Grass Routes

Offline Greens the Mind

Last week we had our own little Biohotel at our place and around, after a crew meeting of the LOHAS boyband featuring Noël “Karmakonsum” Klein-Reesink, Christoph “Yoga Guerilla” Harrach, Jan “Hess Natur” Miller, Sjörn “Konsumguerilla” Plitzko, and me, we had Milo “Biorama” Tesselaar over for a few days. Who by the way just dedicated a magazin issue of Biorama to green fashion. Great mag, klein aber fein, I’m looking forward to the “German” edition. Thanks for all the inspiring talks guys! And thanks to Utopia for bringing them here.

I’m just going to be offline for a few days, taking a break outside Berlin to sniff bright green air and hug some trees.

Sweat & Shop in Berlin

Next weekend Grass Routes co-organizes a workshop on sustainable fashion in the Berlin art gallery NGBK. The workshop takes up the issue of sustainable fashion and lifestyle against the background of political engagement and consume. Looking at the participants so far, we’re going to have some cool eco fashion scene happening here again… There is still a few chairs left, you can apply for the workshop under: contact(at)sweatandshop.de. Hope to see you there.

After the workshop fashion label Jovoo organizes the performance “Fast Fashion 100% Exploitation”. And off course with a little arty party…

More info: Sweat & Shop.de

Yes Men Spread Spoof NY Times and Proclaim End of Iraq War

New York Times Special Edition Video News Release - Nov. 12, 2008 from H Schweppes on Vimeo.

November 12, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SPECIAL TIMES EDITION BLANKETS U.S. CITIES, PROCLAIMS END TO WAR

Early this morning, commuters nationwide were delighted to find out
that while they were sleeping, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had
come to an end.

If, that is, they happened to read a “special edition” of today’s New
York Times.

In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million
papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged
pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass
them out on the street.

Articles in the paper announce dozens of new initiatives including the
establishment of national health care, the abolition of corporate
lobbying, a maximum wage for C.E.O.s, and, of course, the end of the
war.

The paper, an exact replica of The New York Times, includes
International, National, New York, and Business sections, as well as
editorials, corrections, and a number of advertisements, including a
recall notice for all cars that run on gasoline. There is also a
timeline describing the gains brought about by eight months of
progressive support and pressure, culminating in President Obama’s “Yes
we REALLY can” speech. (The paper is post-dated July 4, 2009.)

“It’s all about how at this point, we need to push harder than ever,”
said Bertha Suttner, one of the newspaper’s writers. “We’ve got to make
sure Obama and all the other Democrats do what we elected them to do.
After eight, or maybe twenty-eight years of hell, we need to start
imagining heaven.”

Not all readers reacted favorably. “The thing I disagree with is how
they did it,” said Stuart Carlyle, who received a paper in Grand

Central Station while commuting to his Wall Street brokerage. “I’m all

for freedom of speech, but they should have started their own paper.”

READ THE PAPER ONLINE
* Download the paper: http://www.nytimes-se.com/pdf
* For video updates: http://www.nytimes-se.com/video
* Contact: mailto:writers@nytimes-se.com

Not noted in the press release: this is an action by the Yes Men. A few months ago we reported about action preparations of this popular, mediagenic activist group, well here they are again. Must say, it’s quite an action, printing over a million spoof newspapers and spreading them in public. The video site is hard to reach on the moment…

Beyond Green: Dutch Sustainable Fashion Event

Event tip: this Wednes­day 12 Novem­ber there is an in­ter­na­tion­al sym­po­sium entitlied Be­yond Green, A Fash­ion Odyssey in the World Fash­ion Cen­tre in Am­s­ter­dam.

The aim of the sym­po­sium is to provide in­for­ma­tion to stu­dents and teach­ing staff in high­er ed­u­ca­tion, and to stim­u­late them to de­vel­op a vi­sion of their pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties which goes fur­ther than mere­ly fol­low­ing ‘green’ fash­ion trends. This year’s sym­po­sium is organized with the notion that sus­tain­abil­i­ty in fash­ion and tex­tiles must look to­wards in­no­va­tions and de­vel­op­ments in science and tech­nol­o­gy.

Speakers include trend forecaster Li Edelkoort, Fashion hacker Ot­to von Busch, “Phasion” artistSi­mon Thoro­good, Mass customization inventor prof. Do­minik Walcher and Eco-chick author and Di­rec­tor of the Cen­tre for Fash­ion Science. Prof. Sandy Black.

