Vancouver's Eco Fashion Week is back for a ninth season, proving you don't have to sacrifice ethics for style.
The six-day festival, which runs April 19 to 24, is jam packed with runway shows and fashion-focused events designed to raise awareness of social, environmental and economically sustainable practices. Two North Shore residents are among the lineup of local and international brands and designers who will be presenting their responsible spring collections next week.
Lotusland Imports
West Vancouver resident Susan Bibbings is passionate about two things: increasing access to education and preserving the natural environment. In 2011, she founded Lotusland Imports, a social enterprise jewelry company that allows her to follow those passions.
"It's quite an unusual and international collaboration of women," Bibbings says of the company. She has partnered with Italian fashion designer Francesca Torri Soldini, who teaches in Milan, and Swiss safari lodge owner Tati Oliver, who heads up the Lotusland headquarters in Kilimanjaro, East Africa. Here, some 200 women from the Maasai tribe create elaborate beaded jewelry based on the designs of Soldini's students.
"We're doing a very unique fusion of Italian high fashion design mixed with the rich beading tradition of the Maasai culture," says Bibbings, who markets the jewelry in North America and the U.K.
But the project is about much more than bracelets, earrings and necklaces.
"We not only provide a fair trade work opportunity for these women and their families, but we actually started our project as a way to stop deforestation in the region," Bibbings explains.
Prior to this collaboration, Bibbings says the Maasai women in the area generated income by cutting down trees and making and selling charcoal.
"Our jewelry project was really born from an innovative idea to provide this alternative income source and we have successfully shifted all 200 of the women away from logging and they're now working with our company," she says. "It is perhaps the only jewelry in the world that not only empowers women, but also stops deforestation."
The spring 2015 collection from Lotusland Imports will be part of a collective show April 21 at 5 p.m. at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver. Visit lotuslandimports.com for more information.
Couture Therapy
For a lot of people, the term "eco fashion" doesn't conjure up images of sexy sophistication.
"They think hemp, they think linen, and that's about it," says Lynn Valley fashion designer Sarah Couture (yes, that is her real surname). She founded her Couture Therapy collection in 2013 with the goal of creating elegant, feminine and timeless clothing that is also sustainable.
"The major thing is keeping everything local," she says, explaining she sources natural materials, such as silk, wool, leather, organic cotton and bamboo, as close to home as possible. She will also buy leftover fabric from other local designers that might otherwise go to waste. "I try to make everything myself," she adds.
Her spring/summer 2015 line has a Parisian theme and features simple pants, skirts, dresses and, of course, horizontal stripes. At Eco Fashion Week, she will also be showing pieces for fall.
"I'm bringing in more of my Scottish heritage to the fall line," she says, noting her 100-per-cent cotton tartan.
Couture's latest designs will soon be available online at couturetherapy.ca. She is also opening a pop-up shop April 27 to May 3 at 434 Columbia St., Vancouver. The 2015 lines from Couture Therapy will be shown April 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver.
For tickets, day passes and a schedule of events, visit ecofashion-week.com.
