(Courtesy of Zappos.com)

Shoes are a tricky territory for eco-fashion lovers. If you avoid leather for environmental reasons, finding stylish, walkable shoes proves a recurring problem. But wearing pleather is neither comfortable nor ecologically sound.

So maybe that’s why we’re particularly drawn to Naya Shoes. Featuring chrome-free leather and suede, nickel-free hardware, biodegradable latex foam footbeds, and recycled elastic, these shoes take a holistic approach to eco-design.

In addition to its commitment to carefully considered materials, the company manages to stay on-trend. Rock the hot clog look with the Irina slip-ons. Try a T-strap on for size with the Timpa sandals. But our favorite? The pleated peep-toe Ana booties. Yum.

There’s a bunch of styles on sale at Zappos, so you can stock up on next summer’s sandals right now. (And with free overnight shipping, you can have them just in time for Labor Day festivities.)

Naya Shoes “Ana” Booties, $149 at Zappos.com.

C’mon — we may be ethical shoppers, but we’re still consumers. And most of us love a deal.

Sacramento stylist Kari Shipman of Juniper James poses in some of her thrift-shop finds. (Courtesy of JuniperJames.WordPress.com)

Lucky for us, ethical fashion has been largely a grass-roots movement, and many chic designers sport grass-roots prices. Online boutique Tobi’s eco-section is chock full of great dresses, jewelry, and accessories at great prices and even better sales. Etsy is a veritable wonderland of handmade and vintage goods with bargain-basement price tags. And your local thrift store is an easy and unique way to recycle your clothes and buy “pre-loved” clothes for next to nothing.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to get a second mortgage to support eco-fashion endeavors, and green looks great on you.

Of course, cheap eco-fashion is equal parts great find and big scam. In this issue, we look at both sides of the coin.

Kara, our DIY Doyenne, throws herself into a project of remaking old belts without spending a lot of money or time. It’s the kind of DIY you can do on your way out the door for dinner and a movie. Follow along with her tips here.

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be cheap: Plastic shoes and polyester clothing are some of the worst environmental and social offenders. How bad are they? Take a look.

Fall is a popular time for makeovers, perhaps because the heat finally abates and your makeup will finally stay in place. There are a whole host of great green options for 2010, and we put together this list of our favorite potions and lotions for under $25 a pop.

Finally, in Seam Ripper there’s always something new to be found by revisiting our top posts on cheap fashion from the Behind the Seams blog. And as always, it’s free to join the discussion in our comments section!

Recycled textiles are gaining on organics as the most popular material used by eco-designers, and for good reason. There is so much gorgeous fabric already existing in the world, whether forgotten in warehouses or stashed at the backs of closets.

In E.S. Issue 40, we tackle recycled fashion as the creative wave of the future.

• Recycled fashion gets designers’ creative juices flowing with startlingly original effects. We pay homage to the technological developments of making the best of what we’ve got.
• Kara Cook, our DIY Doyenne, has inherited a cherished leather laptop bag from our publisher, Trevor Martin. You should have seen her face light up: She was practically drunk with inspiration of how to put the supple, broken-in leather to good use. In fact, she had so many ideas, we’ve broken up the DIY projects into three parts. Volume 1 of The Leather Diaries appears here, and stay tuned for the next installment in the series, coming soon.
• As an element, gold is one of the easiest precious metals to recycle, and boy have jewelry designers picked up on that fact. Check out this slideshow of five amazing metalworkers and their glittering creations.
• Have a closet full of clothes that are almost right, but not quite? Or an eye for vintage, but no DIY hemming skills? Fear not. Our guide to tailoring will show you how much you can expect to pay to alter your beloved dresses, shirts, jackets, and pants.
• Finally, in the spirit of recycled content (it’s nice how that works out thematically), we bring to you Seam Ripper, our collection of five stories reprinted from the Behind the Seams blog. We hope to see you in the comments soon!

Want to see how others have creatively treated recycled fashion? Feast your eyes on the following from the Behind the Seams blog.

