Last Friday evening AirDye® made its second appearance in a Costello Tagliapietra show during New York’s Fall Ready-to-Wear 2010 Fashion Week. (The plaid-clad duo also used AirDye in their spring 2010 collection.) We love working with Jeffery and Robert–they really know how to use color and fabric to achieve some of the best-styled clothing out there.

Of course, we’ve just got to share a few shots from the show, which unfortunately don’t do justice to what Style.com calls “their beautiful palette of desert-sunset hues.” Nor can you see how the duo plays up contrasts in the back of a piece, but we hope you’re as impressed with the collection as we are.

(photos from Coutorture/Getty)

So, now that you’ve seen some of the collection, here’s what a few of the fashionistas who were at the show said:

Women’s Wear Daily:

Going green never looked so chic, as Jeffrey Costello and Robert Tagliapietra presented a collection of their signature softly draped and pleated jersey dresses and separates in a dusty palette colored by AirDye, a sustainable dyeing method.

Style.com’s Meenal Minstry:

Spiraled and compressed folds added substance and weight to one look’s waist, while on another the pleats seemed almost spontaneously draped around the body. The designers tried out an interesting new technique on their signature jersey dresses and tops, anchoring them with woven silk backs, usually in a contrasting color plucked from their beautiful palette of desert-sunset hues. But for all that, there was actually a gorgeous simplicity to this collection. It marked both a return to their founding vision and a step forward.

NBC New York’s Catherine Blair Pfander on The Thread:

Conceived in a sophisticated palette of rosy browns, golds, and a multi-colored circle print called “Ghosts” (developed by AirDye, which developed a technique of dying fabric without water), the collection was composed primarily of draped dresses and skirt-n-top sets, with a few metallic pants thrown into the mix.  We were digging the “secretarial geisha” vibe, driven home by messy top knots and orangey-red lips.

“The storyline is of this young girl embarking on her life, taking that trans-Siberian train from Russia to Japan.  It’s a young, hopeful attitude,” says Robert.

The clothes did feel youthful–and the styling cast a charming, naive glow to the collection–but off the runway, we think this will prove an utterly ageless collection, with pieces that mothers and daughters will swap.  These are clothes to make women feel beautiful and intelligent. Honestly, who wants to feel any other way?

Second City Style, blogger Carol Calacci:

You have to marvel at how these two burly bears could be the designers of such modern, clean, soft and elegant pieces for women. The intricate gathering, weaving and perfect draping included a lot emphasis on the backs of the dresses this season, which unfortunately you cannot see from the runway shots….I especially like their use of two tones together, which seems to be one of their trademarks, for example the whole back of a dress may be a darker tone of the front.

Ana Louisa on the Grown-Up Shoes blog:

This may strike you as strange while you scroll down this page (of photos): nothing dramatic is happening here. Nothing crazy or mind blowing. But to me, this show is perfection. The simplicity of it, the gorgeous draping, the simple but flattering cuts and shapes are utterly delightful. The prints are incredible but even the solid colors are gorgeous.

What do you think, are these pieces you’d wear? And is sustainability ever going to have a larger role in the fashion world?

protecting profits in a water scarce world

Thera N. Kalmijn and R. Paul Herman have come up with the 10 R’s of Water Management and shared their plan with everyone in two parts (part 1 and part 2). You might think this is just overreacting by a couple of treehuggers, but you’d be wrong. They remind us that in 2001, hydroelectric power shortages forced the shutdown of aluminum plant smelters in the Pacific Northwest, resulting in the loss of 8,000 jobs. So, developing and executing on a water management strategy is just plan ole’ fashioned good business.

companies vague on water-scarcity risk, investors say

We know that water management is critical to avoid production interruption. So investors are keen to know the water-related risks faced by specific companies, but that doesn’t mean the information is readily available. A recent report by CERES shows that this information is often “boilerplate and vague.” A Business Week article goes into detail about the report including some of the companies CERES found to be most transparent with their water-risks.

