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.
How To Sell Used Clothes
We all know to avoid the fast fashion habitrail of buying a five-dollar t-shirt because it was on sale, only to have it sit at the back of your closet for decades. And now that so many people are jumping on the Konmari bandwagon—finding joy, everyone?—there’s a lot of closet clean out going on. But what do you do with those clothes you’ve rejected? People, listen up: Here’s how to sell used clothes.
Sarah Jane Morris: Why I #ShopDrop2016
I first met Sarah Jane Morris when she rolled up to an EcoStiletto party in her biodiesel Mercedes—and confessed that she’d spent the morning dumpster diving for biofuel with her rock-star husband. I thought she was the coolest girl on the planet. Eight years and two kids later, the former star of “Brothers and Sisters,” soon to be seen on NBC’s “The Night Shift,” is even cooler. Especially now that she’s taking the Shop Drop Challenge with us! Sarah shared her philosophy on shopping, swapping and her favorite place to score preloved fashion in this Mommy Greenest exclusive.
Rachelle Carson-Begley: Why I #ShopDrop2016
You know her as the skeptical wife of uber-environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. on Discovery’s “Living with Ed” and the Bite Size TV web series “Our Green House.” But did you know that Rachelle Carson-Begley is an ecoista in her own right? The actress and television personality opens up about her motivation for taking the Shop Drop Challenge in this exclusive Mommy Greenest interview.
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.)…
Eco Fashion Innovator Closes the Loop on Down
Down is getting more responsible. Last year, eco fashion innovator Nau joined forces with The North Face and Textile Exchange to support the Responsible Down Standard, which helped businesses using down move away from birds that were live-plucked and/or force-fed. Awful, right? But now Nau’s taking things a step further by using 100% recycled down. Since I’m all about recycled eco fashion, this video just about made me cry. Plus: Slashing pillows and slo-mo feathers? What’s not to like!
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.