(Pixiebell/Etsy.com)

Excited for fall yet? We are — we’re having dreams of cozy layers and camel coats every night, it seems. One of the hottest trends for cool weather we’re looking forward to most is the chunky knit. And this is one trend that the eco-movement has adopted with gusto.

Etsy is a wonderland for hand-crocheted head gear; we’ve picked our well-priced handmade favorites below.

• Beanie: HeadThreadz’s Slacker Beanie ($20) will appeal to your inner hippie. This unisex hat is handcrafted from vegan-friendly acrylic yarn in a loose knit, making it a nice weight for transition weather (but perhaps a bit light for the dead-of-winter cold).
• Beret: Make a big first impression with SavannahDreams’ Hot Pink Beret ($21). It’s knitted from cotton yarn with a pretty ridged design that will dress up and down with ease.
• Cloche: Pixiebell’s Knit Cloche Hat ($35) is the answer to your flapper dreams. The ’20s style hat is snug fitting and made from a soft wool blend. We particularly like the amber button and the pitch-perfect goldenrod color for fall.
• Fisherman’s cap: Stay snuggly and stylish in AlliGiori’s Fisherman Slouch Hat ($19.50). The tight weave will keep you warm against the worst winter can throw at you.
• Newsboy: BTRFlyMom’s Celebrity Style Newsboy Hat ($24) would enable you to fit right in among Hollywood’s boho crowd. The cotton hat features a twee brim and can be customized with a knit flower for an extra $2.

(Courtesy of NYMag.com)

New York Magazine‘s fashion blog The Cut is sponsoring a personal-style contest for its readers, soliciting photo submissions of who’s wearing what around the country. Today, the blog highlighted this reader, who we agree looks stunning in her vintage look:

It was hard choosing a favorite, but Cut reader CourtneyPrince (pictured) just looked so elegant in her veiled fascinator, fashioned from hand-dyed vintage velvet and ostrich feathers, we couldn’t resist plugging her. So, congrats CourtneyPrince, you’ve inspired us to forget for a minute that Gossip Girl pretty much ruined feather headpieces and actually give the plumed look another go.

No matter what The Cut says, we still are fascinated by fascinators.

Want to give the look a spin yourself? We love Ban.Do’s vintage and handmade hairbands, or you can give it the old college try with a DIY.

(Courtesy of Glamour.com)

I know I’m not the only one who delighted in DIY fashion starting around junior high.

Bedazzled cut-offs, Fimo necklaces, friendship bracelets, taking Sharpies to our Chuck Taylors — every summer and winter break, my friends and I were all over craft projects to customize our style. (Sometimes I still find glitter embedded in my parents’ living-room carpet.)

Now Seventeen magazine has an online DIY fashion feature to help tweens and teens make their own clutches, fringe-accented tanks, and beaded headbands à la Taylor Swift. It’s enough to make me wish we had the Internet when I was wee.

You have to love that the projects are age-appropriate and easy to follow, tapping into the creative spirit that surges during adolescence.

And I will even admit that the results look way better than my Puffy Paint jobs of yore.

(Courtesy of the Andean Collection)

Anthropologie is known for gleaning its inspiration from handmade and artisan-made goods found in bazaars and flea markets around the world, but most of the time the products the retailer sells are replicas. Until now, when E.S. favorite the Andean Collection scored a big gig producing its fair-trade tagua bib necklace for Anthropologie shoppers.

The Andean Collection hires artisans in Ecuador to produce its line of jewelry, enabling them to earn a decent living without having to leave their families behind to find better job opportunities in the U.S. Most of the line’s jewelry incorporate nuts and seeds native to South America. Tagua, also known as “vegetable ivory,” was once the most commonly used material for buttons until plastic went mainstream in the 1920s.

For more about the Andean Collection’s mission, check out this essay written for us by the line’s founder and designer, Amanda Judge, and browse more fair-trade pieces in the company’s collection here.

“Perfect Skippers” Necklace, $68 at Anthropologie.com.

(Courtesy of FlynetPictures.com)

Ever wonder what makes $500 sunglasses from Bergdorf better than $10 specs from the drug store? The Wall Street Journal recently set out to learn just that.

