Just how original can your underwear be? Clare Bare is a designer from Brooklin creating cool ecological vintage lingerie. These pieces are one-of-a-kinds and made from recycled vintage and organic cotton. On Crafting a green world there's an interview with the designer: "They passed around a bunch of fur samples and argued that it is more sustainable to use real fur as opposed to fake fur, because real fur doesn’t create any waste or harmful byproducts. I thought to myself, “Why not just forget about using either of them? Wouldn’t that solve the problem?”

 Via: the öko box blog

In our neighbourhood in Berlin Kreuzberg we just discovered a lovely small shop called Siri na Lata selling a mix of wooden and reclycing jewellery and Brazilian products. The jewels are made by a local designer who works mainly with reclycing and natural materials such as wood and seeds. Quite orginal things. What in example about these Bionade -earrings from recycled Bionade bottle crowns? Very eco-style and with the popularity of the bio-lemonade in Berlin it works almost ironic.

This week I made the great discovery that Komodo , a London based ethical clothing label, has opened shop + showroom in Berlin.

As Berlin doesn't (yet!) count that many salespoints for the green-minded fashion consumer, that's a happy surprise.

044, so is the common name for this space, isn't just a Komodo store and showroom, but also houses the Berlin label Sommergold, a sewing workshop, two architects, a model agency... and speaking to one of the creative minds behind the 044 project, Gereon Pilz van der Grinten, I rather got the impression that these people will just continue setting up new cool projects.

 Komodo makes creative designs for ladies and gentlemen, including cool sneakers and a special Free Tibet collection.

044 - Oranienstr. 44, Berlin-Kreuzberg 

Berlin is quite known for it's creative scene, and now the eco design thing is starting to hit the thin here as well. There's happening a lot, just also quite decentral. So time to unite! On the eco-fashion scene we're trying to get people know each other and form a network, and we're discovering new projects, designers and shops in Berlin every week. A lot of them are really local. I guess the coming year a lot of new initiatives and labels will see the light. We'll report on more cool founds the coming months.

One of our newfounds is the label Kenpanda, with fine collections of shirts, dresses, and hoodies creatively screenprinted with animal and street art inspired graphics and made from fair trade, organic cotton. Pretty original and playfull photoshootings. The label is run by Efka Weber and Kenan Polat who live on the Berlin Island Stralau. Enjoy!

(picture by Kenpanda) 

We all know about turning off our stereo or lamps when we don't use them, but still most people don't believe it when they hear that the internet is already producing more CO2 emissions than the worldwide airplane traffic . Trend: growing rapidly. If you're still believing the internet saves our planet by reducing emissions, think again!

To all people wanting to live a green lifestyle: if you have to decide between using the internet or travelling unlimited around the world, what would you choose? I would definately give up the internet for that ;) And anyway aim to travel emissionfree...

I'm already doing a computerfree sunday for my personal wellbeing, but what about organizing such a thing as a global action? Hey, Adbusters , are you reading?

By the way, are you already doing your green thing ? This month the green thing is to turn off your gadgets and reduce your emissions. There's a boom of sites helping you living greener with tips and tricks, but this one is fun and arty. Also check out their videosection, with a nice collection of green issue video's ...

A groovy quite from the Green Thing crew: 

"You see, we’ve slowly let machines take over – and not even big, scary machines like The Terminator or the Daleks. No, the ones that sit in the corner of our rooms looking all fun and innocent and labour-saving whilst secretly guzzling electricity like there’s no tomorrow."

There's a lot of stuff you can think of buying ethical, but what about jewelry? While most jewelry buyers might not think about the origins of their beauty gadgets, silver, gold and diamonds are often sourced in slave-like circumstances and couse a lot of civil wars and conflicts. Well, no one wants a wedding ring with such a story , right?

Conflict free diamonds are guaranteed to originate from ethical and environmentally responsible sources. They are free from violence and human rights abuses, and are produced with minimal environmental impact. Though conflict free diamonds origin from "save" countries like Canada, it's quite a step forward when people buy their jewelry conscious.

Though the circumstances around gold and diamonds are famous, I am quite sure other costly materials and gemstones are sourced under not all too comfortable circumstances. Hopefully fair trade can make a progress in this sector, too... So why not ask around before you buy your next jewel...?

The jewelry brand Brilliant Earth offers next to Canadian sourced Diamonds jewellery from recycled gold and "socially conscious saffires". Brilliant chic stuff, but how socially conscious can a saffire itself be? Will it run away from the rich and jump to the poor?

 Via: Feel Good Style

Just discovered the label Sub Urban Riot from California, using 100 percent organic cotton and low impact dying for their shirts. Their sustainability is not just a trend thing, they say: "We don’t do it because green is in. We do it so your kids aren’t born with three arms and a tail."