Next tot the symposium, there will also be an exhibition. Interesting event concept, showing that green fashion is growing out of the trend and into the innovation…For those who attend: have fun!

Image: presentation of Noir at the last Beyond Green Symposium

Change Has Come! Congratulations to Barack Obama and the American People

We celebrate an historic moment, a moment where the promise of change is made reality with the person of Barack Obama becoming the next president of the United States. Change has come to America and the world. Obama embodies his own change, and his election inspires millions of people all across the world. This is a moment of global ecstasy, that unites the people in the slums of Africa with French intellectuals and the people in the gettho’s of Detroit.

Obama’s campaign has been a strong proof of the possible impact of working from the grassroots; and I hope the connection to these grassroots will be there in the White House in the coming years. What I admired in the campaign was a consistent and strong will to keep on a positive track, while both Hillary Clinton and John McCain choose to take smears and dirt into the run. It is remarkable that while they both had serious problems to keep their campaign on track, they doubted their opponents quality to lead.

Obama not only understood how to organize a historically strong campaign, he also understood how to combine psychology, cultural expression and spirituality with marketing tactics and new media. His whole mediagenic setting, from the smart use of we2.0 to mass events like the speech in Berlin, where embedded with a positive, spiritual vision. This setting made him transform into a messianic figure, with a constant preach that it is about you, and your ability to change things, hilarious sentences like “we are the ones we have been waiting for”, and a deeply empowering message supported with slogans like “yes we can”.

It is not an easy time to become president, and there is a chance that much of the strong “Mandela vibe” will turn down after a few years of presidency. Obama might not be Gandhi. But already his presence makes a difference. After eight years Bush administration, choosing a young, progressive, idealistic black man as president is a good revenge. Bush time is over, and let’s celebrate the mental impact!

For our planet, it is to hope that Obama will choose to take a leading role in creating new alliances to save our climate. It is not impossible that he’ll use a next disaster to start a “war on climate change”, just like Bush used 9/11 to push through his policies. But most likely, we’ll have a soft hand at office here, and again, the change will have to come from the bottom up. There might come moments that we will not be so happy with this president any more. But let’s hope he keeps his promise to listen and that he will stay connected to the grassroots that helped him get elected. Because hope is what shaped this election.

Congratulations, Barack. Congratulations, America. Congratulations, world!

LIVE: Mohammed Yunnus on the VISION SUMMIT: Berlin is Worldcentre for Social Business

Today at the Vision Summit 2008 in Berlin we celebrate some interesting developments here in Berlin, with a special guest: Mohammed Yunnus. Yunnus declares Berlin to be the world centre for Social Business. According to Yunnus, Social Businesses are founded only to suport goals that solve social and ecological problems, and not for maximizing profit.

Mohammed Yunnus opens the Graheem Creative Lab here in Berlin, founded together with Hans Reitz from the Genisis Institute. Yunnus’ Graheem Bank has gotten famous by giving a microcredit to poor people. The Graheem Creative Lab wants to win companies for the vision and thinking of social business.

As Berlin owns many small start ups, social entrepreneurs, and creatives and is a creative lab by itself, it is a logical choice. On the other hand, the conditions in Berlin are not that supportive for social business. A conservative social system, bureaucracy and a still rather hierarchic cultural perspective on the individual makes it particularly hard to engage in this way. The current system here is clearly not working, so hopefully the visions spreading from this Summit will give some strong transformational power.

Frithjof Bergmann on the VISION SUMMIT 2008: Financial Crisis is Just a Cover Up of Rising Poverty

I just jumped into a workshop at the Vision Summit with Professor Frithjof Bergmann, founder of New Work. He starts his talk with a strong statement: “the financial crisis is used to cover up what hides behind the curtains. But he believes, it is not hard to look behind the scenes and see what hides there: Why are so many banks in  trouble? Many, many people got money from the bank, but can’t give it back. What hides behind the scenes is a “battle of division”(”schlachtspaltung”).

“Many people think that the crisis has to do with that the banks are in trouble. But what lies behind is the problem of poverty. In the US this gets already more clear, while luxury hotels got less customers, and businesses of wellness and luxury are in trouble. This is more the case in the states as in Europe.

The signs are everywhere. The price of wheat got up twice. In Africa water prices got up. The house prices has been pushed up just to create an illusion of wealth. But meanwhile the economy is shrinking.

