Yesterday July 19th we went to the Fashion show of Emily Hermans. She presented her MLY collection for Spring/Summer 2011. The collection is inspired on water and water adventures and is called "Waterworld". This was the third time Emily Hermans showed her collection in the Westerliefde during Amsterdam International Fashion Week. And again the show was fantastic. The collection, the location, the music (a band with one of the models singing) and the atmosphere where great and so well balanced. And of course we spotted some great MLY pieces in fantastic water colours and bright red. This collection Emily developed more woven pieces where before her collections only consisted out of knitted items. Emily Hermans is known for her "knit couture" but we must say her woven pieces really add to her new collection. We would have to wait untill next Spring to be able to buy these great items. But these pictures already give us a sneak preview!

Today was the launch of The Green Fashion Competition . As it is the year of Biodiversity AIFW and the Dutch ministry of Agriculture joined their forces to encourage sustainable development in Fashion.
Fashion and biodiversity have a big impact on each other. Lots of designers use nature as inspiration for their collections and also the choice of materials they can use depends on what raw materials nature has to offer. The other way around the Fashion Industry has a big impact on the earth and her biodiversity. The designer's choice for certain raw materials and the way these raw materials are being developed into fabrics play a very important role in this. The Green Fashion Competition awards the designer who handles these issues best and who can create a sustainable collection out of his or her ideas. At the launch of the Green Fashion Competition Kentroy Yearwood proved with his ‘Rangaku’ collection that sustainable fashion can be everything except boring! Kentroy Yearwood is a pioneer in the field of sustainable fashion and uses materials as silk, organic cotton, linen, wool, recycled paper and denim treated with a natural indigo to create outstanding fashion collections which are being sold worldwide.
What we loved as well was that we spotted a lot of Fair + Eco friendly outfits! Lonneke Engel, international topmodel and one of the judges of the green fashion competition was wearing a beautiful green dress by Kentroy Yearwood for example. And we saw some great pieces by Camilla Norrback, Studio JUX and Satara and a lot of great vintage of course! We believe the Green Fashion Competiotion will definitely help the Netherlands to boost the sustainable fashion movement a bit more.

During the wk finals we spotted Tim from Utrecht in his fashionable (of course orange) harem pants created out of a t-shirt. Why not think twice before throwing away an old t-shirt, you might create something really cool out of it.

Last week we went to a very inspiring Streetlab business case presenting fresh ideas about Eco fashion, social media and the future of green design.
Social blogger Ikenna Azuike from Strawberry Earth learned us more about next level blogging which is blogging with a cause. With the Strawberry Earth platform the people from Strawberry Earth try to get people to organize the way they spent. Their goals are to raise awareness and also make a difference in a practical way. On July 4th for example there was a Strawberry Mob where 160 people came along via social media as Twitter and Facebook. Ikenna also revealed a few details about Strawberry Earth's next event: Strawberry Earth Wonderland! This will be an eco fashion and music paradise, what more do we want?!
Eco fashionista Annouk Post from Hiphonest talked about a turning point to eco fashion which is needed with consumers. But also brands are not focused on Eco fashion enough yet. And on a lot of fashion schools not enough attention is being paid to Eco Fashion. Still there is a lot going on in the Netherlands in the field of Eco fashion but according to Annouk this is not well and enough communicated.
There was an inspiring skype session with self proclaimed “ fashion hacktivist” Otto von Busch . He learned us all about "Fashion Hacktivism" which is about user engagement in the Fashion Industry and creating a bigger commitment with the garments we buy. We should reclaim the sewing machine and buy things we can age with. When we buy clothing we really connect with we also want to age with it. We should use the clothing which is in the back of our wardrobes for example and re-create other things out of it or wear them again and maybe in a different way.

We love it! Spotted twice this dress by Satara, which is a brand new Dutch label promoting fair working conditions in India and co-creation with AMFI students. This dress is part of their very first collection. Looks great on these Eco fashionistas!