Great news! Levi Strauss & Co. and U.K. charity Forum for the Future have jointly launched a new project to urge the fashion industry to collaborate on sustainable development with an eye to the future.

The Fashion Futures project includes a sustainability report and the production of four videos that envision what the world will be like in 2025 (focusing on the role the fashion industry plays in helping bring that about).

Says Peter Madden, CEO of Forum for the Future:

“The global fashion industry generates a trillion dollars a year. What we wear – and how it’s made and sold – can have a huge positive impact on our society and environment. This report describes how fashion’s future could be greener.”

You can watch the “Slow Is Beautiful” video above, and the other three mini-movies — titled “Community Couture,” “Techno-Chic,” and “Patchwork Planet” — can be viewed on the Fashion Futures website.

We just saw Nine last night and were swooning in our seats over the gorgeous costumes from 1960s Italy. All that glamour and slinkiness and femininity — meow!

So we were delighted today to find this slideshow entitled “Movie costumes that started fashion trends” on the Los Angeles Times website. Some of them you’re familiar with — Diane Keaton popularizing menswear in Annie Hall, Jennifer Beals’s legwarmers and off-the-shoulder tops in Flashdance, Faye Dunaway rocking the beret in Bonnie & Clyde — but some were surprises. We hadn’t considered that Brad Pitt in Fight Club was the one responsible for bringing back vintage tees and ’70s-era colored leather jackets (particularly among hipster enclaves, the L.A. Times notes), but the timeline fits.

Some of these movies we had completely forgotten about. (Gleaming the Cube and its asymmetrical haircuts, anyone? Time to reorganize the Netflix queue!)

Which of these have at one time or another influenced your personal style?

Los Angeles designer Johnny Sakalis has big ideas for the future of fashion. Best known for appearing on the most recent season of Project Runway, Johnny demonstrated his flair for color and glamour before being eliminated in the controversial fifth episode after the newspaper challenge.

EthicalStyle.com sat down with him over brunch this month to talk about Project Runway, Lady Gaga, and what he sees as coming up next for the eco-fashion movement.

A sketch from Johnny Sakalis's upcoming Fall/Winter 2010 collection, inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald in the 1930s. (Courtesy of Johnny Sakalis)

A lot has been made about the situation surrounding your elimination from Project Runway, where you were accused of lying about why you scrapped your first dress in the newspaper challenge. Was it hard to cope with the pressure of the show?

The hardest part was how people who blogged about Project Runway were so hateful to me before we even started. I had to stop reading them. They took the fact that I’m sober now for granted, and I’ve been sober four years. How can you do that?

To be perfectly frank, I could try to defend that episode until I was red in the face. But they don’t care if it’s true or not. They just wanted the drama of it.

It was a good time, though. I have a lot of friends from the show — Qristyl, Malvin, Irina, and Ra’mon-Lawrence.

You graduated from the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) and you’ve been living in Los Angeles for a while. How do you think the city influences your aesthetic?

I’ve been living in Southern California my whole life. L.A. is a microcosm of everything. Our fashion district is seven times bigger than New York’s. And it’s very multicultural. I always think about mishigoss — Yiddish for “mess.” If I want to jump into a different culture, I walk across the street or take a bus. You soak it in.

Would you rather design something classic that will be worn time and again or something outrageous?

As a young designer, you have to be ready to do both. From a saleability perspective, you want to have that return customer with a closet full of staples and one or two showstoppers.

I like bringing out people’s inner beauty. As long as you’re comfortable, that’s all that matters. Trends are evil. Maybe I’ll do more wedding dresses. But they’re expensive, and I’m obsessed with detail and hand sewing.

What is the most frustrating part of the design process?

Besides all of it? [laughs] Not having inspiration.

You’ve said your favorite designer is Alexander McQueen. Do you have any thoughts about Lady Gaga, since she’s been wearing a ton of his designs lately?

He’s been wearing a ton of her, actually. She’s great, her style is off the wall. I dig it. But he knew what he was doing when he dressed her for that video [for "Bad Romance"]. He knew it was going to be huge.

You’ve used fur in past collections. Will you continue to use it going forward?