If there is a strong connection, if under the finance crises actually the growth of poverty is, if that is connected, than the question is, what can we do about it?

The cause behind the problems is the growing poverty, rules (as they are implemented now) will not use much to end this, to end the cause. It is an diversion, it distortes us from the cause of the problems.

Neoliberalism is bankrupt. No politician can say publicly: there is an enormous prblem,but  i don’t know what I can do about it. than he is in trouble. It is in the interest of politicians to cover up to problem, to be silent about it.

In the current discourse in Germany it is covered up by pointing out, that the unemployment got under with 2 million people last years. But meanwhile the circumstances got much worse. the work circumstances got worse, changed. so the wealth got under. This dimension is covered up.

The pressure of people that have nothing, these people will not have patience. The devision between poor and rich, thats the topic, off course also connected to the environment. Many is done to push the economy. it is not about coffee but about the Starbucks experience. But the hang for experiences is part of the problem.

I do not like the idea of a ground income, but I stand for an idea of  a ground economy. People should have the possibility to do what they really really want to do. If you have the experience of a work that you have work that you really really want, than consume articles get less important.

The difference between me and Marx: the idea to have the state to solve the problems of work, that is a huge mistake of dear old Marx. Many is not there in our modern culture that has been there earlier: religion, große familien, riten, etc wir haben sehr viel verloren. now we have to do something that the modern culture gets better, more human, more elegant etc.  Now that is possible, because of technologies. The culture developes itself in direction to selfrelience. One wants to experience himself, one wants to live how he or she wants to live really.

For people who do not earn so much money, it doesn’t take so much sweat to grow some vegetables on their roof. In the USA the prices of seeds got up: because very many Amercians are starting to grow their own gardens. that’s a move towards more selfrelience.”

Generally, I think Bergmanns discours is very valuable, because it thematizes the unspoken, it puts the topic of poverty radically on the table. But his solutions, smart technologies, selfrelience and people doing what they really want to do is not enough. One of the problems that are totally interconnected with the ecological state of our planet, and I believe you can’t fight poverty without facing the huge ecological impact we currently create. Okay, getting rid of our current experience hungry consume culture might be an approach. But whould new technology, still basing on plastics, really change things on this level?

Live from the VISION SUMMIT 2008 in Berlin

Just freshly arrived with Noel from Karmakonsum at the Vision Summit conference on Social Business in Berlin.

In the first speech, professor Werner, founder of the drugstore DM, makes a strong note for a basic income for everyone. This will stimulate a new kind of economy. Everyone who did not yet get warm for this idea of a basisc income, I recommend taking a day time and reading about it. One of the most innovitive ideas of our times, that combines grassroots capitalsm and socialism, in a soiety based on social entrepreneurship.

Currently, Professor Faltin from the FU Berlin compairs fair trade with indulgence.
concept of Yunus means: making another product, and making this product more worth. So, with a new idea you can sell your product for twice as much.
In the opinion of Faltin, doing good does not solve the problem of poverty. Doing good keeps poverty up because it does not support own initiative.

I do not agree, because indulgence means there should be a sin, and with fair trade there is no sin, you just take care that the labor is controlled according to certain standards, and that small farmers or producers get a better price. Although a lot of fair trade projects are not social businesses, also in fair trade there are projects, where farmers take care of their own business, and in this way fair trade projects and social business models do not exclude each other, but should be combined.

Where I agree with Faltin, is with his statement that for an business doing business is not enough, you have to understand your society and your dreams. Just maximizing your profits does not work anymore. The key to success is meaning, it should make sense what you are doing with your business.

just a coffee break starting…to be continued!

Is Fashion a Dressed up Dinosaur?

According to Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren we have enough clothing produced for the coming 20 years, so we don’t need to waste our resources or time any more on clothing production, and can just let fashion die out like a lipsticked dinosaur. In a Treehugger Interview he criticizes the development of greening up fashion, saying: “nowadays there is much focus on how we can make clothing manufacture more ecologically friendly, but we have enough clothes in the world for the next 20 years, we don’t need more clothes manufacture.”

Holmgren states we have to focus our resources on food production and not on transports or goods production. Well, if it true that we have enough clothes to wear for twenty years, can we just kill fashion? Just say food is more important than our daily beauty? Change our aesthetics in such a way, that we don’t need to wear something new every single day? And what about the billion people working in the clothing sector, should they just produce food instead?

