Eco Fashion World

'The God of sustainability is punishing me', Patricia said when she got a heavy stomach ache after eating a typical Swiss 'bratwurst' (sausage). We just finished a doctoral seminar on the role of reflexivity in the academics and asked ourselves many questions on our behavior as sustainability professionals, researchers and individuals. Reflexivity (read: daily questioning if what you're doing is the right thing to do) is not an easy task and I have tried to get a grip of it through writing three small stories for my professors.

The summit of eco luxury? A three course all organic dinner served on a mountain top in the Swiss alps. Ingredients for such a top treat:

• Two sweet friends who come up with the idea
• One car to drive us there
• One friendly farmer who allows us close to his cute cows
• One MacBook for background music
• A view on the Bodensee-lake on one side
• A view on the highest peak in the region on the other

Last week as I flew back from Chicago to Zürich, I came across an article on how the current econolypse influences the relationships between men and women. The article stated that many women have taken over the role of breadwinner of the family while their husbands have lost their jobs the past 11 months. Instead of being proud of taking this responsibility on their shoulders, these 'recessionistas' are stressed at the idea of not just contributing the estimated one third to the family income, but suddenly bringing in the total amount. Research shows that women still grow up with the romantic idea of meeting their prince one day who will start taking care of them.

Is this dress made of soy? Can you eat that? This is what happens when you bring a bunch of management scholars to a local green event. For me a great way to check out upcoming young designers like Organik Revolution while they claimed that it was much more fun than the conference itself.

The world of Ecofashion is quite small actually; it’s quite easy to connect with other eco-minded creative souls on the other site of this planet. Designers teaming up easily when they are sourcing for production of fabrics. Clean & Unique, for example, is a platform for small fashion labels and fashion designers with a common interest in green business.

It´s Sunday afternoon and I´m sitting on my bed with my laptop on my lap. Next week around this time I´ll be in Chicago surrounded by 8.000 management scholars and I have really no idea what I can contribute to what they already bring to the world. Is it my eyes of an inexperienced PhD student that bring fresh perspectives? Is it my naivety that doesn´t value hierarchy yet simply because I don´t know who has what Honourable Chair? Is it my crazy ideas that people will laugh about saying: you funny fashion girl, what do you know about management research? Is it my attitude of let´s co-create on the spot and have fun while doing it?

If you ask my fresh husband: ´How did you spend the first day of your honeymoon?´, he will answer: sitting next to my wife´s grandmother during an eleven hours car drive!

Who would have ever thought I would marry a German and go on honeymoon to my own country: the beautiful lowlands of the Dutch Queen-dom! Although it were practicalities that drove us there, I loved being a tour guide during M.A.´s first visit. And besides that: we realized that this was a pretty green way to fully enjoy our new status.

What can I say? It was an incredible day!

With lots of sun and fun and amazing people;
With me and M.A. glowing and sweating in our eco wedding clothes;
With a 20 minute drive to the castle in a golden Audi accompanied by Romanian rap;
With hand-picked flowers by ´The Vissers girls´ that adorned our ceremony; With a home-made wedding cake and a wealth of delicious desserts created by friends;
With many green gifts ranging from eco fashion and food stuffs to an outdoor self-cooked organic dinner that will be arranged by two colleagues;
With dear guests that shared cars coming from different directions;
With a photoshoot-in-a-rush in the beautiful gardens leaving my dress greener than intended;