Hey guys — looking to keep warm this winter? You might have to dig deep to avoid looking as fashionable as “a microwavable kebab.” Hilarious men’s fashion writer Alexis Petridis bemoans the state of faux fur for men in the U.K. Guardian:

Once, they were the height of louche sophistication, the kind of thing the Rolling Stones wore while looking elegantly wasted. Perhaps the rock star’s penchant for fur coats hastened their fall from grace: by the late 70s, they had become associated with a rock aristocracy so irritating that people felt impelled to form Sham 69 and spit at each other in protest. The moral argument has an impact, too. You want fake fur to look like the real thing, but too much and you risk Chrissie Hynde chaining herself to you whenever you step outside.

So, there aren’t many about: I ended up with a too-small women’s one, which made me look as louche and sophisticated as a microwavable kebab.

Mr. Petridis can take heart that plenty of vintage fur exists on eBay from the very era he’s trying to channel. No word yet whether Mick Jagger is ready to part with his old coats, though.

Going in the opposite direction of V Magazine’s “Size Issue,” which featured all plus-size models, the U.K.’s Love magazine has published nude photographs of eight of the world’s top supermodels — complete with their bust, waist, and hip measurements.

Love’s editor tells Vogue it’s all about showing diversity in beauty:

“For this issue of LOVE, we took eight women who are generally acknowledged as the most beautiful in the world, got them to show off their bodies – widely regarded as the most perfect in the world – and photographed them all in exactly the same position for the cover,” LOVE’s editor-in-chief Katie Grand told VOGUE.COM. “We did this to show how much they differed physically from one another, which is why we also printed their measurements.”

“The point is that ‘perfection’ is not fixed, timeless or transcendent,” Grand – who put Beth Ditto on the cover of the first ever issue ofLOVE – explained. “It varies, as the measurements of our cover girls show.”

The photos are provocative to be sure, but with nary a plus model or unconventional beauty among them, we’re not sure that the point about “perfection” in flux is well made. Is the difference between a model with a 23 inch waist and a 24 inch waist so great that we don’t recognize the same-old when we see it? And isn’t reducing these women to mere numbers a little dehumanizing?

(via The Cut)

Prince Charles is reportedly planning new initiatives to bring wool back into fashion by promoting it as a green alternative to other textiles.

According to Luxist.com:

The Prince hopes his efforts will help make wool more popular once again for both clothing and carpet and rugs. Wool has a bad reputation as being bulky and itchy but the new push for wool plans to highlight the green benefits and beauty of wool compared to synthetic materials. Modern wool fabrics are also sleeker and softer and are being used in more innovative ways by top designers showing up in traditional Savile Row suits but also in wool bags from Marni and trendier pieces from Burberry and Paul Smith.

The Prince has his own organic flock of sheep and is aware of how lowering wool prices have affected farmers. British wool competes with wool from Australia, New Zealand and China among other countries.

In addition to the new label, Prince Charles is planning to help plan Wool Week, which will precede London Fashion Week this fall. Wool Week will be sponsored by British chain Marks & Spencer.

The U.K. Telegraph took issue with V Magazine’s “Size Issue” this month, questioning whether the theme was merely “a publicity stunt”:

It includes a photo shoot with heavier, semi-clad models proud to flaunt their curves. The debate over plus-size models enflamed last year when Mark Fast, the fashion designer, decided to use size 14 models at London Fashion Week. At the same time, the popularity of Crystal Renn, the size 14 model, suggested that curvier models were becoming more acceptable.

Do you think the fashion world should use more plus-size models? Is it a welcome tangent to the size-zero debate? Or perhaps you think this photo shoot is just a publicity stunt? Which would you rather look at?

The headline and last question reveal a bit of journalistic bias on the part of the Telegraph, in our opinion. Curvier beauty ideals aren’t contrived — it’s simply not true that thinness has been universally prized throughout human evolution. Including plus-size models in magazines is about accurately representing the fact that plenty of women of size also want to dress fashionably and fashion rags are now beginning to respond in kind to that desire.

For more about the ethics regarding plus-size modeling, check out this post about Mark Fast and another about blogger backlash over Glamour’s similarly minded plus-size fashion spread.

