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The Greening of Materialism

by Lauren Mann on June 11th, 2007   Comments [6]

The sprawling brick building-cum-billboard located at the corner of 7th Avenue South & Greenwich Avenue usually plays host to avant-garde Marc Jacobs ads, which remind us that fashion and beauty are subjective, inconsequential, fleeting, even a bit ugly.

But, this month, we’re treated to an interlude. Barney’s has introduced Loomstate for Barney’s Green, a collection of organic cotton denim, tees, tanks, hoodies, dresses, and skin-loving short shorts. The line is eminently earthy: muted tones of sea, sand and grass abound, and a percentage of the profits will be donated to 1% For the Planet.

Retailers such as The Gap, H&M and Levi’s have all found various ways to fuse fashion with responsibility, but none of them has the same cache as Barney’s, arguably the hippest of New York’s upscale department stores. Effectively, green now spans both high and low fashion; in this sense, Barney’s is a pioneer. Asserts fashion director Julie Gilhart, “We’re the first high-end retailer to start our own green label.” (Dallas Morning News)

Attention fashionistas and fashionistos! Barney’s invites you to make room in your closet for green. Or, better yet, get a new closet altogether.

This growing availability of and interest in green fashion begs the question: Is materialism justified when it’s green? Does the notion of green cause the shallowness that is widely attached to consumption to suddenly dissolve into saintly importance?

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