First Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, now gold diggers have upset environmentalists and economists. It’s been like 1849 online with blogs abuzz over gold prices, prospectors and water use in California.

The precious metal is priced at a record dollar high now, thanks in part to China and India snapping up gold reserves. Panic and pricing like that drives laid-off Californians to go panning and miners to “explore,” sometimes damaging the farthest corners of the Earth to get gold.

Eco- and business-bloggers alike want to know: Is the “value” of the ore real, especially since jewelry demand declined in the recession, and industrial demand for gold can often be met with other materials?

A fashion and custom jewelry designer, Lisa Linhardt, of Linhardt Design in New York City, says lots of bling seekers have no idea what environmental impact their fashion choices have until they find her. Focused on making “beautiful, sculptural pieces” first, she is also a green gold jeweler, in a good way.

Linhardt buys 100% recycled gold from casting houses and refineries that extract it from post consumer material, not newly-mined. She can also melt the jewelry you never wear to form something new in her studio (constructed with reclaimed barn wood). Gold’s value is real, she believes, but the industry needs a makeover.

Other designers should demand “Strict gold certification so we know what we’re buying is 100% recycled, and that the labor involved is fair trade,” she suggests. For now, she’s willing to do the original research and footwork herself.

Basic Reading:

“Jewelers are increasingly concerned about young shoppers who are becoming more educated about the impact of their purchasing decisions…” - GreenBiz.com feature on Cartier’s buying more responsibly-mined gold

“Gold is unlike any other commodity. It is costly to extract from the earth and to refine to a reasonable degree of purity. It is costly to store. It has no remaining uses as a producer good – equivalent or superior alternatives exist for all its industrial uses…Surprisingly people like to attach it to their earlobes or nostrils or to hang it around their necks.”- Financial Times blog entry discussing the true value of gold

“Many want to hide the unsavory aspects of how business is conducted in the jewelry industry. But a Blue Sky approach would have us differentiate ourselves by eliminating anything that disguises, hides or obfuscates practices within our industry. We want to differentiate ourselves by being upfront and having full disclosure. Then we want to advertise where we are supporting fair and ethical practices.” – An open letter to jewelers on how to deal with the “dirty” gold issue in FairJewelry.org

“Driven by record-high gold prices – [recently] $1,056 an ounce, double that of just three years ago – prospectors are flocking to the state… Gold mining permits, or claims, on file with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for California have shot from 15,606 in 2005 to 23,974 this year…” – San Francisco Chronicle story on the New California Gold Rush

“California’s second gold rush has also created one recession-proof business. Keene Engineering of Chatsworth, Calif., makes the equipment you need to find gold – from plastic pans to large commercial rigs. The owners say their business has doubled…”- NBC Los Angeles segment on Gold Prospectors in Southern California

Further resources:

MotherJones feature on the history of land use in California

The official homepage of the No Dirty Gold campaign lead by Oxfam and Earthworks

A Geology.com guide to the many uses of gold

A Wall Street Journal story on a predicted rise in demand for gold jewelry

This is the third installment of EcoMeme, a column featuring eco news, tech and business highlights by new EcoSalon writer and columnist Lora Kolodny.

Image: courtesy Linhardt Design Studio

For good reason, Ralph Lauren is distancing himself  from this extremely altered photo of model Filippa Hamilton, who at 5′10″ and 120 pounds was allegedly fired for being too fat to wear the designer’s Town and Country fashions.

Last week, the website BoingBoing posted the image online, upsetting the Lauren team for the bad p.r. which suggests the fashion house likes its models emaciated. According to Shine, public interest prodded the company to offer an apology for the “poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body.” They said they would take every precaution to prevent such sloppy Photoshop gaffes in the future.

Lauren had threatened to sue BoingBoing over copyright infringement. To this, the website suggested, that instead:

“Copyright law doesn’t give you the right to threaten your critics for pointing out the problems with your offerings. You should know better. And every time you threaten to sue us over stuff like this, we will:

a) Reproduce the original criticism, making damned sure that all our readers get a good, long look at it, and;

b) Publish your spurious legal threat along with copious mockery, so that it becomes highly ranked in search engines where other people you threaten can find it and take heart; and

c) Offer nourishing soup and sandwiches to your models.”

Lauren won’t admit to firing Hamilton, a size 4 beauty who has been modeling for the brand since she was 15. She was reportedly let go “as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under contract,” but Hamilton argues it’s all a ruse.

“They fired me because they said I was overweight and I couldn’t fit in their clothes anymore,” she said. “I was shocked to see that super skinny girl with my face..It’s very sad, I think, that Ralph Lauren could do something like that.” Meantime, the model says she hasn’t gained weight, but sample sizes are getting smaller.