A dress from Mark Liu's "Unicorn" collection for Spring/Summer 2010. (Courtesy of Stique.com)

If you aren’t already familiar with Mark Liu’s work, you will be soon. The 27-year-old fashion dynamo is resonating in the European fashion scene for his ethical fashion philosophies. He’s best known for his Zero Waste technique of cutting fabric such that none is wasted, and he’s eager to spread the word to other up-and-coming designers in the eco-world.

A graduate of the prestigious Saint Martin’s College with a master’s degree in textiles futures, Mark has pioneered a method of cutting fabric that reduces textile waste by 15 percent. He uses every scrap of the fabric in some way, from lining to embellishment.

We caught up with Mark a few weeks ago just as he returned from giving a talk at the Beyond Green symposium in Amsterdam. Read on for his thoughts on what he calls “the next generation of sustainability.”

Can you explain your Zero Waste concept to us?

You always start with that rectangle, but then you cut it in jigsaw patterns that fit together perfectly. It’s much more efficient. By the time you have made seven dresses, you have one “free” garment.

No sewing means tying knots and using tension. The more I practice, the better I get at it. A little trial and error. Well, a lot of error.

I’m keen to scale up to see if this will work. There’s something about putting money behind it that creates pressure, and mass production is where you actually see a savings.

You get to wear the process on your body. In an unpredictable world, the safest thing to do is the impossible. No one sees it coming.

Your next collection for Fall/Winter 2010, to be presented in February, is tentatively titled “The Breakdown of Logic.” What can you tell us about it?

It will have fewer cut edges, more sealed edges, and more tailoring with 3D sculptural elements and texture. I was inspired by Gödel’s completeness theorem. I use math to express myself — looking at feedback systems, envisioning how the final product changes the cutting process.

I imagine the collection going very high end with the hand-cutting, but I also want it to be very accessible. I work on commission only right now and make very limited editions. But I want to have everything sell out and have nothing left. Otherwise I’d rather not make it. It goes against the Zero Waste philosophy.

Do you work with animal products?

I was really affected by the Cradle to Cradle book on sustainability, and now I’m preparing for the next generation of sustainability. Leather is terrible for the environment. It’s a combination of animal parts and chromium, which is a serious pollutant. Nontoxic tanning processes don’t really exist, so I’m very skeptical of “vegetable tanning” of leather. That’s true for a lot of green things. Soy inks leach chemicals, FSC-certified paper is inferior quality, some plastics are not meant to be recycled. A bottle was never designed to be eco-fleece, for example.

Fur is quite different, though. We can’t recreate fur as beautifully as nature has. It’s not good to wipe a species out, but there are societies that have been using it forever. So I don’t jump to conclusions.

Who are your favorite designers?

Issaye Miyake, Yoshi Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo from Comme de Garçons. They know fabric, they know technique, and they keep pushing the boundary.

Who would you most like to dress?

Summer Rayne Oakes. She is savvy about fashion and she has a good eye. Any smart woman, really. You don’t have to be a movie star. You just have to care.

“According to some religions, violence in support of your passionate beliefs is right. According to others it is wrong. But from my point of view one of the biggest problems with using these kind of tactics is that you legitimise the use of them by your opponents. … Violence (against property or people) breeds violence. Once you step outside the legal framework you lose all protection for yourself.”

– Guardian columnist Bibi van der Zee on animal-rights activists who engage in property destruction and other acts of violence against human beings to protest violence against animals.

Thoughts?

An Oil of Olay print advertisement featuring 60-year-old supermodel Twiggy has been yanked in the U.K. for misleading the public.

The Advertising Standards Authority concluded it was photoshopped so heavily, the results were far beyond what any topical anti-aging product could promise.

The ASA explained in a press release:

“[W]e considered that the post-production re-touching of this ad, specifically in the eye area, could give consumers a misleading impression of the effect the product could achieve.

“We considered that the combination of references to ‘younger looking eyes’, including the claim ‘reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger looking eyes’, and post-production re-touching of Twiggy’s image around the eye area, was likely to mislead.”

Procter and Gamble, which owns Oil of Olay, admitted only to “minor retouching” of the photo for the ad.

This newest retouching scandal goes right to the heart of the question we’ve asked before: Are we so aware of such clearly altered images that they no longer bother us anymore? Or does the constant exposure to airbrushed images have a cumulative effect on shaping unrealistic ideas of beauty, particularly in older women? Share your thoughts below!

