S2S Nation Takes Part in Vancouver's First Ever Eco-Fashion Week

Online, November 4, 2010 (Newswire.com) - S2S Nation, a bamboo organic cotton apparel provider, participated in the first annual Eco Fashion Week in Vancouver BC Canada. It was a 3 day event with amazing designers from all around the world, including a great local designer named Nicole Bridger, who recently won the Fashion Takes Action Design Forward Award for Canada's Favourite Eco Fashion Designer.

The first day was highlighted by a seminar about Eco-Fashion as a Movement, not a Trend. Led by Carly Stojsic, she highlighted many different industries that are turning to sustainable methods of producing goods and using scraps and wastes to create alternative products. She outlined projects such as the Denim Revival in LA that focuses on altering and tailoring denim products. She also explained how denim scraps can be used for such things as housing insulation. That night Chicago's Lara Miller put on a wonderful runway show, displaying her line of mesh tops and dresses. Each one of her sweaters is hand-loomed one at a time, using no electricity to besides stitching the garment together. Other designers included Emesha, Eden Organic Menswear, and Nixxi's cool glam rock look.

Did you know that it takes 713 gallons of water to create a t-shirt and 919 gallons for a pair of jeans? On day two, Paul Raybin gave a very informative speech concerning water use in the textile industry. Raybin next outlined the new revolutionary AirDye® technology that allows the person making a fabric to color synthetic textiles without the use of water, providing a sustainable alternative to traditional dyeing processes that uses a lot of water. This process also allows one to control the depth the dye is inserted into the fabric, thus allowing individuals to create fabric with different colors and patterns on each side of the fabric.

Nicole Bridger of Vancouver and Jeff Garner (Prophetik) of Tennessee headlined the second day's runway shows. Bridger's ready to wear line of beautiful soft color dresses looked amazing and were quite the contrast from Prophetik's horse riding themed attire. Both were great shows, getting positive reviews from the audience. Prophetik's show featured an engaging video on Jeff Garner's journey of creating his eco friendly clothing line and continued to engage the audience with live musicians singing and playing the banjo during the runway show, further bringing his Tennessee roots into the performance.

The final day started off with an informative and inspirational speech by Summer Rayne Oakes about the initiatives she is currently involved in regarding sustainable living and apparel. Summer has just launched a website called Source4Style that connects buyers of sustainable materials to suppliers of eco-friendly material all around the world. She discussed her work with PayLess shoes and its launch of a line of affordable eco shoes called Zoe and Zac.

The trade show also took place on the final day, with many local eco-friendly designers displaying their goods to the public and industry buyers, including S2S Nation. During the event, S2SNation generously issued discount coupons to the participants as well as gave away a free premium bamboo tee to the lucky contest winner, Alexandra Gabris.

The end of Eco Fashion Week was concluded with Q&A session, featuring Summer Rayne Oakes, Nicole Bridger, Paul Raybin, Jeff Garner, Mark Trotzuk, and Lindsay Coulter of The David Suzuki Foundation followed by a party at Club 560 that night.

All and all, Eco Fashion Week Vancouver was quite successful for a first time event. I think next time; more effort could be spent marketing the event to the general public in Vancouver to create more of a buzz for the event. The next Eco Fashion Week Vancouver is scheduled to take place in February 2011. Hope to see you there!