Eco Fashions

As you may know one of the latest crazes in the media is the green movement. I think it started off after Al Gore's movie, "The Inconvenient Truth," came out. The media took notice of this and began to publicize mother Earth to the fullest. Vanity Fair recently put out it's annual green issue, 7x7 magazine (based out of San Francisco) has also done the same, and Giant magazine this month put a spread in it's magazine about eco-friendly fashions. I'm proud of the media in the sense that it is helping people become eco-conscious. This is a great thing lets just hope that it's not some trend and that it'll go away.

Speaking of fashion, the newest quote in the industry is, "Green is the New Black." One of the ways designers becoming eco-friendly is that they are finding ways of using recycled materials and making new items out of them. One designer based out of Berkeley, CA has been doing just that long before the media took hold of the green movement.

The fashion label Homeygrown has been creating and selling clothing that is made out of recycled clothes since early 2004. Head designer and founder of the label, Tiffany Chenoweath, had a vision of creating the line in hopes that people would stop buying the same boring clothes at department stores and think outside of the box.

“(While working at a department store) I saw hundreds of the same shirt and got tired of it,” she said, “people would look the same and sometimes there would be a spark of individuality, but overall everyone looked similar.”

Might sound like a typical scenario for the calling of a future fashion designer, which is how Chenoweath created the line. Every couple of months the designer will hold what she calls, "Soul Swaps," where people can come and drop their old clothes off and also pick out new ones from the piles of clothing that others have also dropped off. She holds print screening stations where customers can pick out stencils to paint on what they've picked out. Whatever is not picked up is then used for new creations.

Some of her clothing includes their signature aprons, which can be used instead of purse to hold your change, business skirts with a silk screen design created to give it an urban feel, and business shirt sleeves re-created to be leg warmers.

Homeygrown clothes are pretty eclectic to say the least. If the vision was based out of thinking outside of the box, Homeygrown wins it's first place award. But creativity goes hand in hand with individuality and that has no limits. The best thing about these clothes is that they are not only one of a kind original pieces which will help you stick out amongst the norm, but the fact that you can claim that the buying and wearing of your outfit is helping the environment would even make mother Earth proud.
-Lisbeth Cervantes

Check out her clothes at www.myspace.com/homeygrown.


{The designer, Tiffany, in pink with co-desiger, Raquel, next to her}


{Silk screened eagle at the Soul Swap}


{The Soul Swap}


{Soul Swap, shoes for grabs}


{Customers can silk screen their own items}


{Jacket by Homeygrown check out the recycled shirt}


{Scarf by Homeygrown}


{Silk Screened jacket and scarf}


{Lumberjack dress}