Eco-Couture

Environmentalism and luxury are recurring themes appearing everywhere from mass fashion to designer brands to exclusive couture collections. But who said you can't have gold and be green? To really keep hip these days, those in-the-know are combining styles that are good for the soul and the earth, a trend being deemed "eco-couture."

Linda Loudermilk is one of the designers leading this new fashion trend; she's also one of the most in-demand designers to the stars.

"Nature may be beautiful. But nature is not pretty," her site says.

"Linda Loudermilk is too smart to call such an imperious and turbulent thing as nature her 'muse.' All that vastness, all those numberless small symmetries, all the brutality and fragility â€" nature is, to be sure, the creative source material for Loudermilk's designs. She channels nature's punk energy into clothes of grace and volatility. But nature is less Loudermilk's muse than her major mind-freak. When she patterns a jacket after a waterfall, it's not about making something pretty to wear; it's about holy fearsome awe."

Her brand bears the "Luxury Eco Stamp of Approval" which is "an accreditation given to the top echelon of certain products, services and business processes," and "involves detailed review of a company's product, manufacturing processes, energy uses, labor practices, and environmental impacts as well as a product's aesthetic design and luxury-quality status."