TALKING ABOUT RECYCLING BEING IN THE BAG...

As we're on the subject, it seemed apropos to mention Nahui Ollin's bags and accessories.
Made from wrappers of all kinds and by independent artisans trained for the job in Mexico (under fair wage conditions), these are, by far, the best of the 'candy wrapper' labels out there. Each style has its own name (I'll let you find itsy-bitsy, clutch nuevo, and the Ritual in the picture) and comes in one of several 'wraps' as it were.
This past Autumn, Nahui Ollin bolstered its 'cool' credentials with a whole different concept - the Artisanal Collection -- traditional motifs and embroidery techniques on transitional cotton and complete with repurposed handles and button details. I have one of the few Riviera bags in the UK at the moment and in describing the effect it has, I think its fair to say sane women have looked menacing when I informed them they can only get one at DeviDoll but in January 2008.

YOUR TRASH IS MY CASH

Talk about really getting the recycling thing *REALLY* right: Conserve, an Indian NGO, founded by Anita Ahuja and her husband, Shalabh, takes discarded polythene bags and through unique processing creates some pretty funky bags and other accessories. Conserve showed at Paris for the first time this past September.


Not only is this intelligent waste management, its also compassionate social management: the Ahujas provide decent wages to the garbage pickers (a notoriously badly treated subset of the contractors the run 'waste management' in India's cities) and employment to otherwise destitute slum-dwellers who are taught skills in polythene processing or design.
Jewel in the crown: informal schooling for the children of the 300-strong slum dwelling work-force has now been put in place. About 200 youngsters between 5 and 13 now gain basic learning from about 8 teachers.
Read more about Conserve's work here and expect to see some of their designs at DeviDoll in Spring 2008.

UNDER ONE GREEN ROOF

Introducing EVO -- 'the' place to go for all things ethical. The US based site is a 'green' marketplace (though products are not sold on the site -buyers are connected to online merchants) where you can also go to get an education. EVO can help you learn about making more ethical choices in every area of life: home/auto/body/money and also figure out how green your current lifestyle is (take the Greening Your Tree quiz). The website is interesting and easy to use.



So far on this side of the pond we don't have something quite like EVO, ie, as complete a list of consumer goods combined with knowledge bank. At the moment the focus remains on having ethical goods sold in one place - not a bad place to start. Check out the Ethical Superstore or the more chic, 'department store' launched in September 2007, The Ethical One Stop Shop.

EVEN MORE REASON TO LOVE THE ARSENAL

Okay so I am a bit biased about Arsenal - they are my team (even if they weren't, I'd say delicious Fabregas is enough to turn any girl..but thats another story). Anyway, I just want to report that not only Arsenal's footballing top class, their hearts are in the right place: the team is donating its wages from today's heavyweight game (vs Chelsea, in case you didn't know) to TreeHouse Trust, the UK charity that helps autistic children and their families, through early intervention and education. Watch the associated video 'Pockets'.

Today's action by the team is part of their Be A Gooner. Be A Giver appeal through which the Gunners hope to achieve £250k to build new sports facilities for TreeHouse. You can contribute to the appeal here.

In the pre-match chit-chat, Jamie Redknapp commented thus on the Gunners donation (to paraphrase) '...they've always been a real club, The Arsenal, and (this is) part of how Arsene expects his players to conduct themselves...'.

Go Gunners!!

SHAME ON THE OLSEN TWINS

I've always found the Olsen twins a bit scary.

The whole look: those glassed over eyes, the smug pouts and almost-as-bad-as-Victoria-Beckham perpetually grim camera look.

The whole story: picture perfect twins start acting from inside moses basket and end up contolling their billion dollar tweeny based empire before 18. All they wear is 'in', all they touch is gold -- of course there are a few hiccups along the way like one of them had an eating disorder -- but thats a minor blip. They just sort of smug pouted that one out.

Anyway, you get the jist. These are 2 strange young women.

Now their glassy stares and perpetually grim are REALLY frightening because apparantly they are windows into the real goings-on: these girls not only wear fur, they use it in their 'lux' clothing line (The Row). So we have 2 women, icons for millions of young women everywhere who grew up with them, endorsing mindless cruelty, for the sake of fashion. And/or for profit.

PETA has rightly begun a campaign against them "Meet the Trollsen Twins" - Hairy Kate and Trashley. You can dress them up, watch a video of their hit show re-edited with fur killings interspersed, join the campaign against their actions (please do!) and watch a very disturbing video investigating the fur trade (definitely an R rating so beware). Some fur may be a by-product (whatever.) but this certainly is not.

Rich, successful, easily able to influence many young minds, and with so many choices for themselves and this is what the Olsen twins go for. Shame on them.

