There’s nothing we like better than a Chanel cropped tweed blazer worn casually with jeans, a little black clutch, and a dash of French perfume, but the real deal isn’t affordable on a writer’s budget.

Instead of going the illegal knockoff route, why not turn to a handmade copy?

Etsy seller BluesyMod must have had Coco on the brain when she designed this pink, black, and white houndstooth blazer. We love how she’s styled it on the hanger with costume pearls and a lacy camisole.

Mademoiselle would approve.

BluesyMod Lady Audrey Cropped Jacket, $56 at Etsy.com.

Are taboos universal? Do you know taboo when you see it? Or are you so desensitized to scandal in fashion that you feel like nothing shocks you anymore?

In E.S. issue 16, we analyze the remaining taboos in fashion for what’s “been there, seen that” and what still requires the smelling salts.

Read up on:

• Weight bias, both in the pages of fashion glossies and in the world at large.
• Nudity in advertising, and why a bare nipple is fair game in France but scandalizing in the U.S.
• Media watchdog groups that have been trying to get Cosmopolitan and Glamour banned from supermarkets on moral grounds for years.
• Provocative runway moments — as you might expect, the ever-outrageous Jean Paul Gaultier and John Galliano have a few entries on this list.
• A roundup of our blog entries on scandal in fashion.

Today Torontoist interviewed Aileen Telesforo, one of Canada’s bright young stars in the brilliantly creative reworked-vintage segment of the eco-fashion industry.

The designer for the custom line Sifted (featuring an awesomely contradictory tagline: “new retro vintage”), Ms. Telesforo is currently hard at work on a new collection that will design edgy, ’80s-influenced street styles from raw vintage fabrics.

An excerpt from the interview:

Are you working on the fall collection now? What’s inspiring you?

Yes, I am working on a limited collection to launch the company this fall. My greatest inspirations are my parents’ way of dress while I was growing up, so I’m referencing their old photo albums and such. I’m going for a strictly old and new balance. Retro is definitely my influence.

How do the clothes you make differ from those at, say, Preloved?

My vintage company, Sifted, is on a more personal level, doing only one-offs based on the individual client. So, I’d say my work is more custom-made re-design. And for my clothing line, Ama and Ina, I am incorporating raw vintage fabrics—as in, never before used—which makes the line completely limited. I think people can appreciate that.

Can we ever!

Elique Organic Skin Food is a skin-care brand based in Los Angeles that relies on fresh organic ingredients from the farmers’ market in its formulations. So fresh, in fact, that the company recommends storing some of the goods in the fridge!

We just had to try them out, so we ordered a jar of Cake ($20), Elique’s cleanser for congested and dull skin (and it also doubles as a restorative mask). Made with certified organic almond meal to exfoliate, honey to moisturize, and apple cider vinegar to tone, this thick concoction goes on sticky but left us glowing in a spent-the-day-at-the-spa way. We’re also pretty sure you can eat it, but with the strong vinegar, you might not want to.

Our order also came with two generous samples of Whipped ($20), the company’s best-selling body moisturizer. Featuring a safflower and avocado oil base, locally harvested beeswax, and lavender essential water, by some magic it smells faintly of oatmeal cookies. (We’re not sure why either.) But we can’t dispute how well it works: Our skin drank it right up.

Other products in the enigmatically named lineup include Taut ($35, an antioxidant serum for eyes), Mane ($18, a scalp treatment and split-ends repair), and Spirit ($34, a brown sugar body scrub). Everything is mixed by hand and subject to ingredient availability, but if you’re interested in supporting a small business that puts everything it has into its products instead of its packaging, give Elique a whirl.

After months of anticipation, it’s finally here: Wear a Gown to Work Day.

Auntie says:

Imagine a future where your grandchildren click onto Wikipedia while researching the first-ever Wear a Gown to Work Day in order to write a report for their fifth-grade English class, and there on the website is a photo of you in a glamorous gown with a caption reading something like ”Glamour pioneer Nathalie Atkinson.”  It could happen!  Anyone can edit Wikipedia.

Sage advice.

But in the short term, why hold on to those gowns if you’re not going to wear them? In these economic times? Sell them. Donate them. Or knock down your cost per wear.

Friday is May 29. Time to glam it up.

(Courtesy of WhiteKnot.org)

Earlier this month, we brought you the scoop that designers like Kenneth Cole and Alex & Chloe were teaming up with the Human Rights Campaign for marriage-equality advocacy.

Now Levi Strauss is joining the cause. This week, the San Francisco-based denim brand has festooned mannequins in its retail stores nationwide with white knots, the symbol of support for same-sex marriage.

