Eco Fashion World

Eco entrepreneur Sarah Van Aken has launched www.savafashion.com to bring the same socially conscious retail choices from her successful flagship boutique SA VA, located at 1700 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, to the rest of the nation. As in the SA VA store, the interactive web site allows women to shop for fashion-forward garments by selecting seven different sustainable categories including: Local Made; Fair Trade; Hand Made; Organic; All Natural; Made in the U.S.A.; and Recycled.

“Every SA VA garment carries a label that lets the buyer know which practices were engaged in for the production of the piece. This way our customers can make apparel choices, both in the store and online, that make them feel good about purchasing attractive items that are ethically made,” says Van Aken.

90 percent of SA VA’s designs are beautifully crafted in Van Aken’s workshop located adjacent to the boutique in downtown Philadelphia. Van Aken only uses materials that fall into the sustainability categories and low-impact production methods to reduce SA VA’s carbon footprint. For other merchandise, she hand-selects each item to ensure it fits into SA VA’s mission of environmentally sound fashion. Online shoppers can go to www.savafashion.com , click on “Shop By” and select from a variety of sustainable fashion practices.

Leanne Krueger-Braneky, Executive Director of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia, a business organization that promotes companies that have a positive social and environmental impact is a SA VA customer. “My favorite part of the SA VA shopping experience is checking the tags on each garment,” said Brankey. “I can tell right away which garments are made locally, which use organic materials, and which use fair trade labor. Shopping for clothing that is in line with my values has never been so easy.”

Van Aken’s line highlights warm, strong colors that evoke all that inspires the SA VA woman: the arts, distant cultures, urban living, politics and different time periods. Sizes range from 2 to 16, and prices range from $40 for a shirt to $350 for a hand-printed, hand-sewn coat or dress.

“Our clientele is sensual, self-made and one part activist,” says Van Aken. “They are women who reinvent themselves every day, and their fashion choices are extensions of who they are.”

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