When lightning strikes, you don’t ignore it. And there must have been a thunderstorm the night that architect Julian Hakes dreamed up “The Mojito,” the shoe pictured above. (Yes, that’s a shoe!)

In homage to designers everywhere who are pioneering such extraordinary techniques and materials, our “Design Issue” examines a sampling of the eco-designs that have seized our attention with an iron grip.

• Kara takes a magnifying glass inside your shoes to see what makes them so durable that you can literally walk in them for miles.
• Ethical collections from up-and-coming designers rocked fashion weeks across the globe, but if you didn’t make it to the one nearest you, here’s a summary of what you missed.
• Naomi from MyGreenLipstick, our favorite British eco-boutique, returns with her top picks from the winter collections. And in the spirit of the season, she bestows a 20 percent off code exclusive for E.S. readers! Click here for more info.
• Madison put together this year’s slideshow of the best of winter’s coats in the hottest proportions, since you’ve probably got your eye on one.
• And speaking of proportion, this season has been a veritable cornucopia of exaggerated silhouettes. Here are a few choice examples of designers tackling the trend in a big way.

We can’t help but admire a well-organized closet, one with matching hangers, shoes in neat rows, and an intuitive method of locating all your favorite stuff. (Unfortunately, in practice, we wouldn’t know what that’s like — the perfectly edited closet remains a pipe dream for us.)

The shockingly beautiful and unique storage systems by Cleveland Art make us want to put our clothes on display. Jason Wein crafts every gorgeously designed piece from salvaged machines literally from the junk yard:

While working at the family salvage yard as a young man he saw the potential of industrial machinery and surplus being repurposed and recycled as functional design for the home, office and retail setting. For well over a decade now, Cleveland Art has been at the forefront of vintage and recycled industrial design.

In keeping with this tradition, Cleveland Art also uses steel, wood, and glass to manufacture selected lines of furniture, lighting, and retail display for clients throughout the United States and abroad. These clients include architects, interior designers, hotels, restaurants and retail stores. The simple design of each piece coexists seamlessly with modern and traditional décor.

And we want those simple designs to coexist with our clothes! Check out the company’s inventory of dressers, clothing racks, mirrors, and other getting-dressed essentials here.

Andira International’s line of graphic tees boast three ways consumers can feel good buying them: The brand’s Rain Tees are 100 percent organic, manufactured adhering to fair labor practices, and support a financial pledge to a rainforest charity. And did we mention they are totally fitted and cute?

The benefiting charity at hand is Kids Saving the Rain Forest (KSTR), a Costa Rican nonprofit founded by a 9-year-old in 1999. In the 10 years since, KSTR has supported programs that focus on education, preservation of tropical rain forests, and maintaining property in the rainforest where it operates a wildlife refuge and has planted more than 6,000 trees.

Andira Logo Rain Tee, $37.99 at MyEarth360.com.

Here’s one for the vinties: Doris Raymond is the owner of The Way We Wore, an acclaimed vintage boutique in Los Angeles. But the only thing more impressive than her carefully curated shop is her personal collection of clothes from the days of yore.

She shared thousands of her outfits with the Wall Street Journal recently:

Clothing rods installed from the doorway and along every wall are stuffed with icons of their eras, like Paco Rabanne’s 1960s metal minidress, a tweedy fringed suit designed by Coco Chanel, a Balenciaga suit by Cristobal Balenciaga and an original Diane von Furstenberg wrap in size 14—back when a 14 was more like today’s size eight. Above the rods are shelves with hats, shoes and handbags, including an Hermès Kelly bag and a pair of boots from the atelier of Paul Poiret, the man who eliminated the corset. A set of shelves divides the floor in two, creating space for delicate pieces in boxes.

Wearing a brilliant-blue chiffon dress from the late ’50s-early ’60s, Ms. Raymond tried to pick a few of her favorite things—while calling it an impossible task. There is Thierry Mugler’s colorful rainbow-like dress with peek-a-boo panels, circa 1990, and a rare black Christian Dior dress designed during Yves St. Laurent’s brief stint as head designer at the house of Dior in the late 1950s. The piece has both designers’ fingerprints—the feline curves of Dior and the powerful strokes of St. Laurent.

Are you sitting in a puddle of your own drool yet? If not, check out the WSJ’s exclusive photos of this mystical closet here.

Pictured here: A vintage coat by Cristobal Balenciaga for sale at TheWayWeWore.com (price upon request).

Just a reminder that SeaWeb and Lilly Pulitzer’s big NYC party is tomorrow night, and E.S. readers are invited!

The deets:

The cocktail reception will be held on Thursday, October 29 to celebrate the launch of Lilly’s coral-inspired Resort 2009 collection and marks the commencement of a year-long Lilly Goes Green campaign for the brand.