It is a far out critics on both fashion and eco fashion. Basically, I think it is important that we challenge our vision and underlying presumptions and economic philosophy a bit more often. Currently, the assumption of a friendly capitalism is so whide spread, that we often forget questioning our paradigms.

In that light it is even much more interesting to challenge the fashion production chain with the question what a future lack of fuel resources and Peak Oil could mean for our clothing industries. Should we really start localizing our production chains? What can be the implication if transport systems like we have them now simply can’t exist anymore?

It is biting concepts, other worlds, just not fitting. It is not done to question, I know. It is absurd and ridiculous. And the current move towards more a sustainable clothing production is already offering a big time alternative to the highly polluting and dehuminizing practices that we have to deal with. But in the light of what is really an effective way to make clothing ecologically sustainable, we should discuss all options, and be open to challenge our underlying presumptions and ideology. Even if it’s just for a mind game.

A big thanks also to Lars Schmidt from Art Ecology Education, who challenged me today.

Well, what do you think?

Image: Turner Classic Movies

German Green Hotspots for November

Expected: grass green statement by Angela Merkel

Despite financial crises, the green movement in Germany is still developing and gathering in conferences and meetings as if they have to save the planet within a month…

-> Utopia, the largest German community for strategic consume, is celebrating it’s first birthday with an invitation only Utopia conference in Berlin on 15 November with green VIPs like Michael-cradle-to-cradle-Braungart and Daryl-Kill Bill-Hannah. Well you have Utopisten and über-Utopisten, oder? Rumors say that some disappointed left out community members plan an action outside the gates of the conference and will shout: “Let me in to Utopia! Utopia is for everyone!”.

-> Utopia’s little green sister community Fairdo meanwhile invites to the monthly Socialbar with a thematic focus on activism and web2.0.

-> A social entrepreneurs must-go: this weekend the Vision Summit in Berlin with Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunnus, and a strong bunch of CEO’s and representatives from NGO’s like Ashoka, Betterplace and the Genesis Intistute, and wanna-be-greens like Danone and Deutsche Bank.

-> The German Council for Sustainable Development organizes a Conference in Berlin on the 17th of November guess with Cancellor Angela Merkel and a stuffed programm full of professors and political representatives. Mind your green step!

-> Who is more in for a campy green meeting, I recommend the local sustainability meeting on the 13th of November 19.00 hour at the Siebdruckwerkstatt Neukölln, initiated by 3plusX, ThinkTank30 for green 30+ youngsters and Fairdo.

-> Also recommended: the Sweat & Shop workshop and performance on Green Fashion in the Berlin Gallery NGBK on 22th of November, initiated by 3plusX, Grass Routes and Jovoo. For all professional green fashionist(a)s in Germany: you are invited.

-> For those who want to stay local and cosy at home, the Austrian magazin Biorama has a new issue on Green Fashion featuring Open Source fashion label Pamoyo and many more. On the other side of the Alps, the first green lifestyle mag Si Gruen sees the light.

Enjoy!

Image: WDR

Reverse Graffity Actions by Greenpeace

Over the last months, Greenpeace activists have done several actions using reverse graffiti techniques. It seems the usage of clean or reverse graffiti is still on it’s rise, since it is a technique both harmless for the environment and for the surface it’s used on.

Last week in Hamburg Greenpeace activists were stopped by the police while “cleaning” the pavement with their message against energy giant Vattenfall.

Well done, Greenpeace. As I’ve been recently criticizing Greenpeace Germany’s double role on the energy market, I would suggest this is the solution: get all out of that Greenpeace offices for a day and go spraying!

If you want to learn more about reverse graffiti, I recommend you the youtube video of street artist Moose.

Organic Cotton Shirts for Nazi’s?

Okay, more and more people are getting to know about organic cotton. But organic cotton Nazi shirts? I just read on a post on the german blog  Korrekte Klamotten that some Nazi postorder company sells nice Nazi shirts made from organic cotton.

Would their customers have asked for this? Or are we soon being shocked by a brown-green movement of Hitler-ökos who live a Lifestyle of Heimat and Sustainability?

The shirts are by Continental Clothing and well, they have a dilemma. Off course, also Nazi’s should have the possiblity to shop ethically, or?