  Some great stuff, their asymetric V-neck shirts got a good boost of 80s retro and are just as cool as Pamoyo's asymetric v-neck tees...

Organic labels can be totally cool and sexy, sometimes they're a bit slow on trends. Some designers want to have their shirts produced just on the moment they order them, and get them by airplain the next day. Great for them, but maybe not for those sewing at nighttime under great pressure. Or for the environment, off course.

Can fashion become sustainable without changing it's deadly rush of short-term hypes and trends? Or are small labels and local production units able to catch up the fashion speed with a sustainable approach? At least sustainable labels like Sub Urban Riot show the way

Via: Chic by Nature 

  When I think about solar energy, I still see this static blue panels on roofs. Outdated! 

Architect Sheila Kennedy has developed solar textiles -- membrane-like surfaces that can be draped like curtains or used to cover walls or roofs -- using 3D modeling software. They work just like conventional solar cells are made of similar semiconductor materials.

Kennedy recently exhibited her project, called "Soft House", at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany in which she transformed typical curtains into energy-harvesting surfaces able to track the sun.

Wrap up

All that solar energy would provide a welcome source of power for a home's solid state lighting and typical assortment of gadgets/devices -- tools, phones, laptops, etc. In addition to absorbing sunlight throughout the day, the curtains can form an insulating air layer for the building envelope; a central curtain can be lowered to create an extra room or folded upward to become a suspended chandelier.

Very great for your luxurious sustainable lifestyle home, one could critize, but Sheila Kennedy is also working on a project to develop this kind techniques for areas in development countries where people do not have electricity.

Solar textile fashion

It seems there's quite some interest for solar powered fashion products like bags but also jeans or bikinis, and these solar textiles might give it a little boost. I don't know about the solar jeans or bikini jet, but I'm quite hot for a solar backpack to get my laptop going while travelling...

 Via Treehugger

The cultural activist media network Adbusters launches a design contest to design a flag for global citizenship without clichés:

 "The time has come for a radical shift in priorities. We are now faced with some of the most daunting global challenges in human history. These are real targets, worthy of our problem-solving skills, ripe for our intervention. Yet those who have the vision to rise above national and political boundaries still have no symbol to rally under. We invite you to create a flag – free from language and well-worn clichés – that embodies the idea of global citizenship. A symbol that triggers pride and cohesion, whether worn on a backpack, displayed on a door, or flown on a flagpole. A symbol for anyone to declare membership in a growing and vital human cooperative. We invite you to prove that design has a real role to play in the fate of our world."

Your creative input will be judged by a panel of prominent design professionals, then featured in Adbusters and supporting design publications. The winning flag will go into production, ready for flying by the patriotic citizens of Earth. Deadline for entries is December 1, 2008.

By the way, thank you Adbusters for featuring Pamoyo on the Blackspot blog

We are happy to announce that the first pattern from the Styled With Heart collection - Shirt Deluxe - is now online and available for download!

Check it out in the Atelier 

The other styles will be following the coming days. 

Just as I was philosophizing about great things to upcycle and multifunctional clothing, I bumped across this amazing, stunning, great fabric. Or, calling it a fabric just seems a bit too dull. This Sonic Fabric , invented by artist Alyce Santoro , consists half of woven audio cassette tapes, half cotton. The post-consumer polyester tape is one of the strongest of it's kind and creates an extremely durable fabric, but the best part is probably it's ability to PLAY MUSIC! By moving the tape heads from a walkman across the fabric, you can listen to the recorded sounds. And so Santoro created a Sonic Rythm Dress for musician John Fishman with special tapehead gloves which he played live in concert some years ago.

Alyce Santoro says about her source of inspiration "When I was a kid I used to imagine that I could hear Cat Stevens or Beethoven's 6th or whatever had been recorded onto the tape wafting out into the air if the wind hit the tell-tail just the right way. Years later, I learned about Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags. Colorful squares of fabric silkscreened with mantras are hung outdoors in auspicious locations where their blessings can be activated and sent off into the world on the wind. It seemed a natural progression to me to combine these two concepts to create a fabric with sounds I considered sacred woven into it."

The sonic fabric is produced industrially in the US and available per yard from Designtex.

For those of you who had enough of the ordinary virtual livingrooms by swedish interior corporations, here is the The Room For Change! Inspiring designs to set a new green, creative standard to interior designs and sustainable lifestyle.

The Brighton-based communications agency Neo designed this space with eco-friendly products and installations, to give consumers everyday ideas for greener living. The creative team at neo say that they have created a unique combination of comedy, cross-stitch and common sense. Installations include a goat made from hubcaps (to encourage people to consider buying ethical or recycled products) and a toilet full of mobile phones to communicate how recycling your mobile can fund capital projects in the third world (as well as highlighting the dangers of texting on the toilet).

