Going Green in Style
By Farah Amin
Fabulous Ferragamo
Even the Italians are going green now, not sacrificing luxury one bit in true Italian fashion. Ferragamo jumps on the green bandwagon to embrace the environment by creating a line of eco friendly handbags conveniently named “Eco Ferragamo,” that are toxic free, naturally dyed, hand woven, and biodegradable.
As eco friendly as possible, Ferragamo made these luxurious bags from all natural elements, using nontoxic tanning techniques free of metals and pollutants for the leather, which are taken from tree barks as well as a certified process by the German Institute SG.
The process allows the bag to have a natural sheen, which comes in colorful hues such as chocolate sorbet, grapefruit pink, tobacco brown and lemon yellow of small totes and maxi hobos with Ferragamo’s signature metal logo the “Gancino.”
The biodegradable eco collection is also water resistant and retails from $1,190 to $1,890 the bags blends in perfectly with the label’s design maintaining it’s high-fashion characteristics without sacrificing style for eco-consciences.
Wonderful White
Made out of automotive fabrics, Kim White has a whole new spin on recycled items. She is the designer behind this breakthrough idea of using dead stock of never-used-before vintage automobile fabric of the 1970s and 1980s American cars, vans and trucks.
Discovering an entire warehouse filled with what may be the last existing stock in the US White made it all her own.
Since these fabrics were originally made for cars, they lend incredible durability to handbags and it is perfect turning them into bags.
Research found that these car fabrics are not biodegradable and are harmful to the environment and can be a threat to marine life because the chemicals in these fabrics support growth of algae in rivers. So it’s quite important to find an alternative use for these fabrics.
The bags have a tag each with the make of the car and the year it came out in so you would know which car your bag came from.
Kim White also uses some beautiful floral vintage textiles from the 50s to the 70s that were intended for furniture use.
Ellegant Ecoist
Ecoist are the first to make handbags out of candy wrappers, basically turning trash into wearable art. Merging design and fashion with environment consciousness to the modern eco-minded individual.
The eco-friendly business use repurposed and sustainable materials to make these accessories using fair trade.
Ecoist got its name for their line of handbags and clutches made from candy wrappers, food packaging, magazines, newspapers and soda-can pull-tabs.
They’ve also partnered with big household names such as Coca Cola, Dove, Aveda and M&M’s where they have special collections made from the packaging of the mentioned companies products.
The bags are all handmade by talented artisans in Mexico and Peru in environments where fair trade is practiced.