Hamilton isn’t the only victim of Photoshop manipulation. Singer Kelly Clarkson saw her shape drastically altered for the August cover of Self Magazine.

I’ve noticed, too, the svelte Twiggy look is back, despite all the groundwork by health advocates to change the unrealistic body images of women perpetrated on women by those who rule the industry – Anna Wintour and her cronies. Smaller models are once again in Vogue, sending the wrong messages to our daughters and all women.

According to Examiner, Cosmopolitan editor Kate White has offered Phillipa an 8-page spread in her magazine after hearing about the travesty.

Images: BoingBoing, Shine, People

Not since Scarlett O’Hara upcycled those curtains to make a crazy green velveteen dress have we seen such industrious textile make-overs on the screen.

Yes, Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel is the quintessential tweed rags-to-riches saga, in which a poor but clever French girl and her sister climb the ladder from the orphanage to the chateau by making great contacts at a tavern where they sang a funny ditty, entitled Coco (hence the nickname for Gabrielle Chanel).

I took away much from Audrey Tautou’s brilliant portrayal of the iconic designer, mainly a reminder why monochromatic, pared-down simplicity has always ruled in the chic department, and how this can be arrived at with the three R’s: recycling, reducing and reusing.

Coco’s early homemade ensembles were reconfigured men’s tweed suits and women’s work aprons – a collection you might spot on Etsy or other sites where crafty visionaries are putting their green spin on fashion. She takes an old tablecloth plaid dress and embellishes it with a white ribbed bib and cuffs. Her lover’s suits become her riding clothes. Sailor tops she spotted in Deauville inspire simple, blue and white striped cotton tees.

You’d never know this was the genius who would put quilted handbags, designer perfume and the famous pocketed Chanel suit on the map, becoming the true first lady of fashion.

Any Project Runway addict will love watching the textile transformations in the film which yielded both handsome and hideous results. You can just hear host and judge Heidi Klum snort, “It’s just so Octoberfest!”

Would the early Coco have had a chance on Project Runway? Certainly in a green competition, you know, one of those challenges in which designers are tossed newspaper, candy wrappers or high volume acrylic wedding gowns and ordered to remake them into something Tim Gunn finds has the wow factor.

The wow emerging in the extraordinary executions was the lack of wow, the architectural lines and basic black palette which allowed the most important aspect of glamor to shine through: the woman. That was the magnet for “Boy”, her painfully handsome lover who appreciated her gift, and that is what attracts a recession-strapped audience to the sullen-eyed heroine.

In a decadent and wasteful Edwardian society married to costumed corsets, frills and other excess, Coco proves women of real style can wear curtains and still be the belle of the ball.

Image: Time out

There are some of us who have cut waaaaay back, but just can’t quit cold turkey. And I don’t mean smoking, although I did quit recently. (Yay for me!)

The can’t quit I’m referring to here is shopping. I can admit my faults and this is certainly one of them. I love to shop for clothes. But before you throw your arms up and start spouting off at my wasteful ways…I always, definitely, without a doubt, no excuses or exceptions – shop green.

Right now I’ve got my eye on this adorable Reversible Hobo Bag from VivaTerra. Made with simple and stylish vintage fabrics, it’s switchable from festive floral to sophisticated black velvet flocking. Besides, two bags in one means more for the money!

Not too big and bulky but roomy enough for the usual suspects at 18” W x 13” H. The Hobo Bag also comes with a small clip-on pouch for all the stuff that gets lost floating around the bottom of your bag.

And what’s more eco than an item made well enough for a lifetime of wearing? This gorgeous lambswool Ready, Set, Go Poncho (top image) has a turtleneck and ribbed design that ruffles softly at the edges. It comes in a creamy, earthy off-white and is one of those wear today and everyday (at least in fall and winter) type of cover-ups.

Find both pieces at VivaTerra for $229 and $219, respectively.

Welcome to The September Issue, a frockumentary chronicling the genius behind the fattest ever edition of Vogue, weighing in at over four pounds, reaching 13 million readers and boosting the sinking morale of the $300-billion global fashion industry.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like my documentaries contrived any more than my fashion. Albeit entertaining, this one by R.J. Cutler smacks of high level spin and pretense.

Adding to the “entertainment value” was an art-versus-bottom dollar subplot pitting the painfully bored Vogue chief Anna Wintour against brilliant, model-turned-photo stylist Grace Coddington, both British veterans who have been with the magazine for more than 20 years.