Sarah Palin & Plastic Trees

A sort of green MTV spots shouting out flashy clashy green news items into your living room? Well, it might sound crazy, but Zaproot is just that. Like it or not, this green internet news show covers environmental issues with humor, slapstick and fresh topics. Such as Sarah Palin’s hunting addiction or plastic trees to catch Co2 emissions. Or critics of Obama’s environmental policies and Swedish sweat. Wish I had time to make my blog posts this way

If you didn’t have enough, you can watch a lot of the news items on the Zaproot site or on Youtube

Affentor: Luxury Recycling Bags from Frankfurt

I’m having a two day hang out in Frankfurt with Karmakonsum, brainstorming and working on new projects, and taking the challenge to visit a few cool projects here in Frankfurt as well.

Yesterday I paid a visit to the shop and office of the designer bag label Affentor. Affentor is a luxury bag label with social touch. The bags partly made of recycled materials, and produced in a social project in the city.

Asking how they source their textiles for recycling, Nana Agic, designer of the Affentor label, told me hilarious stories of old ladies coming in to the shop with their old coat to have them recycled. Well, if you see those bags, you wouldn’t say so.

I especially like the Affentor notebook bags. Not everything is from recycled mateirals, but they do their best to source ethically as much as possible.

Communism didn’t Work, Capitalism doesn’t Work, You Work

Shame on me! I just missed joining Blog Action Day, where thousands of bloggers joined to write about poverty. Sitting in a funky train to Frankfurt, no time to be busy with this issue, ignoring the beggars and homeless as usual, but chatting about financial crisises and joking about the comeback Marxism instead.

Jo, this topic is too serious. Despite all effords, the gap between rich and poor has widened, and more people live a live frigthening poor lifes. And where developing countries get more excess to the global economy and profit from it, the increase of income of the middleclass creates extra problems for the poorest. What’s the answer.

Communism: failed project. Although neomarxists claim communism never existed and all communisms were fake, the core of the class-war-thought in my opinion has dangerous, agressive sides, that don’t deal with solutions but with problems. Although Marx stayes important for the moral perspective on poverty issues, he’s not our man. Definitely not to solve our environmental problems, and one can’t fight poverty without solving our greedy push on nature. But untill now, all other solutions and approaches seem to be neoliberal and , may they be packed in social-democratic flags, conservative policies or populist visions, tend to tell us we can fight poverty just by handling a good market approach.

But how can we ever fight poverty when we give so much space for greed, for terrorizing common properties, for leaving our nature so unprotected, for patents on lifesaving medicines and even human DNA?

We need generally a totally different approach, a transformative one directed on common goods, cooperation, sustainability. As poverty strikes harder then ever, there are also more positive initiateves then ever, and it is incredible how strong this grassroots movement is becoming. As Loesje states: Communism didn’t work, capitalism doesn’t work, you work. And so it is. Wether it is microfinancing based on the ideas of nobel price winner Mohammad Yunus or community based environmental actions like those of Vandana Shiva, I have the strong feeling that we are in a strong, shifting period, where the values of individualism melt with values of community cooperation into a new syergy. Bottom up, grassroots organizing is stronger than ever.

This movement is changing the strutures of our society, crushing the one way dominance of Western society and culture within just a few years, and changing our global values dramatically. I don’t know if it will reduce poverty in the end. But I believe what we an do is support just where we can, fighting greed and corruption in our societies with innovative forms of cooperation and businesses in balance with community values. And the only way in the end is to act, as humans, within our communities, from the grassroots, with human dignity, because that’s what binds us all together.

Image: Vandana Shiva

http://blogactionday.org/js/787cdd83379279fce2799d1327118afad2d80507

Coolest Designers of the Ethical Fashion Show

The Ethical Fashion Show 2008 is over again. For those who can’t wait till the next edition, the Ethical Fashion Show is also opening in Milan and Rio de Janairo, as we heard when we spoke with Isabelle Quehe, founder of the Ethical Fashion Show. An important indication that ethical fashion is establishing as a successful business model and gets far beyond charity or seasonal trend.

My Ethical Fashion Show toplist of edgy designers and brands with interesting stories:

Cyclus: Trendy, funky bags and shoes from recycled car tires and other waste materials, produced by a social project in Colombia.

Van Marcoviec: Dutch based designer label, working with organic and mainly European materials, producing in Poland. The brand is directed by a fashion designer and environmental scientist together.

By Mutation: Recycling vintage leather jackets and old rice sacks into campy designer jackets; produced by hand by a Paris designer.

