Green is the new black

Feb 15 2007 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

Emma Johnson looks at how you can be an environmentally-friendly fashionista

GREEN is the word these days on everything from your home to your holidays so your wardrobe is the next logical progression.
 
But you will be pleased to hear there is no need to swap your usual Sex and the City style for a Swampy circa mid-1990s look to ease your environmental conscience.
 
With ecological issues top of the news agenda, as ever, the fashion pack is eager to be seen leading the way and clamouring to launch ranges which boost their enviro-profile.
 
But it's not just carbon footprints and how many pesticides it took to clean the cotton for your knickers that count here, your fashion must also have been traded fairly.
 
Ethics are just as important as the ecology.
 
Already many top fashion houses have launched green ranges using organic cotton and low impact production and at this week's London Fashion Week, veteran designer Katharine Hamnett is leading the charge against child exploitation in cotton production.
 
Partnering with the Environmental Justice Foundation, Hamnett wants to establish an EU Regulation prohibiting the importation of cotton or cotton products, made using forced child labour.
 
To help them achieve their goal, the pioneer of all things ethical has produced a limited edition T-shirt encouraging people to, quite simply, "Save the future".
 
Where high fashion leads, the high street follows, and this month Topshop steps up its eco-fashion footprint.
 
Together with the UK's leading Fair Trade fashion label the store unveils People Tree for Topshop, during Fairtrade Fortnight, with Liverpool becoming one of the outlets for the range.