Coddington makes a statement with her unkempt orange mane and naked, aging face, an appearance which defies everything that lets Vogue survive, namely stick-figured, cover-girl celebs with flawless airbrushed faces who are posed like Barbies in lay-outs specifically engineered to sell fashion.

True, it’s always been about the sales, but four pounds of retail pitching might be overkill.

Coddington cringes throughout the film as she battles her nemesis Wintour. We the audience tend to root for the vulnerable underdog in the power struggle as the boss eliminates various elements of Coddington’s romantic fashion spreads at her whim – images labored over with great attention to lighting and detail to add depth to the 2007 September book.

One comes away with little empathy for the emaciated Wintour, who, so taken with herself as a removed icon, keeps her trademark goggles on while observing the indoor runway shows. Guess she figures she has seen it all so missing a few nuances of color and texture shouldn’t be a big deal. Her vacant expression dares the wizards behind the curtain to try and impress her.

If Coddington is the magazine’s soul, Wintour emerges the cold-blooded business brain going through the tedious motions but never really responding to her vibrant environment. Never mind that hundreds of talented, unemployed journalists are waiting in the wings for that chance-of-a-lifetime job monopolized by Wintour for two decades.

Appearing even more bored that the overblown caricature portrayed brilliantly by Meryl Streep in Prada, Wintour seems desperate to pad Vogue and her paycheck at any cost – even resurrecting fur on the cover in the 90s to save the dying trade.

A longtime Peta target for her Cruella Deville attraction to pelts, Wintour is pompous in her disregard for the mission of animal rights groups who have fought hard to sensitize humans to animal cruelty and the absurdity of slaughtering  for fashion’s sake alone. Recently, she told Sixty Minutes she needed to get security to protect her from anti-fur militants. She insisted she likes fur and that is the only reason she wears it. Right.

I find the most staged scene in the film is Vogue’s annual meeting in Paris with the movers and shakers of the retail world, such as the head of Neiman Marcus, who nudges Wintour to wield her influence to get couture houses to speed up delivery of gowns to an ever-increasing and demanding clientele. Hogwash! There was no increasing demand for $15,000 gowns even prior to the recession, and the only demanding clientele is the celebrity stylist crowd that manipulates its clout to borrow treasures for a day.

The only message I came away with is that it might be time for Wintour to hang up her Warhol wig, glasses and venti Starbucks paper cup and give someone else a shot at salvaging her doomed fashion rag. Perhaps it should be someone like Grace, who embodies her name while clinging to what matters most to fashion visionaries and fans – the process of creating and wearing desirable, three-dimensional art.

My lovely, celebrity-style dressing room is a spare bedroom I stole in the house, a spare that once housed a maple crib, green nursing glider and armoire of precious, spit-up stained Baby Gap dresses on mini-hangers.

Today, it’s my own little retail Mecca (organic, of course). But I do allow my daughters to visit and check out the blouses and shoe rack, and yes, even borrow on occasion. That sort of thing was taboo when I was growing up. Moms were moms.  Friends were the ones loaning stuff.

My own stylish mother (here with me and Grandma Zelda) towered over me at 5-foot-9 (not counting the beehive do) and always wore at least a size 14. She wasn’t a Laker like Julia Child and her sister, Dorothy, but when she got married, she wore flats so not to surpass 6-foot dad.

I hung out in Mom’s cavernous walk-in closet while she was away at luncheons. But no way could I actually borrow one of those gowns since they hung on me like a puddled curtain. I also was drawn to her off-limits, pointy, size-10 pumps, dyed to match her Jacky suits.

I was the fourth child and the runt of the litter – considerably shorter and smaller than the rest. (My theory is mother smoked a few more cigs and sipped a few more martinis when she was preggers with me.) But to be fair, I’m also considering the DNA link to my small, Polish ancestors.

Cut to my gorgeous teenage daughter with a great sense of style, who caught up with me in stature a few years back. I provide her with her own little Nordstrom Rack down the hall. I take full credit for cultivating her sense of entitlement since I have been most gracious about loaning her items, and have only kvetched a few times when they weren’t returned on time. She is very responsible and that counts.

Combined, Syd and I have a substantial inventory. I’m proud to say a chunk of it is the ski apparel we share for our annual Mommy-Sydney ski weekends in Lake Tahoe.

I was glad to squeeze into a pair of my daughter’s skinny jeans for my birthday outing with friends in August, and only felt a pinch after the second drink. You dirty martini, you!

How does the sharing work? Sometimes we fall for the same cardigan and it can make more sense during hard times to buy one to share and take turns – you know, like college co-eds on a strict budget. Call it the The Daughterhood of the Traveling Pants.