Gawker points out that Levi’s has been a friend of gay rights for some time, featuring Perez Hilton in an advertising campaign and buying up advertising blocks on gay-themed cable television network Logo. The company also filed an amicus brief with the California Supreme Court last fall to outline the ways that allowing same-sex couples to wed would stimulate the local economy. 

Levi’s is not officially affiliated with White Knot for Equality, a marriage-equality nonprofit group, but officials for both organizations say they have been in contact to align their messaging.

The Wall Street Journal wrote today on how the recession is affecting the sales of bling in the hip-hop community.

Conspicuous consumption has become a calling card among rappers as a way to signify success in the business. It was just two years ago that rapper Lil Jon commissioned a five-pound necklace that spells out “CRUNK AIN’T DEAD” in 3,756 round brilliant diamonds and gold worth $500,000. (It was recognized in 2007 by in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest diamond pendant ever made.)

But now, at a time when the stock market waffles from day to day, hip hop’s biggest names are scaling back their jewelry shopping. Some have even turned to cubic zirconia — a stone that begs fewer questions ethically, but crumbles the wearer’s credibility among the colleagues he hopes to impress.

Or as the WSJ put it:

Hip-hop artists aren’t eager to admit to thrift, and numerous rappers rumored to be trading down declined to talk about the trend.

“You gotta understand, it is every rapper’s fear to be exposed as a fraud,” said Gregory Lewis of Brooklyn, who posts conversations with artists on the Internet under the alias “Doggie Diamonds, the interview king.” “If you admit you wear fake jewelry, it is over for you. It’s like bragging you drive a Lamborghini when you really drive a Toyota.”

Lawyers for eBay can look forward to another bonus: A British court has ruled that eBay is not responsible for the fact that many of the L’Oreal beauty products available for sale on the auction site are counterfeit.

Increasingly frustrated by the number of fake perfumes and cosmetics sold through eBay, L’Oreal took the website to court in Belgium, England, France, Germany, and Spain. Similarly, Tiffany and Louis Vuitton both sued eBay for the same reason in the past year and both also lost.

In a statement, eBay called the British court’s ruling “a victory for consumers and the thousands of entrepreneurs who sell legitimate goods on eBay every day.” L’Oreal’s lawsuits in the other countries are still pending.

We just caught wind of an awesome little charity collaboration that makes dainty bracelets out of recycled guitar strings from some of music’s biggest names (John Mayer and Eric Clapton, anyone?).

Wear Your Music will customize your wrist art by engraving your initials on the reclaimed silver clasp. The bracelet comes packaged in a recycled DVD case and sports a certificate of authenticity so you know you’re really getting a piece of rock history.

Participating musicians represent every genre of music and include Santana, Death Cab for Cutie, Jimmy Buffett, Carrie Underwood, Ani DiFranco, and Metallica.

Bonus: A portion of the proceeds will be donated to each musician’s charity of choice. And the pledged percentage and charity are clearly marked in every listing, so you get to learn which causes are near and dear to your favorite singer’s heart.

Prices range from $50 to $500. For more info, visit WearYourMusic.org.

Actress Cameron Diaz has the June cover of Vogue and in an interview talks about how she is the “green queen” of Hollywood:

When movie execs think of her, they naturally think green, and we’re not talking about the ecologically sensitive kind of green. We’re talking dough. When everyone else thinks of her, they are likely to think of the noncurrency kind. In her (hybrid electric) car, you recognize right away that she seems to think of herself as falling somewhere in between. Her recent MTV series, Trippin’, was a travelogue that explored environmental concerns, a celebrity twist on the nature shows of the sixties, with Cameron taking the rapper DMX camping in Yellowstone, or Eva Mendes to explore Nepal. A New York Times critic praised Cameron for combining “school and recess” in the series: “She has learned to speak authoritatively about siltation and dynamite fishing and overpopulation, all in her surfer-girl vernacular.” She wasn’t using the show to make herself more of a star; she was using her celebrity to lure young people to the cause of conservation.

Which is something to note about Cameron Diaz early in the trip, before we get too far from L.A.: She’s clearly not looking to be a poster girl for the environmental movement. She is there for the environment if it needs her, buying carbon offsets with no great fanfare, making ecologically sensitive shopping choices quietly and happily. She is trying hard not to preach or scold. Of her Prius she says, “It’s just a car.” She has had one for years, before they became (her dream come true) popular. “It’s just a choice people can make.”

Cameron models a variety of eco looks (like the exquisite 3.1 Phillip Lim natural silk dress pictured above) in the accompanying photoshoot, so we’d like to extend a challenge her way: Please feature these ethical designers on the red carpet during your press tour for My Sister’s Keeper! Your endorsement of the ethical fashion industry could really go a long way — not just in the theory of a glossy magazine spread, but in practice as well.