• Inspiration for the “Electric Love” rings must have struck Seattle-area jewelry company Grain like lightning, as the first version was the absent-minded result of being bored in an art studio filled with junk electrical wire.
• American Apparel’s upcycled vintage collection, California Select, is full of flirtatious ’50s-era dresses with a modern twist for fall.
• Speaking of dresses, we still love the form-fitting silhouettes of Tesco’s recycled-textile dresses in collaboration with From Somewhere.
• Poland made a bid to become the recycled-fashion capital of the world this spring with the second-annual RE-ACT Trashion Show, featuring exclusively upcycled and dead-stock designs.
• Here’s something for the men: Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale has Timberland boots with a recycled rubber sole and a lining made from recycled PET mesh and organic cotton. Prices go up August 2, so buy now to get 30 percent off these sexy eco-shoes.

If there’s one type of recycling in fashion that makes a world of sense, it has to be gold.

As an element, pure gold — the 24-karat kind — can be melted down and refashioned an infinite number of times with no change to its strength, shine, or molecular structure. It’s even easy to reclaim alloys, which are used to make the metal harder and more durable. Most frequently alloys are created by combining pure gold with nickel or palladium (for white gold), silver (for yellow), or copper (for rose), all of which are easy enough to extract and recycle as well.

The environmental impact of mining gold is a well-documented travesty, responsible for water and air pollution and displacing not just tons of earth per ounce but also the indigenous communities who have the bad fortune to live near a lucky strike.

Yet even high-end designers have found that there are literally tons of reclaimed gold available for purchase, meaning that no waste is created in the production of high-quality fine jewelry.

We profile five of these designers in the below slideshow. Click on any image to launch.

While of the three R’s, “reduce” is the one with the biggest measurable environmental impact — since if you don’t buy something you don’t need in the first place, you cut down on waste at the source — recycling is arguably the most fun. It’s where creativity comes into play. How else do you think we have developed the technology to turn plastic bottles into polar fleece, or soybean byproducts into sweaters?

A model walks during Sanlam South Africa Fashion Week, modeling recycled fashion from Clive Rundle's Spring/Summer 2009 collection. (Courtesy of Treevolution.co.za)

Recycled textiles are gaining on organics as the most popular material used by eco-designers, and for good reason. There is so much gorgeous fabric already existing in the world, whether forgotten in warehouses or stashed at the backs of closets. Trying to recreate silk shantung with a vegan alternatives just seems like a huge waste of everyone’s time. Rather than trying to reinvent the spinning wheel, why not just work with what we already have?

And it’s not just scientists and designers who are jumping on the recycling bandwagon, either. There are a million ways innovative fashionistas can tackle at-home recycling projects. And in this issue, we get our hands dirty with some of those projects.

Kara Cook, our DIY Doyenne, has inherited a cherished leather laptop bag from our publisher, Trevor Martin. You should have seen her face light up: She was practically drunk with inspiration of how to put the supple, broken-in leather to good use. In fact, she had so many ideas, we’ve broken up the DIY projects into three parts. Volume 1 of The Leather Diaries appears here, and stay tuned for the next installment in the series, coming soon.

As an element, gold is one of the easiest precious metals to recycle, and boy have jewelry designers picked up on that fact. Check out this slideshow of five amazing metalworkers and their glittering creations.

Have a closet full of clothes that are almost right, but not quite? Or an eye for vintage, but no DIY hemming skills? Fear not. Our guide to tailoring will show you how much you can expect to pay to alter your beloved dresses, shirts, jackets, and pants.

Finally, in the spirit of recycled content (it’s nice how that works out thematically), we bring to you Seam Ripper, our collection of five stories reprinted from the Behind the Seams blog. We hope to see you in the comments soon!

Over on Tesco’s U.K. website, The O.C. actress Mischa Barton is promoting 10 bags reportedly of her making.

However, we can’t help but notice the similarities between one of her bags and a design by a favorite eco-designer of ours, Novella Royale.