COLOUR ME DELIGHTED

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I just discovered a site that can turn shopping into entertainment and make having internet access seriously costly (okay, for many of you achingly hip shoppers Etsy may be old news but it's new to me, so bear with me). Etsy is rendered a 100 fold more fantabulous because
1) you can shop JUST by colour - not primary colours, mind...we're talking shades and hues (even of buff, nougat, cremes and ecrus)
2) once you choose a colour all kinds of happy things take place on your screen and items of that colour are then presented to you
3) actually choosing a colour isn't required to get joy from this....just move your cursor and there's a rain dance of hues.
My search under my favourite colour brought me to Lomper the Nightmare Snatcher (now sold out). I rest my case.

GIVE LOVE AND JOY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

I'm going to keep this simple because it is SO easy to let the cheese and sentimentality roll out of control on a topic such as this.

Here are some fantastic and genuine ways to give love and joy this holiday season:

1) Gift a winning lottery ticket to a girl so she can be removed from poverty/sexual abuse/exploitation/poor health: the Sharanam Centre for girls in Mumbai's infamous slum Dharavi (Asia's largest) can house, rehabilitate and educate upto 30 girls. In a country where 1 in 4 girls never gets to be a teenager, this is no small gift.
2) Present a way for a child to get off the street/railway platform in New Delhi and put them in a home-like environment where they can live safely, get vocational training, have access to adequate mental and physical health care and get a new start in life. Support Karm Marg.
3) Give the opportunity to have a better life, particularly through a holistic education, to the most hopeless and impoverished of children. Let them believe that if they learn, they can be anything they wish. Involve yourself with Akanksha Foundation. Make donations in the UK here or contact London based Kids in Need of Education.

COMING FROM BRITTIQUE, IT *REALLY* MATTERS.

Don't get us wrong - we love it when anyone mentions DeviDoll.com or this blog. As a very inspiring (business) woman and icon for our times, Anita Roddick, told me at a one-on-one 'never forget, all publicity is good publicity'.

But we are more than usually chuffed to read that in an interview with luxury living directory, Sheerluxe, Nicole Bremner, ex-investment banker and founder of the achingly stylish Brittique.com, lists DeviDoll among her favourite online stores!!

Brittique's style combines edge with intelligence and never bows blindly to trends. Its founder knows what she likes and isn't afraid to say it (check it out for yourself). We can recognize a DeviDoll when we see one.

'TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY GENEROUS

Between now and December 31, 2007 (we're making it worth your while to move your fingers across a keyboard as you lie around after the xmas day eat-a-thon) spend over a £100 and receive 10% off your next DeviDoll.com purchase.

Wishing you a VERY merry christmas indeed.

SHALOM HARLOWE IN AOKI AND DEVIDOLL ON MONGOLIA

Canadian born model Shalom likes her fashion green. And we like that. We also like the idea of Bokashi composting (perfect for city-living) that she drew our attention to.

She's wearing AOKI's Traci jean here and though you can't see the 2 mini front-pockets and high waist you can see the rich denim colour and fantastic flare.

Also on her favourites list is mongolian cashmere by Stewart & Brown. Mongolian cashmere is an interesting export from an otherwise sort of forgotten country (I mean apart from Genghis Khan, what comes to mind??). The extremely fine quality of cashmere is produced by nomadic herdsmen for whom this is a traditional way of life and only real skill set. Mongolia's move from a socialist to a capitalist economy and related attempts to integrate with the globalized cashmere market have created problems for these nomadic producers. Chief among these is the destabilizing effects from moving cashmere processing outside of Mongolia. Add to this historic poverty and natural desertification and you get a pretty bleak picture. Read about this whole issue in more detail here.

Stewart&Brown know their mongolian herding suppliers and keep all aspects of production in Mongolia so as to ensure the herdspeople are part of a sustainability cycle. As far as DeviDoll is concerned this makes their cashmere truly cozy, warming and alluring.

A TALE OF TWO (GREEN) LOVELIES - FINALE

From Jill Danyelle, author of the fiftyRX3 project, (a 365-day photo documentary about her sustainable fashion endeavours, now widely considered essential reading for anyone interested in the subject) we have more on how to be a green fashionista. Her philosophical musings are made imminently practical by her sharp eye for distinctive design, trends and style. Her very readable blog, the laboratory, picks out the hippest designers, stores and clothing in sustainable land.

As she tours some of NYC's best eco fashion spots (footnote: she rightly visits Anne Hettinger at Gomi but I wish she had also been to Kaight) she says the same thing as Summer Rayne Oakes: ethical fashion does not mean sacrifice or absence of style; it simply means being aware and making different choices.

At DeviDoll we'd say its all about how you curate your consumption.