Eco Luxury - Fashion and Conscience

This weeks BLOG entry is from Charlene O'Brien, director of ECO LOGIKA, who proves that luxurious fashion, needn't cost the earth.

The label ECO LOGIKA® est. 2002, stylish resort wear specialises in combining fashion and conscience, using natural and environmentally friendly textiles. Its strong values denote a well made product with minimal impact on the environment. Hand crafted, stylish, ultra feminine for women using quality natural fibres, botanical dyes, eco yarns and textiles such as sustainable silks, certified organic merino wool, certified organic cotton/hemp, environmentally friendly linen, recycled remnants and recycled denim.

After graduating from the London College of Fashion in the mid 80’s, Charlene O’Brien established her own fashion label ECO LOGIKA®. She is an international eco textile designer who combines raw organic fibres, hand spun silks, recycled remnant, organic Australian merino wool and luxurious sustainable silks, fused with various constructive and embellished techniques by hand and by machine.

Recently re-located to a studio in the Kelmscott hills, Western Australia, Charlene’s goal is to practice low impact environmental production by creating her atelier, a pure and safe workplace using solar energy, rainwater, handcraft skills and techniques, carefully collected botanicals from her dyers garden for hand solar dyeing. Charlene launched her new eco luxury signature label at the Ethical Fashion Show, Paris, October 2007. Selected as one of 80 designers world wide, she successfully marketed her eco luxury label to a high end Parisian galerie.“My ultimate aim is to create clothes that are comfortable to wear” commented Charlene. “My mandate is that they must be good for both the person, meaning that they are free of any harmful dyes and chemicals, as well as good for the environment and economies.”

Charlene’s fairly traded recycled denim label, est. 1997, uses an innovative yarn from recycled denim fibre, which is hand knitted and crocheted by a Vietnamese co-operative. Charlene, who lived in Vietnam for six months during which time she put her young son into a Vietnamese school, said denim is one of the world’s most produced textiles, despite the fact that cotton is prone to high chemical and pesticide usage.

“Research proved denim waste from jeans manufacturers becomes a landfill problem because it doesn’t biodegrade when it hits the dump,” she said. “By collecting denim offs-cuts from factories we prevent more chemical usage and landfill by creating products from the waste. The off-cuts are shredded back into a fibre and then re-spun into a yarn. The yarn is then transported to Vietnam where it is used to create clothing and accessories.

“One of my major goals is to support fair trade practices. This provides self empowerment to small global communities with appropriate hand skills. Our Vietnamese community workers are paid fairly and this encourages the emergence of micro businesses where women take responsibility for themselves and therefore the knock on effect is that poverty within these communities is diminished, if not eradicated.”

Charlene’s focus on developing products on a sustainable level using recycled or organic resources means, she said, that ECO LOGIKA® is an Australian fashion label with a conscious. “For people who are passionate about a designer range of products that are natural, organic, recycled and hand made, and if you care about the environment and humanity, you share the tierra ecologia vision,” she said.

Charlene designs a wide range of products including;

Recycled denim - shawls – Hand crafted 100% cotton recycled denim
Eco logika® - Ladies wear - Coats, Jackets, Skirts, Dresses, Pants, Tops, T shirts, Menswear - Shirts, T shirts, Jeans
Charlene O’Brien - eco luxury signature range – Dresses, Skirts, Tops

Visit http://www.tierraecologia.com/