Who hasn’t heard about biofuel, biofood, biocosmetics…but how can clothes also be bio? Uta Friedrich walked right into Berlin’s ecological fashion scene to find it out for you.
Grüne Mode (green fashion) is getting more and more popular. But do we have a clue about what is actually meant by this term? Stefanie von der Heide from the agency Beyond Berlin explains the threefold criteria for eco-rags:
- Organic materials, which means that the plants were grown without the use of pesticides and they avoided any type of chemicals during the production.
2. The fair-trade aspect, which is taking care of that social standards of the producers. No abuse, please!
3. Recycled fashion is also considered grün. Just take two of your mum’s funny blouses and make a third one. Unique people guaranteed.
Get to know more about green fashion, click to listen to our full kietz-interview with Stefanie:
Too young to be eco
“The young don’t have so much money to spend. They also follow trends and prefer to have more and cheaper clothes” – says the designer Jeanette Bruneau Rossow, who targets her casual brand treches at 25+. “I don’t really want to tell in a slogan-way why people should buy green fashion because the easiest would be to talk about the poison that is in non-organic clothes. But that would be scaring people into buying organic fabrics. It should be your personal belief.”
“I don’t want to convince people to buy my stuff, I want them to buy it because they like it” – says her Wesen Showroom-neighbour Mareike Ulman. Yet, the collection of format, Mareike’s own brand is a testimony for non-toxic, ecological trendiness.
The cheapest shirt in the Neukölln-based atelier starts around 60€. The also Berlin-based brand, Slowmo has a discount at the avocadostore.de. You can get a skirt for only €119 instead of 169. A real bargain, isn’t it.
No cash – what to do?
“You are the future” – you keep hearing, and you would really like to become more environmentally-friendly. Clothes have one purpose: protection, since we are not as hairy as monkeys. Well, most of us. Of course this month your savings do not allow you to spend a fortune on bio fashion. Good news: big brands, like Marco Polo, Zara and C&A are turning greener. H&M entered the green market this year with its Conscious Collection made out of bio-cotton.
The big companies’ products serve the purpose but we are feeble humans who would like to be gorgeous and special. The solution: creative recycling. You can get a scarf for €1, summer dress for €12 and a retro hat for €15 at any second-hand store in Xberg. Pimp it up and enjoy the admiring glances!
Cheap, trendy and eco in 2011, as we like it.
By: Uta Friedrich (Hungary)