Patrick Lofrontiere: couture creations made from rough, natural materials like banana tree leaves.

Judith Condor Vidal: First time I met Judith was in Kenya; she’s sourcing fair trade production opportunities all around the world, and you can find the results from that in her collection.

Tierra Ecologica by Charlene O’Brien: luxury organic label from Australia made from natural dyed organic and sustainable materials.

Royah: ethical fashion label from downtown Kabul.

Numanu Label of Love: stylish fair trade organic cotton label made in India

Cruselita: cool ethical jewelery and accessories, handmade from recycled and natural materials.

Reversible: recylcing advetisment banners into bags into advetisment banners.

As this is quite a personal selection of brands, I advise you to also check out the full list of Ethical Fashion Show exhibitors .

Images: Patrick Lafrontiere & Van Markoviec

Live from the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris

A show with over hundreds of ethical fashion brands, exhibiting down under in the Louvre…that’s something unique. With all the green fashion around, the Ethical Fashion Show has some name in pioneering for the ethical fashion trend. We arrived at the Ethical Fashion Show on Thursday afternoon, made a quick tour through the exhibition, and in the evening attended the runway show. I am here with Cecilia Palmer, co-founder of Grass Routes and designer of the green open source label Pamoyo.

Cecilia, what’s your impression up to now?

I found it very…international, at the same time very French. a lot of designers with African, Asian and South American background. It’s was mainly small designers, not so much known brands, which also has a very creative flair, with very spoken out things.

Something that sticked out?

I liked the ones making the PVC banner bags. They make bags and interior items made from recycled PVC advertisement banners. They’re not the first doing that, but the unique thing is that they take in the bags again to recycle the bags as advertisements. I t is cool that the circle is so round, it can just continue being bags, being advertisements, being bags…totally cradle to cradle.

And about the show?

The show was great, very well made, they had a good line up and large diversity. Very cool to see this great diversity of styles and than realizing it is all ethical. I liked Patrick Lafrontiere. He made those items made of vegetable materials, but they looked even from a short distance made of fur and leather. If you looked closer it was just made from leaves and trenches. Very rough haute couture, it is this mix of rough traditional style with haute couture creations.

That’s sounds quite ethnical…

Yeah, it was also quite ethnical, the exhibition is also very dominated by ethnical designs, but in an innovative way. It goes much far beyond the “fair trade shop” kind of stuff, but they exhibit designers from all over the world. I don’t think ethical fashion necessarily should be ethnical fashion. And it’s not good or bad for ethical fashion as a whole, but this is not how every ethical fashion event should be like.

It is the question if ethical fashion should be just about materials and production methods, about sourcing and producing ethically, and if you say so, it should just be just like any other fashion, because then it’s contra productive to create a certain eco look or ethnical connection. That’s one view and that view is also quite strong within ethical fashion. I mean for Kuyichi, they just want to be a jeans brand, they don’t want too much of this linked to their brand.

Cecilia: a large part of this exhibition are also labels that do not have this ethnical link. It is not so divided. There’s quite a wide range, from street wear to haute couture. The thing is also: I don’t agree with saying, ethical fashion should be this and not that. It is all there and there are so many labels that work ethically. It has a large richness, and can be just anything. From all worlds, all kinds of designers. Because in the end, ethical fashion is about the way it is produced and not about looking in a specific way.

Is that also visible in the exhibition?

Partly, it is showing a lot. I’m missing the presence of the well known ethical fashion brands. It is all small players, which then gives the impression that ethical fashion is like that. Many successful ethical fashion labels are not there.

Why is that?

They would prefer profiling themselves on the large exhibitions, and maybe also just of this ethnical part. Their target group of buyers might also not come here. But something else, I believe in France the treasure of immigrant culture has it’s influence. You have a lot of designers that bring their input into the design world. They cross over, they have a cultural background they mix with European values of design. In Germany I see that very little within design. In the design world in Germany, it doesn’t reflect the multiculturalism in Germany. I think here there are much more designers with another ethnical background that are successful. But, yeah, also in general you have more designers here.

I think that there’s also a notion of ethical fashion that wants fashion to be culturally inclusive and not too much focussed on western domination. Seen in that way, ethical fashion is also about giving non-western cultures and creatives a larger chance to be part of our globized culture.

