Eco Fashion World

For the first time in many years, I am back home in the Basque Country to spend more than just a family and friends weekend. I decided to stay for a few weeks, working out of Aux Magazine's office, before heading back to Madrid's dejecting summer heat. It feels surprisingly like home...warm, cozy and friendly. Another amazing discovery has been the number of cool Basque brands I’ve encountered (in some cases re-encountered) these days.

'Cleaning should be done when in the right mood for it'.

What greater thing there is than the touch of crispy fresh sheets on the bed? The look of a shiny fridge? The smell of a basket full of organic fruit? The sound of a dyson that zooms through the house?

''When I was pregnant, I kept on taking showers and washing my hair, just to be ready for thé moment. It took longer than I thought and I started reading this great book of a woman who sailed around the world on her own. Her story was so fascinating that I forgot to shower and guess what…..that was the day my boys came!''

As my belly is growing, so is the amount of gifts we receive from friends and family. Hoping to inspire others to give green gifts to soon-to-be-mommies-and-daddies, I love to spotlight all the cute things that have given our home an instant baby-make-over.

'With The HUB, we want to create an eco-system of social-entrepreneurs. A place where they can connect, interact and invent new ways of doing business as unusual'. What a pleasure it was to hear so much about The HUB last week. First during a HUB event where guest speakers Erfolg and South Pole Carbon feasted us on their inspiring start-up stories. A few days later when HUB founder Niels Rot inspired my students with the narrative of how he became a social entrepreneur.

Yesterday Switzerland won the match against Spain and the whole city was a madhouse. I had to cancel a meeting because of the continuous horning of the cars, the yelling of people dressed in Swiss flags and the beer bottles that were thrown on the streets. It was a carnival of sounds and I was shocked it could be so noisy in this country. Amazing how people everywhere in the world respond the same to soccer games: I truly felt I was back in Rio for a few hours.

A warm summer's day, a bunch of colleagues in the office talking about research, projects and strategy meetings. During lunch I can't help myself but say: 'Girls, I have a need to see the new Sex in the City movie, just to get away from all this. To see fabulous outfits, sexy men, laugh hard and not think of anything serious for two hours. Who wants to go?' Some respond with 'Sorry, way too much work to do', 'Appointments' and 'I am travelling in an hour'. The usual so to say. But two pairs of eyes lighten up and one matching mouth proposes: YES! Let's go now!

For some strange reason (I might be change adverse?), I strive to keep my old time learnings alive and kicking. That includes the welfare state, control over the market until it really serves the people - which is its only legitimate purpose, and so on. However, somewhere in my brain I know I have to keep a window opened for these principles to be challenged.