It turns out almost all brand-name sunglasses have a lot in common:

Do you prefer the “quality” of Ray-Ban to Oakley? Do you think Bulgari is better than Dolce & Gabbana, or Salvatore Ferragamo is better than Prada? Wake up. They’re all made by one company, Italian manufacturer Luxottica–one of the biggest consumer companies that consumers have never heard of. Luxottica also makes sunglasses branded Burberry, Chanel, Polo Ralph Lauren, Paul Smith, Stella McCartney, Tiffany, Versace, Vogue, Persol, Miu Miu, Tory Burch and Donna Karan.

“We manufacture about 70% of those brands in our factories in Italy, and the balance in America and China,” says Luxottica spokesman Luca Biondolillo. “We do the design, the manufacturing, and the marketing,” he adds. The company makes most of those brands under license, working closely with designers at the relevant fashion houses. But it owns several brands itself, including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Oliver Peoples and REVO. …

Luxottica also owns LensCrafters, Pearle Vision and Sunglass Hut.

The bottom line: Quality-wise, there’s nothing that those $450 Oliver Peoples Aero 57s can offer you that a cheapo pair of aviators from Sunglass Hut can’t.

Navy TOMS are a classic ethical purchase, and today you can get them half price from KaightShop.com, courtesy of Lucky magazine.

That’s just $24 for a comfortable pair of kicks in versatile navy that the company will match with a shoe donation to a child in need. Wear yours with jeans, skirts, khakis, shorts — you name it.

Just click here, add to your cart, and enter code LUCKYDAILY2 at checkout for the discounted price.

We love it when one good deed leads to another, and following in TOMS Shoes’ charitable footsteps comes the Portland-based 141 Eyewear, a eyeglasses company that donates prescription glasses to people in need.

Kyle Yamaguchi, one of the company’s co-founders, tells us:

The premise behind 141 is simple: For each pair of 141 Eyewear purchased, we give a new pair of glasses to a person in need. No portions of proceeds. No percentages. One Four One.

Our entire line is handcrafted in Japan from the finest plastics and materials; so we aren’t asking our consumers to sacrifice quality or style to make a difference.  I think we do a great job of combining a great fashionable product with a great cause.

Earlier this year, the founders traveled to typhoon-ravaged Taiwan and fitted 200 people for glasses in its first 141 Eyewear Clinic. More clinics are to come, so this is one company worth keeping an eye on.

Swiss luxury jeweler Cartier has filed suit against members-only shopping website HauteLook.com for allegedly selling counterfeit, damaged, and secondhand jewelry bearing the Cartier name.

Cartier reportedly bought five watches from Hautelook to check them for quality, and the inspection resulted in the lawsuit. In it, Cartier says Hautelook never “partnered with Cartier and is not an authorized dealer of Cartier’s merchandise.”

According to Reuters:

HauteLook is “causing immediate and irreparable harm to the Cartier brand and trademark,” Cartier said in its 36-page complaint filed on Tuesday evening in Manhattan federal court.

Cartier claimed that HauteLook has sold used Cartier watches despite maintaining on its website that it “never” sells “secondhand merchandise, ever.”

It also said HauteLook has also sold Cartier goods that were damaged, were shipped in the wrong packaging, or carried defaced authenticity certificates, and sometimes included a Cartier warranty booklet though the warranty did not apply.

Cartier is rumored to be asking for more than $2-million in compensatory damages. At best, this is an “oops” of major proportions; at worst, it’s fraud.

It might take a certain body shape and degree of confidence to pull this one off, but we can’t help but admire The Glamourai’s take on the summery caftan using two vintage silk scarves, thrift-store jewelry, and minimal sewing skills.

She selected two scarves of similar size (31″ square) and pattern, stacked them, and stitched an oversize hourglass outline down the sides to match her proportions and allow the excess fabric to drape around her body. Then she attached four grommets and threaded through mismatched goldtone chains as straps.

That’s it! DIY in hardly any time at all, and no cutting required. We also love how she accessorized it with YSL sunglasses, luxe bracelets, and a woven belt — all vintage.

More detailed instructions and photos can be found here.