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On Wednesday night”, March 12, the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week as Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles featured a new program called The Green Initiative Humanitarian Fashion Show featuring 6 special brands, including Vintage China, M the Movement, Andira Rain T’s, Rene Geneva, Lilikoi, and Lady Muse produced by The Gallery Los Angeles. The fashion tent was packed with leading-edge designers, buyers, press, and industry leaders as one of the most popular shows of the week, which concurs with the movement in fashion that going green, or fair trade, is a necessary characteristic for the industry moving forward.

In Label Networks’ Humanitarian Youth Culture Study measuring youth culture perceptions of the environment, eco-friendly fashion, volunteerism, and other topics, it’s clear that among 13-25-year-olds in North America, eco-friendly is the course of the future. 58.7% of 13-25-year-olds say they are more aware of eco-friendly fashion today than they were a year ago, or would like to learn more. 16.3% buy eco-friendly if they can, and by age groups, 13-17-year-olds have the highest percentages that would “like to learn more.” Clearly, eco-friendly is the wave of the future of fashion, and brands representing that characteristic will become some of the new leaders in the industry.
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If the response from Wednesday night is any indication”, brands that were selected for The Green Initiative Humanitarian Show are among the leaders of this trend by setting new design standards. The show started with M the Movement and break dancers hitting the runway in gold-foiled men’s black T-shirts, moving right into the brands signature styles of cardigans, button-down sweater vests, and jackets with unique graphic embellishments.

Lady Muse had a violinist and ballerina start off her show, moving right into a runway of baroque long jackets for men and women with paisley-like patterns and oversized pirate cuffs, whereas Andira Rain brightened the runway with little girl models in her eco-friendly T-shirts inspired by thoughts and illustrations from kids from Central and South America who live in the rain forests. The brand donates school supplies to kids schools from this area. Lilikoi started with hula dancers before launching into a collection of bright, beautiful dresses, with an amazing black printed dress, and red silk dress with black prints.

Vintage China was one of the most anticipated brands in the show created by Andrew and Deacon from China. Andrew’s reputation as a designer from Dolce & Gabbana, Triple 5 Soul, and other leading brands have made him among the most respected in this field. Their show started with a spectacular preview of dancers in bright pink and turquoise. His collection inspired from the Forbidden City in Beijing featured unique denim pieces with metal bolts and back pocket embellishments similar to the ancient doors and temples of the city. The collection featured men’s and women’s designs, including unique silhouettes on hoodies with patterned hood linings, Chinese letters and symbols in crystals, plus splashes of the popular color red which has taken on new meaning in China fashion this year because of the Beijing Olympics debuting in September. The show ended with a spectacular recycled denim couture gown with layered pieces of different colored denim washes in a massive train that inspired the audience to clap in a standing ovation.

Rene Geneva Designs rounded out the final aspect of the show, clearly inspired by nymphs, faeries, and the forest but with a new-school military motif with black hoodie dresses, 3-quarrter length sleeves in black dresses and long coats, outside corsets, military green short coats with yellow silk hoodie linings, ending with a red silk little red riding hood inspired dress and detachable hood.

Each attendee was encouraged to take home a piece of bamboo in a Chinese vase that surrounded the runway, and gift bags provided by Sea-Bags.com created from old recycled sails topped off the evening. The after-party continued at Fred Segal Caf? on Melrose.

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