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“We like to think we were ahead of the curb,” says Jonathan
Marcoshamer, founder of Ecoist, a fashion accessories company
he launched in 2004 with his brother. The curb he is referring to is
the relatively new interest in eco-friendly fashion aka Green
Fashion.
Though eco-fashion has been around for over 20 years it often takes
public figures to turn people on to something. Right now Marcoshamer
feels that a “green revolution” will be occurring this year. With
major companies like Wal-mart and Target asking for green products,
a change in consumer behavior is inevitable. Ecoist will also
continue to make people see that eco-friendly fashion doesn’t just
mean a hemp necklace.
 Ecoist has just launched a line of
handbags made from misprinted or discontinued Coca-Cola bottle
labels. A partnership with an iconic company such as Coca-Cola will
publicize the growing concern of Global Warming to spread the
message of sustainability. Another pro-environmental part of the
deal is that a tree will be planted for every handbag sold.
The
bags will be
made from misprinted labels and overages from brands such as Coke,
Diet Coke, Fanta and Dasani. The labels come from the Coca-Cola
bottlers and label manufacturers in Peru , where Ecoist has a
production center run by Prostenible S.A. , a fair trade
manufacturer.
The deal with Coca-Cola is only
one of the exciting ventures the Ecoist has coming up in it’s
future. There will be more oversized
totes in
the new collection and cute
clutches
as well. Fans can also expect to see new patterns that feature candy
wrappers (the staple material of many Ecoist handbags) fused with
fabrics. And in a tribute to the classic eco-friendly material, new
handbags will also use hemp. “It will be an interesting experiment
to see,” said Marcoshamer. It is no wonder Ecoist has attracted such
fashionable fans as Cameron Diaz,
Petra
Nemcova,
Lindsay
Lohan and
Paris Hilton.
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