Just stumbled across Ecouterre’s list of the five hottest trends in green fashion to rock this summer, and it’s making us so excited for upcoming beach weekends and barbecues.

In a nutshell, now’s the time to break out your:

• Prints
• Nautical wear
• Ruffles
• Military details
• Girly sandals

Want to know how to wear them with eco-panache? Click on over to Treehugger.

As Mark Woods, Debenhams’ creative and visual director told the Daily Mail:

‘As a responsible retailer we want to help customers make the most of their beauty without bombarding them with unattainable body images.

‘Our campaign is all about making women feel good about themselves – not eroding their self belief and esteem by using false comparisons.

‘Not only does it make sense from a moral point of view, it ticks the economic boxes as well. Millions of pounds a year are spent by organisations retouching perfectly good images.

‘As a rule we only airbrush minor things like pigmentation or stray hair and rely on the natural beauty of models to make our product look great.

Those retouched waists are always so obvious, anyway, since much of the time they are ergonomically impossible.

This, by the way, follows Debenhams’ well-received test run putting U.K. size 16 (U.S. size 12) mannequins in its shop front this past February. Progressive forward momentum, we say.

(via The Cut)

“It’s happening like crazy,” Karen Young, chief executive of the Young Group, a consulting company that works with beauty brands, said of the increased prevalence of food in skin care. “We’re learning more and more about skin and nature, and about the interaction between the two.” Young said segments of the U.S. beauty industry are increasingly leaning toward natural, organic and homegrown products as customers veer away from chemicals and synthetics.

“In other parts of the world, it is normal to use food and elements of nature for medicinal or beauty purposes,” she said. “In America we are just waking up to that now.”

The article cites brands like the Body Deli out of Palm Desert, Calif., and Farmhouse Fresh from Frisco, Tex. One maker we can vouch for is Elique Organic Skin Food, which sources its foodie-quality ingredients from Los Angeles’s famed farmers markets. And coming this summer, Elique’s founder Elisha Reverby will be offering classes out of her salon in Venice, Calif., to teach students how to make their own eco-beauty products at home (details TBA here). Sign us up!

Wearable tech, as it’s known, is a look that has a lot of impact, making it popular among performers ranging from Bono and Lady Gaga. Rihanna wore her LED dress on stage in the Netherlands last month. This is definitely not a style for wallflowers.

Although it’s for that very reason that we question its practical applications for ethical consumers at large. Can you imagine wearing a Lite Brite shirt to the post office? And how exactly do you clean it?

Maybe it doesn’t matter — this is perhaps eco-fashion as art. Want more? Check out Ecouterre’s slideshow of seven celebrities showing off the high-fashion interpretations of the newest avant garde craze.

This year, FAA has expanded to become a complete festival collection – perfect for one of the hottest looks of the summer. To celebrate the launch, H&M’s Head of Design Ann-Sofie Johansson has lots of tips for styling the perfect festival outfit. “The festival look for girls is bohemian and cool,” says Ann-Sofie, “Try wearing a pair of denim hotpants with an oversized tunic top with lace detailing, a pair of gladiator sandals and, of course, a tote bag to carry around all your necessities.” Meanwhile guys should go for a look with attitude. “Wear denim with a print T-shirt, a military style jacket and a trilby to top it all off,” she says. “It’s great to be able to offer our customers a complete festival collection with all the things you need for an ultimate festival experience!”

Only problem is…it’s super trendy. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good charity collaboration. But the ’80s throwback of an acid-washed dress pictured at right is a miniature disaster, even on someone as daring as Katy Perry.

You can view the whole collection here. What do you think of the styles: fashion forward or fashion victim?

I admit this to you because a friend of mine has gone clog-crazy, all due to Karl Lagerfeld. And I feel like I haven’t helped.

What it boils down to is this: Chanel clogs are still clogs, and I refuse to believe that clogs can suddenly be high fashion. Comfortable as heels go, yes. Practical, sure. But fashion?

Much like the hyper-ballyhooed J.Brand Houlihan cargo pants, I fear that clogs are going to scream “2010!” in a New York minute. If you wore them together and took a photo, I bet in a couple of years you’d be able to narrow down when the snapshot was taken to within a few months.

Now, if you’ve been eagerly waiting for clogs to come back in style and have been searching forever for the perfect skinny cropped cargos, by all means, this is your moment. That’s your personal style, so ignore me and never be ashamed to flaunt it.

But a large part of ethical consumerism is avoiding fashion victimhood and not getting sucked into some quickly-dated trend just because Karl Lagerfeld told you it was cool. Know your style. End of story.

Along the way, she dedicated herself to raising money for the Akanksha Foundation, which benefits children in India’s slums.

With the long-awaited completion of the project this month, she has a lot to offer on styling and trends:

There is so much of fashion that is prescribed by magazine trends and looks that are seasonal. I think that’s the biggest problem with fashion. And some people really are stressed about getting ready.

The starting point needs to be identifying who you are and what do you like. Some people are hat people, others are belt people and skirt people. You have to try things out and see what you like yourself in.

Think you have the commitment and creativity to follow in Ms. Matheiken’s eco-footsteps? Pledge to join the 91-day Summer Light Challenge, sponsored by Green by Design.

I shared with her (and now, with you) my classics rule of thumb: Was anyone wearing this a year ago? Ten years ago? Twenty years ago? If the answers are no, no, and yes, then I qualify it as a trend that has resurfaced.

I told her (not unkindly) that this jacket in particular strikes me as an early ’90s Baby-sitters Club throwback. (Which, for the record, is not automatically a bad thing, as I so badly wanted to be Stacey at that time — diabetes and all.)

At the end of the day, it’s her purchase and her personal style. If she can see herself wearing this jacket for years to come, she should buy away and never look back.

But the classics club is really very small. Don’t be tricked by savvy marketers into believing that something is timeless if it’s really a trend in disguise.

Women’s Washed Denim Jacket, $69.50 at Gap.com.

For Earth Day, DailyGrommet.com reached out to a number of eco-minded blogs to share our No. 1 green-living tips. We were so happy to be included in such fine company!

Here’s what we contributed:

Don’t blindly follow trends, even if they’re being marketed as ‘green.’ You’ll produce less waste if you know your style and wear what you like, rather than buying into trends that haven’t truly stolen your heart. As with consumer conscience, personal style has to be individually tailored.

Readers, what’s your eco-pledge for this year? Post it in the comments below!

It seems like absolutely everyone is doing easy, casual shirt dresses for summer. So for the April edition of E.S. Eco-Over — where we take a hot trend and find a stylish equivalent from an ethical source — we suss out an eco-version of this season’s must-have for every brunch and baby shower on your to-do list.

We really like how Jean Paul Gaultier designed this Spring 2010 shirt dress, styling it with a corset belt. But at $1,080, it’s a bit too rich for our blood. Luckily there’s a just-as-stylish version by San Francisco brand Turk and Taylor, made from 90 percent organic cotton (and just a touch of spandex for body-conscious shape). And the price is juuuust right.

Jean Paul Gaultier Military Shirt Dress, $1,080 at BergdorfGoodman.com, versus Turk and Taylor Gentleman’s Blouse, $117.60 at BTCElements.com.