I don’t use any fur when there’s been a drop in the population in the wild. But when you use local traps and native traps, you’re keeping an entire community alive.

I’m not using ermine or Siberian tiger or seals or anything too exotic. People have to realize it’s not all bad. It’s something we as human beings have been doing since we came out of the primordial soup.

As long as I know fur farms aren’t torturing their animals — I mean, I’ve watched the PETA specials, which I find a bit graphic — then I don’t have a problem with it. They’re not all like that. You have to do your research. You have to know where your fur is coming from: the conditions of the farm, the treatment of the animals.

Here’s why I don’t use faux fur: So much pollution, so many chemicals, and so much energy wasting goes into it. It’s not biodegradable, it’s not rewearable, it’s not renewable. I have my grandmother’s furs from the ’30s and ’40s that are impeccable. Fur is extremely sustainable and in most cases, if taken care of properly, it can keep forever.

What do you think the future of fashion looks like?

Sustainable fabrics. Manufacturing certain fabrics is horrible. The dyeing process is horrible. People don’t realize how many petroleum-based products are used in the dyeing and treating process of some fabrics — faux fur being one of them. I think people think the future will be avant garde but we should be shooting for a smaller carbon footprint.

Who would you like to dress?

Can I pick someone who’s not alive? Rita Hayworth or Jean Harlow. I love old movies. Or Charlize Theron or Angelina Jolie. Classic beauties.

So what’s up next for you?

I’m currently working on Fall/Winter 2010. My inspiration was Zelda Fitzgerald and the 1930s. I was inspired by her biography [Zelda by Nancy Milford] — she wanted to be a flapper, she wanted to be a mother, she wanted to be all these different things. I had to honor her.

Congratulations to the Andean Collection for being featured on this morning’s Today Show segment on “Holiday Gifts That Give Back”!

The Andean Collection’s founder Amanda Judge wrote a thoughtful essay on the importance of fair trade for E.S. this summer, following a trip she took to meet with the Ecuadorian artisans who make her jewelry by hand using polished seeds and wood and other natural materials.

You can watch this morning’s entire segment here. Who knows, you might just find the perfect gift! (Or expand your wish list, as seems to always happen to us.)

Accented Tagua Necklaces, $34 at TheAndeanCollection.com.

We had the good fortune of sitting front row at The Battalion’s fashion show last night at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. Themed “L’Atelier de Danse,” the eco-couture collection featured fabrics like pro-modal, bamboo, regenerated cotton mesh, and dead stock lace in ballerina-esque silhouettes. As designers Chrys and Linda Wong wrote in the show’s notes:

If women are going back to the basics in the coming seasons, we want their clothes to be simple but sincere. We want their wardrobe staples to be wearable, but dreamy. We want them to dance, dream, and fall in love like the dancers who have inspired this collection.

And a surprise: All of the shoes and jewelry came from Forever 21!

The shows for Downtown L.A. Fashion Week so far this year have been in the coolest spaces (see also Ximena Valero’s show at the historic Los Angeles Theatre).

We’re uploading photos from the show to our Facebook page today, but you can get a sneak peek at the gorgeous finale above.

“With my line, I really want to give the customer options on how they can put their own looks together. I want the pieces that can be easy to dress up or down, and the fabrics being eco-friendly and organic are superimportant. Also, the tags will all have some of my inspirational quotes on them. I’m just looking to send a good message.”

– Teen idol and Disney actress Selena Gomez to Women’s Wear Daily on the launch of her new feel-good fashion line Dream Out Loud, due in stores next year. Pictured above: A look from the debut collection.

Last week, Los Angeles-based American Apparel laid off 1,500 factory workers who were unable to prove that they were in the country legally.

A federal investigation uncovered roughly 1,800 employees who were illegal immigrants or had other problems with their employment record, and while the company officially says it is “very disappointed and disheartened” at having to make this decision, it was in American Apparel’s best interest to dismiss them — at least until the immigrants can apply for legal working status.

The situation is heartbreaking all around and it calls to mind the Emmy-winning 2007 documentary Made in L.A., which follows the plight of the Los Angeles Garment Workers Center.

Airing on PBS (in collaboration with Latino Public Broadcasting), the documentary focuses on three garment workers employed at Forever 21, and what they had to endure so that shoppers around the world can buy low-priced clothing.

