Eco-fashionista campaigns for sexy, sustainable fashion – CNN.com

Copenhagen, Denmark CNN — Be prepared, the next big thing facing a green makeover might just be your closet.

The glitzy world of fashion and design doesn’t typically conjure up images of sustainability and social consciousness, but if its up to Eva Kruse, CEO of the Danish Fashion Institute and Chairman of the Nordic Fashion Association, that’s all going to change.

In the last month, she has pulled off the largest sustainable fashion summit in the world, and starting this week, she is launching a global social media campaign, aiming to forever change the way we look at our clothes.

Her goal is for all companies in the industry to declare sustainability a key value.

“I have worked in the fashion industry for nearly 20 years, and it is a wonderful and exciting industry, but it is also one of the largest and most polluting in the world,” said Kruse.

From the massive consumption of water and fertilizer in cotton production, to the chemical processing at plants, the pollution of local waterways and environments, safety issues for workers, fair wages, child labor and other social concerns — issues for the fashion industry are enormous, she says.

“That is why it is so important that we address this … and because of the size of the industry, even a small change can make a big difference,” says Kruse.

Kruse, who founded the Danish Fashion Institute as the only employee in 2005, is credited by industry professionals and government ministers for having put Danish design and sustainable fashion on the world map.

Last month, she gathered more than 1,000 people — including Hollywood celebrities, international designers and other industry professionals — at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, to explore sustainable solutions.

via Eco-fashionista campaigns for sexy, sustainable fashion – CNN.com.

Strange Random Ecology Quote:

“The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else.” – Barry Commoner (American Biologist, Teacher and Activist, b.1917)

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The Story of Stuff

Cover via Amazon

Annie Leonard is the author and host of our very own The Story of Stuff. She is author of The Story of Stuff, the book, published by Free Press of Simon and Schuster on March 9, 2010. Annie has spent nearly two decades investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues. She has traveled to 40 countries, visiting literally hundreds of factories where our stuff is made and dumps where our stuff is dumped. Witnessing first hand the horrendous impacts of both over- and under- consumption around the world, Annie is fiercely dedicated to reclaiming and transforming our industrial and economic systems so they serve, rather than undermine, ecological sustainability and social equity.

via The Story of Stuff.

Now a series of films, The Story of … analyses the way in which many of the products we take for granted every day can actually be bad for us and bad for the planet. Annie Leonard looks at how everyone can make a difference in this production chain. It’s a cartoon, but it’s a very serious topic. By way of example, here’s The Story of Bottled Water. Visit the website – http://storyofstuff.org/ – for more information and films.

Strange Random Sustainability Quote:

“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something.” – Carl Sagan

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• Green: A Sequel to ‘The Story of Stuff’ (green.blogs.nytimes.com)