Bluedot: LA’s Westside Thrift Store Hotspots
I first started thrifting in high school because it was the most affordable way to shop on a minimum-wage budget. My favorite store was Aardvark in Venice, where the racks were full of vintage items — floral dresses from the fifties and cashmere crewnecks with just the tiniest moth holes that could be fixed with a needle and thread. We weren’t thinking about it then, but thrifting is seriously sustainable.
Models Kickstart for a Living Wage
Most reality shows tend to focus on materialism. But “Sweatshop: Dead Cheap Fashion” flipped that paradigm when it sent two Norwegian models to Cambodia to explore what it was like to work in a sweatshop without a living wage. After the film premiered in April of last year on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, H&M filed a complaint to Norwegian Press Complaints Commission claiming the show was not representative of the company’s social responsibility policy. The protest was denied, and “Sweatshop: Dead Cheap Fashion” logged nearly eight million viewers and nabbed a coveted Norwegian media award. Now teen models Frida and Anniken are working to Kickstarter the second season and return to Cambodia…
Mommy Greenest Guide to Eco Friendly Fashion
You’ve read about fast fashion, in which underpaid workers in third-world countries provide western consumers with cheap and disposable goods. You’re all clear on cotton, which uses 17% of the world’s insecticides and is 94% Genetically Modified. And that the textile industry is the world’s second largest water polluter, after agriculture. But with that in mind, sometimes you just have to shop, right? Which is why it makes sense now to figure out what matters to you when it comes to the clothes and accessories that you buy–especially if you’re concerned about your impact on the Earth. (For more on that, check out the Mommy Greenest Guide to Going Green.)…
Fast Fashion Polluter Banned in EU
Are your clothes dirty? That’s a questions I asked myself when I learned about the EU’s new ban on imports of clothes and textiles that contain nonylphenol ethoxylates, also known as NPEs. I’ve written quite a bit about fast fashion–as well as the push for supply chain transparency through #FashionRevolution, and supporting fashion recycling through the #ShopDropChallenge. But I never really knew much about the connection between fast fashion, NPEs and the environment. Until now.
Shop Drop Challenge Wrap
Editor’s Note: Check out the 2016 Shop Drop Challenge! Thank You. Seriously. The Mommy Greenest community rallied behind the Shop Drop Challenge and it was amazing! I started out just asking people to commit to a 30-day shopping pause—thrifting or swapping a preloved fashion fix instead—and this year the Challenge took on a whole new dimension!
Mommy Greenest Shop Drop Countdown!
Editor’s Note: Check out the 2016 Shop Drop Challenge!We’re nearly halfway through the Mommy Greenest Shop Drop Challenge, in which we stop buying any new clothes or accessories for 30 days. Last year, Mommy Greenest readers saved $30,000 and 3,000 pounds of landfill waste in just one month. Will you join us?
Mommy Greenest Shop Drop 2015 Launch!
Editor’s Note: Check out the 2016 Shop Drop Challenge!Ladies, start counting! Today is the first of the Mommy Greenest Shop Drop Challenge, in which we pledge not to buy any new clothes or accessories for 30 days. Last year, Mommy Greenest readers saved $30,000 and 3,000 pounds of landfill waste in just one month. Will you join us?
Where Do I Swap My Style? Give + Take!
Remember the 2014 Shop Drop Challenge? That was when I encouraged Mommy Greenest readers to give up shopping for 30 days. The logic went like this: 160 million American women spend about $60 a month on clothes and dump an average of six pounds of textiles into the landfill; if we all stopped buying new clothes for one month we could save nearly one billion pounds of textile waste and $10 billion. So we didn’t quite reach six figures, but this January, 500 women saved more than $30,000 and 3,000 pounds of landfill waste, just by taking a 30-day retail shopping pause—and thrifting and swapping instead. We celebrated the culmination of that event with an event…