The Room For Change was shown at the green lifestyle event LONDON AWARE 08 in May. We are looking forward to the next initiatives of these neo creatives.

http://www.roomforchange.org

After some chaotic start up weeks, we at Pamoyo are celebrating summertimes with good news and cool new clothes. The last days we got nice reports on Pamoyo by Treehugger and Creative Commons and many other blogs and online media.

Being dedicated bloggers ourselves, we liked to get Pamoyo out through the bloggosphere first, and we like the way ot goes. Definately a lot of interest is for the open source idea and the creative commons lisence. Therefore, we are fixing the last details as fast as possible to get all patterns online.

 Also expected: a new Pamoyo limited screenprinted shirt collection out soon...

Recycling bags have become a show off for urban creatives and intellectuals nowadays. Most of them look quite the same, altough the quality and prices differ a lot (the really good ones are mostly above 100 Euro). But why stick with the square bag if recycling offers so much original possibilities?

If you look for something more exclusive, maybe the ball bag from Abteil is something for you. Suitable for the next gallery opening or... a local football match.

 via: Konsumguerilla

Some years ago, a wave of great drawings and peices of art occured on walls worldwide. The movement of street art gained so much popularity, that the best artists got into merchandising or galleries and museums, while others sold themselves to advertising. Recently, the activist magazine Adbusters declared: street art is dead.

Some great new artists show that they can still be innovative with their street art. A great example is the street artist Blu . He recently painted so huge walls in our area in Kreuzberg (see pics), but more amazing are his street art animations . He did a small animation like that indoors in the Backjumps streetart exhibition in Berlin last year, but this one is outside, and quite stunning. Respect!

Do you wear elefantskin? snakeleather? tigerfur? No, probably not, you would never do that. But wearing leather shoes or a woolen blazer is just something one doesn't think about too much. But if we want to live a more conscious life, maybe we should.

Actually we never discussed whether our Pamoyo clothes have to be vegetarian or vegan, or not. We have been bussy creating an ethical, environmental production, but until now we just used materials without any animals involved. It happened to be vegetarian. Just like that.

There are quite some reasons to be sceptical about leather and wool production, and I would be quite critical stepping into leather related products. But what about silk? Next to the conventionally produced silk, there is a range of  alternative silks: organic silk, peace silk, wild, "vegetarian" silk and recycled silk. Vegetarian Silk? Just wait till the moths leave their coccoon. A bit of meditation and pacience is required here, but a wonderful, animal friendly prouduct!

There is a good new article on the pros and contras of silk on the Green Cotton blog.

If we would ever come to a decision on this, I would choose for wild or recylced silk. Or maybe we would just ban any animal related products, because we simply don't like the huge meat machine and it's enivonmental impact. For now, I am happy we are not involved in any animal related products and why should we?

Image: organic silk lingerie at keetsa.com

In a short time, green living has dressed up in a cool, sexy image and sells to people who search to spend their bucks to a quality living. For a few years, organic food or clothing was something for wierdos and extremists. What a change. Just, I'm starting to get a bit concerned that the new, cool image of eco fashion, green lifestyle and LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) is too much targeted at the wealthy, spending consumer. And this concern I hear a lot, not only from environmentalists but also from people working in the communication sector. The marketing succes of LOHAS can also harm the general image of eco as something too exclusive, too expensive, etc.

So, time to break a bit with the eco chic and get organic & sustainable consume into every available lifestyle. A good, refreshing example of Anti-LOHAS eco fashion is the Italian Vegan Label Eblood . The label contains a virbant mix of underground, straight edge, rock and roll and militant veganism. With style.

Eblood Clothing openly expresses it's sympathy with animal liberation and abandons any animal related compoent in the clothing. They also declare themselves solidair with the death sentenced journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. As LOHAS and organic high end fashion connect to white colours (spiritual, stylish, unbleached, natural, clean, innocent), Eblood connects to the opposite of Black colours: activism, punk, tattoos, etc. Very refreshing, for a change!

Fresh eco fashion from the Austrian label Göttin des Glücks. Funky stuff. Produced Fair Trade in Mauritius, with organic cotton. Being present this year on Bread & Butter and the Ethical Fashion Show, they might succeed to grab some more attention. Keep watchin them. Nice, crazy website, too.

The German sphere eco fashion scene is growing... and this is just the start. There is quite some fresh labels popping up, merely shirt labels though. It's getting hard to keep the overview...

Any insider tips welcome! For our own collection of labels. And because we at Pamoyo believe it is cooler to share than to keep things for yourself. We share our designs and visions with you. And you are invited to share your ideas, creative outburst and insider knowledge with us. Go ahead.

share your stuff with us!