Lupe Hernandez has 15 years of experience working in Los Angeles garment factories, having left Mexico City at age 17 for a better life in America. Maura Colorado had to make the heart-wrenching decision to leave her three children behind with family in El Salvador so she could come to Los Angeles to support them, but without legal status, she has been unable to return home to visit them. María Pineda emigrated with her husband from Mexico when she was 18, and after 23 years of domestic abuse and earning next to nothing at a hard job, she questions her self-worth. 

These women and countless others just like them decided to take a stand for self-empowerment in 2001 through the Los Angeles Garment Worker Center. The advocacy group is run primarily by children of Asian immigrants, but despite language and culture barriers, they worked together to fight for their rights.

The story pits David against Goliath as the Garment Worker Center takes on Forever 21, the fast fashion brand that ran the factories where the three women work. Despite being an American company, Forever 21 uses a sweatshop business model. Workers at the Los Angeles garment factories work 10- to 14-hour days without breaks for meals or the use of the restroom, in poorly ventilated facilities for far less than what their American-born counterparts are paid. Typical wages are far below the state minimum, and frequently go unpaid or missing overtime.

To fight these and other abuses, the workers led a boycott against Forever 21 and issued a public challenge to shed some light on the apparel company’s reliance on low-wage labor right here on American soil.

The film chronicles the long campaign to bring a huge company to justice. Watch as the garment workers sue for unpaid wages and overtime owed by the company’s contractors and organize rallies outside stores and even the home of Forever 21’s CEO, Do Won Chang. 

Made in L.A. sends a powerful message about economic injustices that aren’t merely a problem in poor and developing countries.

To view the documentary, you can order it from Newsreel.org or check local listings for a repeat airing on PBS.

In celebration of Fall Fashion Week, Turner Classic Movies asked legendary designers Todd Oldham and Manolo Blahnik to name the 15 films that have had the greatest impact on modern fashion designers. 

Rebel Without a Cause naturally made the list because it’s the movie where James Dean set the coolness bar for men’s fashion. “Even I had his red biker jacket,” Blahnik wistfully remembers.

The list includes films starring the pantheon of sartorial muses from the golden age of Hollywood cinema, including Katharine Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Clark Cable, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, and Steve McQueen.

Without further ado, the top 15 in chronological order:

1. Pandora’s Box (1929)
2. Letty Lynton (1932)
3. It Happened One Night (1934)
4. Pat and Mike (1952)
5. Rear Window (1954)
6. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
7. And God Created Woman. . . (1956)
8. Auntie Mame (1958)
9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
10. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
11. The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
12. Shaft (1971) 
13. Annie Hall (1977)
14. Saturday Night Fever (1977)
15. Flashdance (1983)

We are longtime fans of LUSH and its organic, vegan, and packaging-free bath and body formulations. (We love to give baskets of their solid bubble baths and massage oil bars as baby and bridal shower gifts — they’re always well received!)

On Monday, the Santa Monica location hosted an open audition for young women aspiring to be on the dating show Millionaire Matchmaker. We have to say, for a company that does so many things right, LUSH really had a misfire here.

The show, if you’re unfamiliar, sets up youthful model-types with generally gross rich guys on the hunt for a trophy wife. If you’re not a cynic, it’s really hard to root for the pairings to work out.

And the message of the show also seems to go against LUSH’s feelgood stance. Frankly, watching Millionaire Matchmaker feels more like a cold shower than a hot bath.

We’d like to remind the company to take a hint from its bestselling Karma bubble bar and continue their search for partnerships with positive meaning.

It’s no secret that we’re seriously into Mad Men and counting down the minutes until the show returns on August 16. So in the spirit of Joan Holloway, this week’s Friday Etsy Find is a vintage ’60s era dress that will show off all your curves.

Whoever made this dress 50 years ago designed it with a feminine waist in mind. The measurements indicate it would fit a modern size large. Seller VeraVague reports it’s in good condition with some minor pilling — and that minty green color would look spectacular against pale skin.

Mint Julep Smoothie Summer Spring Dress by Gezon, $26 at Etsy.com.