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A Green Way for a White Day Here comes the bride, all dressed in … green? Eco-friendly gowns hit the mainstream.  Eco-friendly gown: Sustainable, biodegradable … and twinkly. Image courtesy Faernyn’s Grove Corsetry Think eco-friendly, not St. Paddy’s Day. The “green” wedding gown is a is corset/dress combo by fashion designer Renè Geneva, owner of Faernyn’s Grove Corsetry, Austin, Texas. The off-white gown is made of 100 percent sustainable biodegradable hemp silk with a two-foot train made of Luminex, a fiber optic woven fabric that appears to twinkle when light strikes it. The 60/40 hemp-silk blend fabric is shiny, soft and strong. But the traceability and sustainability of fabrics are just as important as their look, says Geneva, whose business works with a fair-trade, fair-wage, worker-owned cooperative in Nicaragua to produce some of her boutique orders. “Money is going where it’s needed most,” she says. “The fabrics, 100 percent sustainable and biodegradable, are produced in sustainable fashion and not grown using pesticides.” A friend who works as a green architect, and who happened to wear the green gown for her April wedding turned Geneva onto SBP-rated materials. The use of green materials – organic cotton and wool, hemp, formaldehyde-free silk, linen, Tencel (a wood-based fabric) – is increasing in popularity and being pushed by green organizations as eco-friendly alternatives to traditional wedding garb. When the fabrics are grown organically and presented in their natural color, or tinted or lightened with non-toxic dyes and without chlorine, the number of toxins released into the environment is greatly reduced. To eco-enthusiasts, nothing says helping the environment like saying “I do.” |
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