water at the core of climate change

Alister Doyle, an environmental correspondent with Reuters, puts it quite plainly: “The main impact of climate change will be on water supplies.” Unlike many articles we read, Doyle suggests that conflict and disease can be avoided if we just learn from past successful examples of cooperation. Water shortages on the Indus River resulted in cooperation between India and Pakistan and Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia’s set up the Mekong River Commission. With up to 250 million people facing water shortages, it’s good to know that conflict is not guaranteed.

australia’s “top end” too dry to become food bowl

Imagine a place that gets billions of gallons of rain each year, but still can’t sustain agriculture. That place is northern Australia. According to Reuters, farmers and politicians had planned on converting this area into a “food bowl for the world.” However, topography, weather, and climate change mean that much of the water is for not. You see, the rain comes during a few months and the rest of the year is completely dry. During those wet months, most of the water runs quickly out to sea or evaporates quickly when the rain stops. Looks like the Aussies will have to find another way to make the most of this region.

TEDsters answer the question…

The folks with PUR are hanging out with all the big thinkers this week at TED and asking, “If water could talk, what would it say?” And to answer the question, you’ll have to check out PUR’s photo gallery. The extra cool part is you can “like” the album or Tweet it and PUR will donate 10 liters to those in need. Come on, click the link and make clean water happen for someone who would otherwise be without.

Hopefully you recall our story last fall about the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) taking action against four retailers for falsely advertising their garments as bamboo. After the FTC had litigated several specific cases, they decided everyone must stop the deception.

In late January, 78 retailers received notice from the FTC to immediately cease labeling any clothing or other textiles, such as sheets or towels, as bamboo. Why? Because the fiber is actually rayon and no different than rayon made with other cellulose sources, such as wood pulp.

Who were some of these companies sited for selling mislabeled products? They range from little retailers such as Bambooya, to big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Target, to high-end establishments such as Nordstrom and Barney’s New York. Even Zappos and Amazon.com received notice. You can download the full list from the FTC.

So what does the FTC want companies to do? Easy, label the garments and textiles for what they are. Here’s an excerpt from the letter sent to the retailers:

The term ‘bamboo,’ therefore, may be used in labeling or advertising a textile product (e.g., ‘bamboo shirt’) only to describe textile fibers taken directly from the bamboo plant without the type of chemical processing necessary to make rayon. Rayon, even if manufactured using cellulose from bamboo, must be described by an appropriate term recognized under the FTC Textile Rules. If rayon is manufactured using bamboo as the cellulose source, then you also may include that information in the textile label, for example, by describing the fiber as ‘rayon made from bamboo.’

As a team who’s trying to help bring sustainable practices to the textile industry, we’re pleased that the truth about bamboo is being discussed and it’s eco-friendly image is tarnished. There’s no dispute that bamboo is a great resource for the wood products like flooring or cutting boards. But the expensive, toxic, and wasteful process needed to take course bamboo and make it into a soft fabric is anything but good for the planet.

So, you can help, first, don’t buy bamboo rayon products. Or any kind of rayon product, not only is the process toxic, rayon is not very durable and requires dry cleaning (a topic for another post!). And if you happen to see a retailer claiming their product as bamboo, the FTC would like to know about it. You can report the company online or by phone. 1-877-382-4357. Companies found mislabeling their products face a $16,000 fine per violation.

photo credit: MikeLowe / Flickr

From around the world and around the web, here are this week’s water stories that caught our eye. If we missed one you thought others should know about, please tell us about it in the comments.

water is too cheap

In Davos last week police used water cannons to disperse a small crowd of protesters. That’s one use for water, we suppose. But more on topic at the high-profile meeting, was water conservation and real pricing of this commodity. In this week’s Wall Street Journal review how population growth and climate change mean that smart market-based solutions and a new regulatory system are needed to ensure stability and access.

