Inhabitat

Anyone who has been reading Inhabitat for awhile knows that we love our eco-fashion here - almost as much as we love green building. Fashion and architecture don’t often get mentioned in the same breathe, but happily, this past week we were able to see the green architecture and the green fashion worlds come together to celebrate Earth Day in an eco-fashion show put on by the Emerging Green Builders (EGB) Chapter of NYC. “Project Earth Day”, as it was called, was put together to showcase the latest in sustainable apparel and textile designs by up and coming designers.

We attended the fashion show on Thursday night and had a great time checking out the latest and greatest examples of sustainable fashion from NYC designers such as Nature Vs. Future, Bahar Sharpar and Covet.

The highlight of the evening was the student fashion show, which you can read more on Inhabitat here > Our very own Jill Danyelle was one of the esteemed judges - along with Jennifer Busch from Contract Magazine, Christian Larsen from MoMA, Randy Fahey from Gensler, and Margaret Lydecker from GreenDrinksNYC.

Project Earth Day Student Competition >

Jacket by first-year Parson’s student, Caroline Hur.

What does green architecture have to do with sustainable style - you might ask? Organizers Molly Garretson and Amber Nelson explained it this way: there has been an upswell of interest in green design everywhere this year - in green building even more than green fashion. Sustainability is an issue that cuts across all design disciplines and in fact, brings disciplines together under common strategies and a common purpose. “EGBNY members are young, creative professionals in the building, architecture and interior design fields,” says Molly Garretson, EGBNY member and the fashion show liaison. “We wanted to throw an event that would not only be fun, but would bring together similar creative, eco-conscious people in another yet related area of design.”

Since we are avid believers in the philsophy that design is design - and architects should be interested in fashion, and fashionistas should be interested in architecture - we were obviously very happy about the interdisciplinary collaboration that came together in Project Earth Day.

Show organizer Molly Garretson explaining her philosophy on green design - in a Bahar Shahpar dress.

Russell Unger - Executive Director, USGBC New York - speaks at Amber Nelson’s cardboard podium

In terms of green architecture on display, we were extremely impressed with Amber Nelson’s thoughtful and meticulously green design for the whole space - including an eco catwalk made from 100% recycled plastics from milk jugs and soda bottles, supported by shipping pallets that went straight back to the warehouse for reuse after the show.

The gorgeous runway backdrop was constructed entirely out of bamboo, cardboard roles and waste textiles, while the eye-catching cardboard podium is a simple DIY flat-pack design constructed of cardboard found on the streets of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Kudos to Amber on setting a terrific example for event/interiors designers everywhere. If only all green events went to this level of detail.

Russell Unger - Executive Director, USGBC New York - speaks at Amber Nelson’s cardboard podium

We’ve got a ton of photos from the show below, but if you want to see all of our photos of Project Earth Day, check out our FLICKR FEED >

Here were some of our favorite looks from the show:

Loyale organic cotton and hemp dress with Charmone shoes.

dress by Nature Vs Future.

dress by Bahar Shahpar.

dress by Bahar Shahpar.

dress by Romy Scheroder. Terra Plana shoes.

a look from Ryann, who also designed the orange dress in our introductory image. Terra Plana shoes.

dress from Ekovaruhuset.

Ingeo dress by Nature Vs Future.

Designers from Ekovaruhuset.

Entermodal bag.

Doie Designs dress.

a look for the men from SDN accessorized with an Entermodal bag.

protech’d’s Celine Ruben-Salama