YES! Upcyling Car Seats into Couture!

pic from Sustainable Brands blog, thank you.

I am so excited about this year's Redress EcoChic Design Awards competition.  Look what these designers came up with by upcycling car seat covers from the Ford Motor Company!  

Redress founder and CEO Christina Dean commented: “Waste-to-landfill is a big issue our planet faces and we at Redress work to raise awareness about how we can reduce this. The Redress Forum: Ford Design Challenge was a great demonstration of how sustainable design thinking is as relevant for fashion as it is for the automotive industry.”  (Sustainable Brands blog entry)

The winners were Veronica Lee from Malaysia and Amandah Andersson from Sweden with this entry: 

From Ford's website: 

“We scored the foam on the reverse side of the seat fabric, revealing color and texture reminiscent of the stone walls of the legislature,” said Andersson. The award-winning, architecturally inspired outfit was handcrafted in three hours.

Amandah Andersson is definitely a designer to watch.  You can peruse her amazing creations on her website here.

Veronica Lee doesn't appear to have a website yet but you can see her sketches here. 

The Most Chic Shopping Cart You Never Did See (Until Now)

One day designer Xavier Degueldre was asked by his young son where Les Chariots de Supermarche (French for Shopping Cart:) go when they die.  After learning they have a meager lifespan of 10 to 15 years he decided to do something about it.   After much prototype development and testing he came up with several clever chairs crafted from retired carts. And in honor of the original question, there are child size options.
This perfect blend of post-consumer waste upcycling and uber chic design is a perfect ambassador for the eco design world, no?

All are numbered and can be custom ordered in colors of your choosing.  They run between $750 - $1400Euros.

Etoile - child sized roller chairs

Cowhide! 

The Haussmann & Versailles I 

The perfect dining al fresco set up for your chateau lawn:-)
CRAZY about this green! 

"Trash" Art cum Fashion

Thanks to Pinterest, I just found the amazing artist and designer, Luis Valenzuela whom has invented a stunning collection of gowns constructed from a vast array of discards which he calls EcoArtFashion®.   

An excerpt from his bio outlines why he's now one of my heroes:

"...It was his love for all natural creations that inspired his“green art philosophy” and led him to found the first “green art community” in Florida, where his primary objective has been to actively engage the community in environmental issues. He is the founder of GreenArt USA©, EarthDayMiami™, EcoArtFashion© and created the first EcoArtFashion Week™** in the world, which has become a platform to express the present state of the ethical and new sustainable fashion world."

plastic bags

discarded soccer balls and flags from around the globe

Luis can be reached at shop@luisvalenzuelausa.com   and on Twitter  @valenzuelausa and http://artsyproductionsusa.com

**EcoArt Fashion Week is now called The Art of Fashion.  The 2014 schedule is not posted but you can see snaps from 2013 here.   'Looks like a smashing time by me!  

Trash(y) Couture

Trash Couture, what's not to love?

Plastic dinnerware & aluminum

On Green Eco Services I came across artist John Petrey whom made the fantastic dresses shown here out of recycled cast-offs.  I've been wildly enamored of trash converting art since my BFA days, but you really must see Mr. Petrey's work - The Dress Series is a standout in any medium.  Contemplating the use of vintage signage and roofing composite materials as female adornment is an engaging exercise. 

In person I would be very hard pressed not to defy the cardinal  rule of "don't touch the art", wouldn't you?

Bottle caps & cards

Wine: (Bottles) Fun for You - Good for Hummingbirds

Wine Bottle Hummingbird Feeders are a colorful and ecologically sound way to attract the little busy bodies to your yard.  Several of them frequent our feeders every day which makes the kids very excited.  We have also planted special flowers for hummers, bees and butterflies.  Southern Houston, where we currently reside, is an important fill-up station for hummers before they make the long arduous journey south for the winter.

I made these out of wine bottles, t shirt strips, fabric & plastic bag flowers and stoppers I purchased from Annnna on Etsy.  If you want to try your own, be sure to specify WINE bottle size when you order from her.

Notes about feeding Hummers - 

• the syrup recipe is 4 parts water to 1 part white sugar. NO colors please!  Food colorings are neurotoxins for humans and all other creatures.  Bring the solution to a boil and let it cool completely before filling feeders.  You can store excess in a sealed glass jar in your fridge for 2 weeks. 
• sterility -  If you life in a hot climate the syrup needs to be changed every few days to keep it from growing bacteria.  I bleach out my feeders every refill cycle and rinse well. 
• once you start feeding you must keep it up during the appropriate seasons as the birds learn to depend on you for nutrition!  Google when to put up/take down feeders in your area.
• bugs!  One site I read said to hang a porous bag of orange slices near the feeders as the decaying fruit (change them regularly :-) attracts fruit flies which hummers also eat to fatten themselves up.  

Have fun bird watching!  

Upcyling a Jet - Malibu Style and Earth911

It's time to break the silence on the Southern Front.  It's been a busy, kid monopolized summer, but here's something amazing for your enlightenment nevertheless - - -

Have you seen the Wing House in Malibu?  Designed by David Hertz of the Studio of Environmental Architecture in Venice Beach,  it is largely constructed from a dismantled Boeing 747. 

Many of the large pieces had to be flown in by helicopter.  Hertz was devoted to upcycling as much of the jet as possible, even making a fire pit on the patio out of parts.  You can read a shortie about the house on my new favorite eco blog -  Earth911 - More Ideas, Less Waste. 

Click to watch a video tour of this magnificent house

I wonder how many centuries it will take to save up enough pennies to hire SEA to make a beautiful house & studio for me - - -

Tire Chic

In celebration of all things le Tour de France (love those biking madmen) - I want to share the very special upcycled inner tube bags of Dante Robles Design with you.

But first - boys!

Mark Cavendish won his first, and hopefully one of many, stage today.  LOVE to watch Cav!

 As always we are rooting for Andy Schleck for over all win.  Go ANDY!

Apologies for the detour (a ha ha ha. not-so-punny),  back to fashion, where we should be.  
Dante Robles Design just won the “Timberland Best Green Handbag” at the Seventh Annual Independent Handbag Design Awards.  Well deserved.  I've been looking around at inner tube creations for some time and these are by far the most refined.  Beautiful!

 

Woven Bucket w/ Removable Fringe

 There's a cool bracelet that converts into a necklace too.

WEBSITE!

We have an official website now and you can see it

HERE!

It's nice to be all under one roof:-)

More Cool Textile Recycling Facts

Here's why we should NEVER forget to donate cast-off clothing!

It pays off; it really, really does.  The Council for Textile Recycling has a terrific graphic demonstrating just how successful textile recycling can be. Click here to see in better detail.

No one has ever accused me of being a numbers person... BUT data like these make my pulse race:
* Every 1000 lbs of donated textiles when recycled generates 2 man days of labor!
* Only 5% of textiles that are recycled ends up as waste!  5%!  That's amazing considering that according to the EPA 5% of landfill is clothing:-/

Textile Waste No More - Buy Upcycled!

This infographic posted on Ecouterre is precisely why we do what we do, i.e. upcycle unloved t shirts into fabulous new goodies.  Have you seen the new tubes yet?

Reviews Rock.

Thank you, Shannie for the glowing review.  Don't you love their logo?!

Lots of eco-fab products on their website - use the JAGNEVIE coupon code for 15% off!

Bag Lady Chic. Literally.

Nevie has gotten in on the recycling act in a big way!  ChezTarget are you reading?  She was very careful to ONLY choose Target bags because they have 'nice circles'.