rising water costs

A perfect example of how water is under priced is India. According to DNA India, water is heavily subsidized – by as much as 60 percent for middle-class neighborhoods. Residents of Mumbai are facing possible rate hikes for their water. The rate increase is designed to bring the costs closer to reality and discourage waste. But can you imagine what that would do to your household budget?

a dry town, and we’re not just talking liquor

News about Yemen is on the rise, and given the many challenges for the impoverished country, we’re likely to hear a lot more about it. We already know there are growing concerns about militants and Al-Qaeda support. What you may not be aware of is the fact that the country is running out of both water and oil. Some experts the capital, Sanaa, could be bone dry in ten years. Talk about a source of instability!

growing concerns about energy and climate change

Above we can see how on a local level climate change and energy resources could turn into security nightmare, and that fact is not lost on the U.S. military. This week the Pentagon released its Quadrennial Defense Review. We’ll cut to the chase for you, the study concludes:

Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.

Now, if it’s so clear that this is likely to be a problem, we wonder when climate change will register with the American people.

water scarcity gets its own conference

Later this month, some of the nation’s biggest companies, and many smaller ones too, will gather in San Francisco to discuss water scarcity risks and water footprints in the supply chain. Some of the speakers include representatives from Procter & Gamble, Nike, Intel, and many others. You know we’ll be watching what happens; think they’ll have a Twitter hashtag?

water conservation pays big

Dow Chemical’s production site in Freeport, Texas has a new feature: 80 water cooling towers made by Nalco Company. The new system is saving over 1 billion gallons of water and $4 million per year. We’re still information on how much the system cost, but something tells us that it’s a pretty good ROI.

This week the Discovery Company’s PlanetGreen channel premiered the BBC series Blood, Sweat & T-shirts. The premise is that six young, fashion-savvy Brits go off to India for a month to see what it takes to put cheap clothes on the racks of their favorite stores.

As you can imagine, this “reality-like” show’s stars are primarily pampered middle-class westerners who quickly breakdown–even after just a few hours in a high-end textile factory. The six live with local workers, spend up to a week working just as the Indians do and immediately see how good they have it back home.

While the drama leaves a bit to be desired, in our opinion, the message that this series is attempting to highlight is important. One of the Londoners, Georgina says early on, “I just love the fact that you can buy something really, really cheap wear it once and chuck it away.” As a matter of comparison, clothing uses less of our income now than it ever did. In order for the West to have “disposable” garments, the people who grow, weave, and make our clothes live and work in often unbearable conditions.

The 4,000 workers in the first factory the show visits make little more than $2.00 a day. And that’s for the coveted spot on the sewing floor. The team is trained and tested to see if they can make the grade to sew shirts, and it turns out the work is not so easy. Three of them find out that they can’t even keep up with the quotas for ironing and buttoning. While the Brits are at this factory, they earn only as much as the Indians do. When they collect their paychecks, of a few hundred rupees, and go shopping, they quickly discover that a tube of deodorant costs more than a day’s wages. Not exactly what they’re used to back home.

From the factory that pumps out 10,000 garments each day, the six journey to a family owned operation where there are only a handful of employees and produce discount clothing destined for Western stores. Here they are asked to each make six garments from start to finish each day–well beyond their sewing and productivity skill level. To top it off, they get paid by the piece and sleep with the rest of the workers under the sewing tables. We think you can guess how well this went over with the group.

As we watch the group in the premier they are certainly getting a sense of the human costs of cheap textiles. But we have a feeling things are going to get much worse. In future episodes the six Brits will pick cotton, accompany a labor inspector searching for kids working in factories, and follow the entire supply textile supply chain.

We wonder if they’ll make it to the dye factories that pump out millions of gallons of toxic water or if they’ll be exposed to the massive amounts of pesticides used on the cotton crops?

Even as we watch these spoiled “kids” cry, giggle, and whine their way through the harsh realities of India’s textile industry, perhaps we should all take the core message to heart: the textile industry takes a toll on the people, water, and land involved in putting giving us those $5.00 tees.