I also prefer to loan rather than buy her a dress for the countless B’Nei Mitzvah parties and other events she seems to attend. If she wears something of mine, it feels like new to her, even though I’ve worn it a dozen times.

This whole lending thing is why those smart couture rental shops, like Boutiqueville in Chicago, do so well. Why own something costly when you can rent for the occasion? When the high is over you send it back. Thank you, it was a great date, but onto other matches.

I should point out it isn’t just us girls sharing the wealth. My daughter also gets warm and fuzzy about wearing her dad’s old sweaters. I seriously think it brings her closer to him in a very sweet way.

Guess teens have been burrowing in oversize wool since Ann-Margret sang “How Lovely to be a Woman” in Bye Bye Birdie. He doesn’t mind her using the old sweaters, or at least, has never complained.

I got to wondering if other kids and parents are comfortable with community closeting or if most families are fiercely territorial about their closets. It certainly requires trust and respect, and the right kind of green deodorant.

I did a bit of research online and found little has been written on the subject. Hurray for me!

But I did stumble upon an interesting post on How to Share Clothes with a Cross-Dressing Husband.

Okay, the ground rules killed me: Killed me! They included keeping his paws out of your underwear drawer, making him replace anything stretched, torn or stained, and drawing the line when it comes to your most precious blouses or skirts (i.e. the ones with price tags still attached). The helpful primer also suggested shopping together to make sure you have the same taste. Oy!

None of this would work in my marriage. My husband is a large man who prefers high-wasted, baggy slacks to hip jeans. If he were a cross-dresser, he’d still be swishing around in those Dean Martin pants.

I do like some of his Oxford shirts and could see slipping into one after a post-sex shower and cocktail in bed, but since we don’t schedule those kind of Hollywood encounters (we don’t eat Chinese out of the box either), it’s all just another fantasy, like wearing my mother’s Yves Saint Laurent caftans.

I do have friends who are married to dainty men with little feet and excellent taste, and I could see trading with one of those fellows, swapping Indian tunics and Moroccan slides for a tux and velvet slippers when those Victor-Victoria mood strikes.

Of course, the well-dressed gay husband is top drawer when it comes to swapping, assuming he would cooperate. His rules might be too stringent for even me. I sort my closet by color but not by texture and season and don’t iron a thing. Crisp is not in my vocabulary.

No, I think I’ll stick with sharing with the girls, my wonderful girls, grabbing a wrap for Lauren when leaving for a party, pulling a dress for Sydney for a Bat Mitzvah. Selecting a hand bag that works. Maybe a trinket or earrings to tie it all together.

Does sharing benefit my daughters more than me? Well, naturally. It goes with the territory when you’re a consummate stylist and mother – who still misses dressing her dolls.

This is the sixth installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Main Image: In Style

Image One: Luanne Bradley

It’s hard to ignore those cautionary labels (even the misspelled ones). Do we dare wash a delicate garment at home and risk ruining the texture or shrinking it beyond recognition?

Warnings are warnings, but there are exceptions to every wash ‘n wear rule.

With the help of our blog readers, writers and the experts, we have put together a list of myths we are happy to debunk to save you some precious bucks.

1. Washing sweaters will ruin the texture!

“Hogwash,” says EcoSalon’s Caitlin Fitzsimmons, whose mama passed on the tried and true method. “You need to wash in lukewarm water with a gentle detergent,” she explains. “Then lay it flat on a towel with the arms folded in. Fold in the corners of the towel and then roll it up – this lets you squeeze out water, without destroying the shape of the sweater. Repeat with a second towel. Then lay it out flat to dry.”

Image: Moline

2. Dry clean wool because it will always shrink up in the machine.

This one’s for the dogs according to EB, who has been washing his own wool blazers and slacks with a front-loading washer wool cycle for years. “Wool is fairly hard to shrink and doing so requires changes in temperature and agitation  from rubbing, scrubbing and wringing.” No washer for wool? He says use the same temp water for wash and the rinse, a friendly, wool-wash cleaner and minimal agitation. Squeeze dry, roll in a towel and lay out forming the correct shape on a flat surface. I heart this advice!

Image: Romeo’s Mom

3. Cotton really stiffens up when I clean it at home because of the hard water.

We all know hang drying is the most sound energy-saving way to go, but that can produce tough results, as well. Naomi tells us she cheats a bit by tossing her cotton into the dryer with a sheet for a few minutes before hanging dry and it does the trick. And don’t forget, there are some gentle water softeners on the market that won’t give you that Downy chemical rash!

