Julia Stiles Styles Turns Green Fashion on its Head

I was just cruising by Ecorazzi, looking for the post on how the No Impact Man story may soon be getting a treatment as a fictional feature film (in addition to the documentary that is already finished). Thanks to Remy C. for the tip by the way. I'll have a better idea on whether we need a No Impact Man feature after I see the doc this Tuesday. In the meantime, I enjoyed stumbling across this gem about "Julia Stiles Styles."

Julia Stiles is about my age, and I've long admired her work, as well as her spunky style. I was bummed that I never saw her on the Columbia University campus when I was there for journalism, but I think she might have graduated before I started (friends tell me they saw her around the upper west side all the time). I knew Stiles had a progressive bent and has lent her celeb power and time to various important causes. But this new project is particularly interesting, because it seems to combine parody with message.

Not everyone has been always on board with the idea of "green fashion," with quite a few detractors bemoaning that it can be expensive, and that it invariably promotes consumption, when saving resources is seen as the most eco-virtuous. In fact, even as Carl Pope was at a recent New York Fashion Week to promote the industry going greener, his keynote address at the BeEco Chic show included some daggers against fashion, and a generally patronizing tone.

Of course, for those who do boost green fashion, they argue that design has a powerful transformative force in our culture that goes far beyond mere shopping. It can inspire and shape our worldviews, bringing a better aesthetic and motivating change.

Julia Stiles and friends skewer the concept in their recent project, which features such unlikely outfits as a nice suit made from newsprint -- "People say the newspaper industry is dying, but I say it's living. Living on your body," Stiles deadpanned. There's also the awesome shants, turning a shirt into pants, allegedly inspired by a homeless man, as well as the shirt made from 10 vintage shirts.

As Ecorazzi points out, the model rocks a "blue steel" Zoolander look, and the overall affect is a parody not unlike the film's "Derelict" collection, again based on the homeless. (Reminds me of that line from a Daria episode, in which one of the characters argues for sprucing up the wardrobes of the local poor: "Just because they're homeless doesn't mean they have to be unfashionable," she says.

No word on whether Julia Stiles Styles has anything to do with the reportedly upcoming Zoolander 2, although it doesn't seem like the actress is attached.

The Julia Stiles Styles website suggests donating to The Lunchbox Fund, which helps feed poor children in Africa. (Hopefully not from these 10 worst lunchboxes of all time.) It's cool that Stiles is taking advantage of her fashion-ready name to make a difference.

So do you think this is a fair parody of green fashion?

My friend Remy C. had this to say about it over at Ecorazzi: "It's opportunistic and falls a little flat...If she's really committed, she should lend herself to a deserving young and talented sustainable designer."

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