Greener Garments - Designers Turn To Eco-Fashion (GALLERY)

Designers are turning to sustainable materials and cleaner production methods to make today’s fashions. The gallery of items from a number of different designers illustrates this trend.
“Jewelry designer Monique Pean (www.moniquepean.com) creates original jewelry from found remains of walrus, caribou, baleen and twelve thousand year old woolly mammoth ivory. Pean avoids the exploitative mining industry by using 100% recycled gold and conflict free diamonds. Ivory materials are discovered in melting ice caps, thus drawing attention to global warming.
10% of profits from Monique Pean’s Bering Collection go to the Alaska Native Arts Foundation (www.alaskanativearts.org). The money is used to train the next generation of Alaska Native artists and fight to preserve a disappearing culture and natural landscape.
Mexican designer Olga Abadi and her handbag company Nahui Ollin (www.nahuiollin.com) use an ancient Mayan weaving technique to bind discarded materials into fully functional bags and accessories. The bag is made from discarded candy wrappers and is surprisingly very durable.
Chic sunglasses from iwood (www.iwoodecodesign.com) are carved from sustainable-growth woods like zebrawood, bamboo, bubinga, and Makassar ebony—which means no trees are harmed in the process. Each pair is hand-cut, hand-sanded, and hand-finished locally in the US.