(via Salon)

Laura from T5M.com — who recently brought you the highlight reel from Estethica at London Fashion Week — let us know about “18 Degrees of Inspiration,” a new initiative to combat climate change through fashion.

Featuring a selection of top models, musicians, and actors from Great Britain, the program unites fashion-forward celebs with environmental charity with Global Cool to show U.K. fashionistas — and really, the rest of the world — how dressing to stay warm indoors can reign in energy use.

Models like Laura Bailey, Stella Tennant, and Jo and Leah Wood, musician VV Brown, and Eastenders’ Adam Croasdell filmed a series of shorts to encourage everyone to set the thermostat to 18 degrees Celsius (or 64 degrees Fahrenheit).

Designers lending their handiwork to the effort include Dolce and Gabanna, Alexander McQueen, Antipodium, and Diesel.

You can watch the other four videos here to get inspired to bundle up!

Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham, Alexa Chung — why is it that all the It Girls from the past decade have sported British accents? We traveled to London to find out, and in the process met with several up-and-coming designers and hit the shops hard. Issue 26, themed “The British Invasion,” is all about what makes this city tick. We bring you the following goodies today:

• Ada Zanditon, the pixie-sized dynamo who first captured our attention last year, is poised to become one of the industry’s most creative and celebrated names. Read up on her nuanced and layered view of the language of fashion.
• Ready to become an Ada Zanditon fan, if you weren’t already? Feast your eyes on her spring/summer 2010 collection, “A World Without Bees.” And bonus commentary: Ada in her own words on the many layers of the design you don’t see.
• We also checked out The Organic Pharmacy, a wonderland of homeopathic health and beauty remedies for whatever ails you. The main store is in London but the good news is that the first U.S. location just opened in Beverly Hills. We tell you about their can’t-miss products (and name a few splurges for our Christmas wishlists).
• Next, Madison brings you “The Fast and the Furious,” an overview of Britain’s biggest fast-fashion chains and the protests they seem to regularly attract. Whether it’s against sweatshops or fur, the biggest retailers always catch a lot of flack — some of which is justifiable, and some of which isn’t.
• Finally, take some time off from shopping this Thanksgiving weekend to catch up on the best of the British archive from Behind the Seams. You may have missed something good!

If the eco-fashion movement had a capital, for certain it would be London. No other city in the world is producing the top talent and innovative ideas that London is, and at such a steady clip. It’s the home of Estethica at London Fashion Week, the biggest ethics-driven fashion show on the planet, and the place that so many forward-thinking designers call home.

Alexa Chung, a former British model who now hosts "It's On with Alexa Chung" for MTV, is one of the freshest faces to jump the pond. Here she poses on her Union Jack bedspread in her Brooklyn apartment. (Courtesy of Smokeye.com)

London’s fashionable influence has been infiltrating the U.S. as well. Topshop is tearing up the New York City fashion scene with its party-ready frocks and shoes. British model Alexa Chung now hosts It’s On with Alexa Chung on MTV, fresh off a stint of interviewing designers galore for Gok’s Fashion Fix in England. And not to show our hand too much, but we’ve discovered that Behind the Seams posts tagged “U.K.” are regularly among our most popular.

No question about it — London is where it’s at. So we decided to see it for ourselves.

Fresh off a weeklong trip, we could not be more excited for the future of green fashion. We met with several up-and-coming designers and hit the shops hard to find out what makes this city tick. And now we’re ready to preach the good word.

Shortly after arriving, we had tea with Ada Zanditon, the pixie-sized dynamo who first captured our attention last year. In our humble opinion, she is poised to become one of the industry’s most creative and celebrated names. Read up on her nuanced and layered view of the language of fashion, and then feast your eyes on her spring/summer 2010 collection, “A World Without Bees.”

We also checked out The Organic Pharmacy, a wonderland of homeopathic health and beauty remedies for whatever ails you. The main store is in London but the good news is that the first U.S. location just opened in Beverly Hills. We tell you about their can’t-miss products (and name a few splurges for our Christmas wishlists).

Next, Madison details an overview of Britain’s biggest fast-fashion chains and the protests they seem to regularly attract. Whether it’s against sweatshops or fur, the biggest retailers always catch a lot of flack — some of which is justifiable, and some of which isn’t.

Finally, take some time off from shopping this Thanksgiving weekend to catch up on the best of the British archive from Behind the Seams. You may have missed something good!