Open to the public, guests are invited to sip Pink Lilly’s while they shop the collection including the feel-good piece of the season, the Coral Me Crazy medallion necklace, with 10 percent of the necklace’s proceeds benefiting SeaWeb and their coral-conservation efforts.

We also found these Coral Me Crazy ballet flats on her website — super cute!

The party is going to be at Lilly Pulitzer’s Manhattan flagship store (1020 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.). Interested? RSVP by calling (212) 744-4620.

We were so happy with our discovery of DenimTherapy.com and its miraculous rehabbing of our favorite jeans that we decided to test out a local option to see how it stacked up. Our search led us to the Denim Doctors, located inside the Hollywood Trading Company in West Hollywood.

And — success! They fixed a broken zipper on a beloved pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans in about 10 days for $22. (We plan to wear them out tonight in celebration.)

Man, this shop just drips with cool. Today we chatted with Ben (pictured right) about what else the store has going for it — other than flawless denim repair, of course — and it turns out he’s a curator of vintage belts, leather jackets, and boots. He told us women’s combat boots are a specialty, and showed us a pair of motorcycle boots from the 1940’s that they recently resoled.

When we asked about Fryes (a die-hard E.S. favorite), he said he prefers the older ones that were union-made to the newer styles, so we have a feeling this is a guy who knows his stuff.

The Hollywood Trading Company has shops throughout Europe, Australia, and Asia, so if boots and belts with street cred are your thing, give them a second look.

Denim Doctors/Hollywood Trading Company, 7383 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif. (323) 964-0080.

Call it “blink mink”: This controversial story about false eyelashes made from mink fur appeared yesterday in a newspaper in Canada, where many fur farms have started producing the high-end fringe popularized by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Oprah, and Madonna. And with prices for the falsies falling, they’re becoming more and more popular among mere mortals as well.

Producers of the lashes say the beauty product is cruelty-free because the fur is harvested through careful brushing of the animals (which reminds us, we have to brush our dog). PETA pooh-poohs that claim and blasts the fur farms for existing in the first place.

There are benefits to using mink lashes instead of synthetics, the manufacturers say. They are much more natural looking and can be re-used up to 10 times, as compared to synthetics which must be thrown away after one wearing.

Where do you fall in this debate? Would you wear eyelashes made from mink fur?

New York’s famously gorgeous Plaza Hotel recently underwent an extensive 3-year remodeling, opening again last year. But those of you who heart NY can own a piece of the original with these gorgeous necklaces and pendants made from authentic door numbers and letters.

Jewelry designer Lisa Salzer stumbled across this treasure chest of bronze and brass in a New York antique store that had been given the hotel’s discarded door numbers. She bought the whole lot and created these unique items under her label Lulu Frost.

A little bit tough and a little bit sweet, these necklaces combine a heavy bronze chain and a dainty silk ribbon. And numbers and letters are both available, if you’re a monogram kinda gal who eats breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Lulu Frost Personalized Plaza Initial Necklaces, $395 at CharmAndChain.com.

Jackie at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store — Los Angeles’s biggest — pitched us a great story this morning: What if Halloween trick-or-treaters used thrift stores as resources for their costumes?

The thrift store has a huge costume section — she sent us the pics to prove it — where you can score the perfect ensemble for just a few dollars. And it’s a good reminder that even if you go store-bought, you can donate your Capt. Jack Sparrow or Little Bo Peep duds after the holiday so someone else can wear them next year.

And she tells us:

Every penny that you spend goes to Society of St. Vincent de Paul which helps many people in poverty in Los Angeles and helps them fund their Cardinal Manning Center for the homeless and Circle V Ranch camp for inner city kids among other programs.

Of course, you may want to ponder whether trashing irreplaceable vintage is the best idea, but at least with St. Vincent de Paul, your money is going to charity.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul Los Angeles Thrift Store, 210 North Avenue 21, Los Angeles, Calif. 90031. (323) 224-6280.

PETA protestors set up shop in India this week in conjunction with the annual international leather fair held in New Delhi.

One of the protest’s organizers, Akraprava Bhar, said the group wants to raise awareness about animal cruelty:

“The three-day international leather fair started in Delhi today (Friday) and our aim is to raise awareness on how animals are treated before they are turned into leather shoes, bags and other products. We encourage shoppers to choose synthetic and natural-fibre materials instead of animal skin,” Bhar told IANS.

Once again, the protestors say they want to make people aware that animals die for leather goods, when really what they seem to be doing is attacking the farmers who spend their lives tending to their livestock. In most of India, cows are sacred and treated with respect. Is it a fair accusation to call all farmers murderers when it’s most likely a trade and a herd that’s been in their families for generations?

We don’t have much of a problem with leather due to the fact that it holds up better in the long run and requires less toxic pollution than the production of plastic and polyurethane alternatives to leather. Of course, this is a personal decision: You must know what you believe before you can shop according to your beliefs.