Image: Luigi FDV

9. Dry Cleaning is convenient.

Unless you are as organized as my friend Jodi (keeping schedules is her side career), it could take several months to pick up your stuff at the cleaners. Parking can be hard unless you walk or take public transportation in the city (Carrie Bradshaw did it by cab). And very few cleaners pick up and deliver anymore. It’s just simpler to do most jobs at home.

Image: Flickr

10. Dry cleaning always extends the life of your clothes.

If your clothing can only be sustained by monthly trips to the cleaners, then you are buying the wrong kind of clothing. Our fashion editor, Amy DuFault, is a guru of stylish alternatives and you can follow her resources in the fashion section. Meantime, no one has proven that Perc or other solvents with enzymes are protecting the life of your garment. The truth is, if you are following the guidelines of frugal wash n’ wear experts, your clothes should last as long as they would when doused with toxins and sealed in plastic – perhaps, even longer.

Image: Coolslaw

Main Image : Wm Jas

The signs seem to be everywhere: We are becoming a more frugal nation that needs to be fed deals and discounts as we plow through increasingly difficult financial times.

According to a new report by the Associated Press, frugality is the now the new norm in America and it stems from necessity. We are working less and earning less while the costs of food, schooling and housing remain pressing obligations we struggle to meet. So everyone seems to be cutting back across the board – white collar, blue collar, affluent, illegal.

The report finds consumer spending will never return to pre-recession levels, unlike what we witnessed after all other recessions since World War II when thriftiness took a back seat to the demand for new cars and shiny goods.

But this recession has taken such a huge bite out of spending and our old ways, Baby Boomers are unlikely to return to the affluenza that got us here in the first place. While the new frugality is good for the family budget and the planet, it is hurting the national economy including everyone associated with the housing market (sellers, contractors, laborers, suppliers) as well as gardeners, handymen and domestics.

And anyone who hangs at the local mall has seen how quiet things are, as shoppers buy what they need and buy it on sale rather than loading up on seasonal items they can do without.

The auto industry has seen a huge decline, from sales of cars and trucks averaging 16 million a year in boom times to a recession level of 10 million a year. The result could be further consolidation among auto makers and a loss of new vehicle taxes that aid state and local governments.

The report cites a Gallup survey taken last month which found seven in 10 Americans are cutting weekly expenses consistently through the summer. This is linked to the worst downturn since the Depression with unemployment currently at 9.7 percent and rising to double digits before the end of the year. Those who have jobs are earning less and have lost sizable percentages of their investment nest eggs.

We have always seen frugal behavior in some Americans, those wise enough to save more than they spend, to reuse what they can, to eat leftovers and take public transportation, turn off the lights and the heat and air whenever possible. Without even knowing it, those people are the real deal when it comes to being green. And now as the rest of us jump onto that bandwagon, they can proudly say, “I told you so.”

Image: timparkinson

When I was young, still living at home, I’d leave the house for a run and hide my key under the potted plant near the front door. I’d never try this trick today.

Instead, I might use one of these simple Wrist Cuff Wallets I found on Etsy. They couldn’t be cuter or cheaper ($5) or easier to DIY.

Find any old cotton tee or sweat shirt and a couple of cool stamps like this deco flower and old Woodie truck and your do-it-yourself is done!

Tuck a key and a twenty inside the cuff and hit the road, or send your kids to school with their lunch money. Whatever the use, they’re too cute to not have one or two.

Easy to launder and comfortable to wear, my faves are the purple chrysanthemum (top image) and the olive green tree.

Can a hip bag ever be a hip bag? I can’t help but raise the question since they keep showing up. Years peacefully pass and then, oh! There’s another fanny pack, I mean hip bag.

My first hip bag was a navy nylon number I wore while trudging through Europe with a backpack and Eurail pass. It was a safe spot for my passport, but try making a quick, sanitary stop in a public restroom with one of those clamped around your waist.

Then Gucci came out with one a few years back and cleverly called it their “belt bag”. I spotted quite a few around town – then poof, they were gone.

But here they are again, this time in a practical, clever version at Etsy. Australia-based Happy Cow makes hip bags in all shapes and sizes using leftover leather scraps sourced from furniture manufacturers.

Check out the Waist Pack ($60) with plenty of pockets for all your stuff. It’s not just for traveling. The Hip Bag ($70) is the latest, greatest version from Happy Cow. It fits through normal pant belt loops (for guys), or loose around the waist (for girls). Might I go out on a limb and consider it somewhat stylish?

I need to hear from you, my fellow fashionistas, to decide once and for all. It’s helpful, but is it hot?

Just don’t call it a fanny pack.

- via Design Milk