We had our first weeks after putting our new website on air, sold the first items, had some cool blogs writing about us. We had good feedback and tough feedback, made some mistakes and worked too much. Well, all the romantic that comes along with starting up...

This website is still under development, we work on German, Dutch and Swedish info parts, are uploading the patterns for Pamoyo's creative commons licenced open source fashion section , and ease the webshop a bit more.

We're going to continue our tour through the bloggosphere and the world. We will start selling in a few Berlin shops soon, and head for a few shops in Sweden and The Netherlands as well.

Upcoming is a small limited collection of screenprinted Pamoyo shirts by a British fashion designer. All done in an environmental friendly way, off course.

If you are interested, here are some of the blogposts on Pamoyo:

The Green Loop Blog

The Alternative Consumer

Karmakonsum

Modabot

Styles Report Berlin

Drop Dead Green

Non Toxic Vision

Nice White Lady

Designspotter

Kirstin Brodde

Green Guys Global 

Image by Pamoyo 

It is totally amazing how stylish just rubbish can be. These recycled rubbish items from Arthunt are pretty cool.  If you want to grab attention, these creations by designer Val Hunt might be the perfect jewels for you. Stylish and very original, in a stunning combination of ancient culture, fair trade  crafts and futuristic design.

Left picture: "Intergallactic Helmet" made from Tennents cans. Right picture: "Climate Change Costume" made from drinks cans, bottle tops, carrier bags and plastic bottles. If you want to see the newest in Recycling: in December the Drap-Art International Recycling Festival takes place in Barcelona. And off course, if you like wearing unique vintage recycling clothes, don't forget to order a Pamoyo shirt from the Styled with Heart collection before they are sold out! 

Via: Haute Nature

When I was in Nairobi last November, I visited the workshop of Unique Eco , a company recycling flipflops. From old flipflops they make all kinds of creative stuff: jewellery, toys, bags, and even sculptures. Like now recently a huge wale made from recycled flip flops !

 When I met Unique Eco founder and designer Julie Church, she explained how she came to the idea by being confronted with a beach full of flip flop waste. She started organizing the collection of the waste and searched for ways to recycle the plastic. Well, a lot of cool stuff as you can see on the Unique Eco website !

We discussed the possibilities of the material. It is soft and bendable, but not all too strong. I asked her if it is possible to make new flipflops out of old flipflops, but she said the material they created from it was too soft for that.

Yesterday I went for a fresh haircut to the nearby Freischneider Loge. The Loge is the art studio and salon of DJ-Artist-Hairdresser Tim Pernitzsch. He is an eccentric man, his studio is quite spaced out, full of small re-cut pieces of paper and trash, using his scissors to create his studio into a hypnotizing all-present installation.

Your unconscious is not only cut open by the scissors of his creations, your mind is also also swallowed by freaky, experimental electro: Tim used to be a Berlin DJ in the good old Techno times.

When I visit him, wether it is for a haircut or just a cup of tea, our talks meander between political conspiracies and art, like his influences by artists like the provocative German artist Jonathan Meese and his not less provocative uncle Joseph Beuys .

Is Pernitzsh a young Beuys?

 500 Godz is a cool, new organic T-shirt label from Berlin using prints from local and internationally know street artists.This morning I met up with Daniel, the founder of the label, for a breakfast here outside our door in Görlitzer Park. He has a background as a Berlin DJ and in the music industry, but quited his job and started this fresh shirt label. It is remarcable to meet so many likeminded people who quited their job or carreer and started something new. Mostly with a good idea and a wish to create something in a sustainable, socially responsible way.

The last collections of 500 Godz are from the brittish streetartist AME72 and the German streetartsit Wow the Dead. Soon expected: shirts by Berlin streetartist Alias. The shirts are produced in Turkey exclusive for 500 Godz and certified organic under the GOTS standard.

One of the cool things of 500 Godz is that the label works with organically certified screenprints. They are printed in the UK by Tshirts & Sons, the only screen printer in Europe that is certified organic. Hopefully more of those printers will come, any good suggestions for sustainable printers in Germany are welcome, as we also plan to work with prints for our next Pamoyo items .

Some people think trash just stinks, others love it. It's incredible what one can find just on the streets, not to speek of all the hidden trash in offices and basements. Actually, trash is the canvas and muse for a lot of artists and designers.

On an event in the SelfHub in Berlin last tuesday I met Anna Lena Schiller, who held a presentation about her project Trashury . In her project she connects the manufacturing industry with designers of all disciplines to make new products out of reclaimed material. 

 Trashury is Schillers final exam project as part of the KaosPilot education in Denmark. The KaosPilots is a university for business design and social innovation which trains young entrepreneurs and project leaders with a creative edge.

It seems recycling is on an absolute retour to coolness...

 Image: Walking Bike by Max Knight, through the Trashury blog