There’s also a big potential of using old traditional craftsmanship skills, whether it is wool from England or local craftsmanship skills practiced in Afghanistan. European or Non-European, Asian, African. Ethical fashion tries to make use these skills and keeps them alive. When you start working with old craftsmanship techniques, then you also take certain design elements with it, it will make things look in a certain way. It will bring things from this design culture.

To be continued…

Green up the World with Grass Routes!

It all started a few years ago. Cecilia came across the difficulties to find fair trade shirts for fair prices, and so we started investigating. We got excited of how many projects actually exist, and just wondered why we knew so little about it. Why did we actually still shop most of our clothes at stores that we knew were selling us made-in-sweatshops kind of stuff?

We got more and more into the issue of sustainable clothing, and the past two years, the topic took a run, hundreds of new websites and brands saw the light, and media stayed issuing the “new cool eco fashion trend”.

Meanwhile we traveled to Turkey and Africa last year to visit organic cotton farms and factories, we discovered all about the disastrous impacts of regular cotton production, and realized there is no fair clothing possible without banning these poisonous practices.

Green up Fashion

We organized an event on Fair Fashion in Berlin, launched the Open Source clothing label Pamoyo and founded the Grass Routes Foundation to be able to kick-start more activities. Now we’re in the stage of breakthrough, opening an office in Berlin at the start of 2009 and forming a team and preparing for some new exciting projects, a Sustainable Fashion Agency, a new Fair Fashion event, and international awareness campaigns.

Yeah, once up on a time we were those activists reading No Logo, believing the public sphere was a street art battleground to reclaim our culture and fight commercialism with creativity. Since street art became marketing, adbusting branding and creativity industry, we shifted our tactics.

The New Green Movement

Now we find ourselves back as part of a new green movement, a worldwide network of thousands of initiatives like us, connected through online communities, blogs and personal contacts, forcing global change and a mind shift to save our precious planet and nature, and if you want: civilization.

We are working on great new projects to make the world go greener. We raise awareness for environmental and social impacts of the fashion industry and supporting sustainable alternatives and we are kick starting international campaigns to promote a greener way of living.

We do this because we believe we have to make a global shift towards a more green, more conscious way of living, working, producing, and consuming. And we do this with an open mind, humor and creativity. We don’t know if it’s enough, we even don’t always know if we’re doing the right thing. But what else can we do than to do the things that we can do?

We’re happy with your comments, your feedback, your involvement and your support. It will keep us on track and help us kick starting all the stuff we do. Please spread the word about us!

For the bloggers among you: feel very free to ad us to your blogroll and if you like to subscribe to our RSS Feed.

Thanks a lot!!!

Frans Prins & Cecilia Palmer

Grass Routes Foundation

Flashmobs in Hotpants to Fight Poverty

It’s activism. It’s marketing. It’s sexy. It’s fighting poverty. Pants to Poverty organizes Hotpants Flashmobs where young people gather on the streets in organic, fair trade underpants to fight poverty. Genious actions, they knwo what they are doing. And the underpants… look bright.

Is this a clothing brand? A hotpants activist community? NGO2.0? You may say it.

via: Feelgoodstyle

Chinchilla Fur + Polyester = Eco Fashion?

Japanese designer and furrier, Chie Imai, created an collection with the promising title “Eco Harmony”, mixing chinchilla and mink fur and recycled polyester. “Tying ecology with fur is such a fascinating concept,” says Imai. “Fur can be worn for generations, is organic, causes no pollution, and returns to the earth.”

That might be true to some extend in traditional cultures, but the reality of fur production is rather different.

Wait a minute designers, it’s still one thing that you use fur, but don’t dare to link that cruel, unsustainable industry to any ethical or ecological claim.

In an article in The Independent the designer is successfully tackled for her false claims: “A cocktail of chemicals is used to treat fur, and animals have to be fed and transported. There is a massive energy consumption and other waste associated with the industry. In the US, fur farms generate tens of thousands of tons of waste, including slurry, bedding and animal corpses. Farmed fur needs 20 times the energy needed to produce faux-fur.”

Meanwhile animal rights organization Peta got quite succesfull getting testimonials against fur, with naked posing of stars under the motto “I rahter go naked than to wear fur”, with Pamela Anderson, Franka Potente, Pink, Anna Nicole Smith, and many others.

Also check the campaign blog for more naked-anti-fur celebs

All this playboy stuff might not be all ethical, it is at least very eco…

Via: Ecorazzi