A key difference between the Mischa Barton Oversized Bowler (£45, or $70.25 in USD, pictured on the left) and the Novella Royale Mister Stud Bowler ($584, on the right) is that while Novella Royale prides itself on its high-quality recycled leather and organic cotton lining, the Tesco bag is made from polyurethane in Asian factories. Boo.

What do you think, E.S. readers? Is the similarity a coincidence or suspicious to you?

Having spent my formative years sopping up midday forehead grease with blotting papers, I’ve always been a bit skeptical of the new skin-care oils that purport to do amazing things for my complexion. However, I’m so glad I’ve given them a shot — they feel amazing and my face is so much the better for it.

Here are our top picks for your skin type:

• For normal skin: Josie Maran’s Argan Oil ($48) is a miracle worker for all skin types, sinking in instantly and eliminating those dry flakes you might get from acne or anti-aging creams. It’s also fair trade and grown by a women’s collaborative in Morocco.
• For dry skin: We have a lot of love for Kiehl’s products (just check our medicine cabinet), and the Midnight Recovery Concentrate ($42) is no exception. A blend of evening primrose, lavender, and squalene oil derived from olives, this paraben-free natural oil comes packaged in recyclable glass.
• For oily and acne-prone skin: There’s a lot to love about Desert Essence Tea Tree Oil ($8.99). Tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic and it makes a great toner applied to a cotton pad and swiped over affected areas — not to mention its price is exceedingly reasonable.
• For anti-aging: Marie Veronique Organics makes a wonderful Anti-Aging Oil ($70) that is totally vegan and free of nut oils for allergic folks. It is a blend of grapeseed, tamanu, and borage oils with a healthy dose of Vitamin E to keep your skin looking its youthful best.

The peak of summer can be a hard time, scent-wise. Especially if you live in a city, the heat can turn scents that you could otherwise ignore — like a coworker’s perfume or the pizza place next to your apartment building — into an overwhelming sensory experience. And not a good one.

Luckily, there are an absolute ton of refreshing and eco-friendly bath and body products to look forward to at the end of a brutal day. Perk up your senses with one of the following:

• Start a spa night off on the right foot with a pick-me-up bath. We love One’s I Need This! Natural Bath Fizzer ($5.99) for its zingy scent of lemongrass and totally recyclable packaging.
• Love the energizing smell of crushed fruit? Then you’ll want to dig into the Cranberry and Pomegranate Sugar Scrub ($13) by Burt’s Bees. The exfoliator gets down and dirty on dry patches and calluses, and the ingredient list is practically edible.
• Work on your tan without heading to the Hamptons with a generous application of Lavera’s Self-Tanning Lotion ($19.86) — which gradually builds your healthy glow without the use of nasty chemicals or an even nastier fragrance.
• Lavanila’s products are already well-known among eco-beauty cultists, but now you have even more of a reason to buy up. For every product sold through its website, the company will plant a seedling through the Nature Conservancy. Our pick? The lushly floral Vanilla Blossom perfume ($58), which combines rose, orange blossom, and jasmine with Madagascar vanilla.

Fellas, know that we love you, we just have such a hard time finding well-priced eco-fashion for the men. But today, success!

Timberland’s “Chelsea” boots from its Earthkeepers collection are about to go on sale during Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale, starting Friday. (See Page 79 of the online catalogue.)

Timberland’s website describes the eco-features so nicely, we want them to come in women’s sizes too:

Our Earthkeepers™ range features tough, rugged footwear made with the environment in mind. Thanks to moisture-wicking linings made from recycled materials, organic cotton content, rugged outsoles made with Green Rubber™ material and the all-day softness of leather from a silver-rated tannery, they’re durable, lightweight and always a talking point. This is laid-back comfort — with a conscience.

What all that means is a sole made from 42 percent recycled rubber and an organic cotton canvas lining that also incorporates 100 percent recycled PET mesh fabric. And more urban-rugged style than you can shake a stick at.

Timberland Earthkeepers “Chelsea” Boots, $99.90 at Nordstrom.com (starting July 16).