavors include orange, mint, cherry-almond, and chili; whereas Theo’s fantasy flavors include Coconut Curry , Coffee and Vanilla, Nib Brittle and Fig Fennel Almond. There’s also the 3400 Phinney Bar (named after the factory address in Fremont), which is milk chocolate liquor mixed with toasted and salted bread bits sourced from a local bakery.

Jute and Jackfruit will be showcasing their fair trade and organic Indigenous Designs collection as well as elements of their Kelly Lane and feral childe collections at the event. All clothing is made from organic and sustainable fabrics, handcrafted, and ethically made. They will also present several of their recycled handbag collections such as Escama Studios, recycled soda pull tab bags and recycled candy wrapper bags.

If you would like to join in on this event in Cambridge, MA email customerservice[at]juteandjackfruit.com to get on the guest list. The event is free. For more information you may also call 781-859-5232

Autonomie Project is a relatively new Fair trade, eco-friendly, and vegan fashion company based out of Boston, Massachussetts (USA).

The company began in 2007 when group of friends came together in their frustration with the fashion and footwear industries due to their lack of transparency, use of sweatshops and harmful chemicals.

Autonomie’s mission is to supply high-quality, stylish garments to ethically conscious consumers. Autonomie caters to the shopper who wants to align their personal style with their values. Autonomie makes this possible by providing a range of fashion options that all have a positive social impact on the environment, while raising awareness about today’s most pressing global issues. To Autonomie Project, the most effective solution to reducing sweatshops and child labor abuses is to create their own production ecology with reliable, transparent and supportive working conditions and operations. And that is what they did. Autonomie didnt just want to “do no harm”, they wanted to take things a step further by benefiting the communities who make their clothes, and helping to break the cycle of poverty. Toward this end, Autonomie Project:

- AP provides their workers with a fair wage so they can beat out sweatshops and enjoy a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

-  AP works exclusively with small, independent cooperatives and Fair Trade-certified facilities located in developing areas of the world where they can allot a portion of our funds to be used for initiatives that will uplift their entire community, such as building a health clinic or bringing a steady water supply to a small village.

Autonomie Project currently produces shoes, flip flops, hand bags, t-shirts, winter hats and accessories. In terms of materials, they use organic cotton, all natural FSC (Forest Certified Council) rubber, and other eco-friendly & locally-sourced materials.

The AP apparel does not end there however, their T-shirts are also 100% organic cotton, very comfortable, and stylish.  The cotton is ring-spun and combed for extra softness and colored with eco-friendly dyes.

The tee featured above is the “Fight Global Poverty / Warming” design in light blue ink on charcoal so that you can declare to the world where your eco priorities are at. Made right here in the USA.

Autonomie Project’s bag collection is hand made by a women’s knitting cooperative in rural Peru. The newest styles are made with 100% Fair Trade-certified organic cotton yarns that are naturally dyed.

The incredibly soft yarns used for the bags hail from a Fair Trade facility in Lima and are processed using completely natural and traditional methods. No dyes, chemicals or other synthetic processes have been used to grow, soften, or color the fibers. By buying a bag, you help the 25 mothers of Northern Creations grow a sustainable business and improve the standard of living for their families and community.

Autonomie Project works with small, independent cooperatives and Fair Trade certified facilities located in developing areas of the world including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Peru, and the USA. The products are relevant and fashionable, vegan , eco, and always sweatshop-free.

Since we wrote about the Fair Trade the Whitehouse initiative last week, Autonomie Project is also a supporter of that campaign (no surprise!). Check out that initiative and become a part of it, if you have not already.

There are several cool things going on at the Autonomie Project site worth checking out:

- Buy Fair Trade: First, if you are in the mood to shop or have a gift in mind for someone, check out their stylish, high-quality Fair Trade items.
- Blog: Autonomie runs a blog and encourages other to blog about them too. Get involved.
- Affiliates Program: If you are a company or non-profit you can also sign up as an AP Affiliate and get customized banner links that will earn you a commission on any sales brought in from your online outreach efforts.

Check them out!

By: Julie Finkel and Shana Yansen