Eco Fashion World

Lizzy Parker

Portland, Oregon is no doubt one of the greenest and most livable cities in the U.S., so it is exciting to see that significant inroads are also being made on the eco fashion frontier with Portland Fashion Week (PFW), currently underway on the West Coast. Portland is definitely a global leader in the activewear industry, but with an internationally recognized fashion week now on the agenda, ready-to-wear and eco-couture collections by regional and designers are receiving international praise and spotlight.

Portland launched the career of Project Runway eco fashion designer, Leanne Marshall, so it makes good sense that Portland Fashion Week’s organizers are keen on identifying and supporting emerging fashion talent.

Anna Cohen

This year’s PFW runs from 7–11 October with opening night fashion festivities and a runway show on the second evening that will feature jury-selected emerging designers and audience participation in selecting the final winner or new design star to watch. The weekend’s runways shows will offer up diverse designer collection nights as well as a ‘sustainable fashion’ Sunday for upcoming Spring/Summer 2010 collections. Designers in the green shows include A Fortes Design (Portland), Imperial Collection by Anna Cohen (Oregon), Ethos Paris (Paris), Mountains of the Moon (Chicago), and Jonano (Pittsburgh, Penn.).

Ethos Paris

On the runway since 2003, Portland Fashion Week is the second-longest running fashion week on the West Coast. According to the Portland Fashion Week Web site, their commitment to sustainability and redefining fashion weeks of the future includes the following:

“We make fashion week affordable for independent designers. By utilizing a business model based on corporate sponsorship, Portland Fashion Week transfers the benefits directly to designers. For a nominal fee, we produce and stage their entire show. We move fashion forward for a sustainable future. For the first time in the nation, since 2007, Portland Fashion Week has been making the production of the event itself sustainable - from construction of the actual runway with eco-friendly materials, to eco-safe styling products on models, to even using sustainable-certified hotels for our guests.”

Leanne Marshall

In addition to Portland being one-to-watch in terms of new talent and fashion-forwardness, they are also setting the stage and new standards for the production and execution of high-profile events in terms of sustainability being as fashionable as the collections that appear on the runway.

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