“I was just shooting in Belize and in St. Tropez and I met this homeless man who had never owned a shirt in his life. He had taken his pants and worn them as a shirt and I just thought it was so creative, you know? He was just liberated from the conventions of fashion.” —Julia Stiles mocking green & celebrity fashion lines as well as, maybe inadvertently, Erin Wasson.

Simon Doonan’s one of our favorite New York fashion figures and we hardly ever turn down a chance to hear him speak.

Especially when he’s talking with someone of Stefano Pilati’s caliber.

The two will sit down to discuss the launch of YSL’s “New Vintage” Collection at Barneys’ Madison Avenue flagship tonight from five to seven. When the collection was first announced, we scratched our heads over what “New Vintage” would mean exactly.

Turns out it’s a selection—exclusive to Barneys—of classic YSL pieces cut from the unused cloth left over from recent seasons. It’s pretty much the chicest sort of recycling we can imagine.

The two’ll talk fashion on the second floor—see you there!

—AMANDA JEAN BOYLE

Remember Mavi Jeans?

They’re working their way back into the denim world with their new organic line. And in honor of keeping Earth Day going year round, because it doesn’t count if you’re green for a day, they’re giving you a free pair of totally organic, totally awesome jeans.

Well, one of you.

Tell them in three sentences or less why your year round green efforts deserve a new pair of jeans.

Do you save your pennies for Stella and Loomstate? Do you only buy vintage? Do you DIY your favorite runway trends?

Email work@fashionista.com by tomorrow at noon!

Happy Earth Day!

Or should we say, “Happy day for everyone to jump on the green bandwagon and prove themselves eco-conscious?”

Because there’s a slight problem with a lot of brands that call themselves green - they’re not actually. And most of the time, the ones that are truly 100% organic don’t exactly work - or don’t exactly smell perfect. In my beauty years I’ve waded through heaps of alleged organic, natural and biodynamic products, some worked well and others shouldn’t be allowed to exist.

And so, in honor of Earth Day I’ve rounded up a list of my favorite eco-friendly and efficacious brands. If you haven’t tried any of these and really want to go green, I’d suggest stocking up on the following products.

—MEGAN MCINTYRE

Lily Cole just made us feel really bad about our socks.

Because in her forward for the book, Green is the New Black, by Tamsin Blanchard, she explains how exactly your socks might have caused some undue damage to the world, and well, we’ll let you read all about it for yourself after the jump.

On a side note, it’s nice to read something from Smarty Miss Model that holds up to her reputation as the intelligent one, no?

Because we have to say, we were impressed.

Whenever we’ve thought of JC Penney (which was pretty much never), we never thought “cool” - until this morning.

WWD reports that the mega cheap chain is putting its green money where its green mouth is with a self-sustaining initiative to be completed by this November.

JCP’s planning on harnessing solar and wind energy to power ten stores and a distribution center in Reno, in addition to certain stores in California and New Jersey just to start out.

Needless to say, we’re very impressed that someone is finally taking up one of the easiest ways to generate power cleanly and efficiently (if you have the money, of course), and amazed that it’s a chain like JCPenney and not Whole Foods or Barneys, or one of the many other stores that consistently put out green initiatives that usually deal with us buying something to make it happen.

Maybe if there were artist collaborations with windmills, everyone wouldn’t be so opposed to them? Maybe JCP can get Marimekko to paint some poppies on their windmills - efficiency and beauty - then we’re sure everyone would think they’re cool.

“But in an industry that thrives on newness, what will next season’s trend be? A backlash in favour of all things artificial and plastic - a nu-syntheticism? Call us cynical, but right now fashion is at risk of being greenwashed: subject to a superficial treatment that will bleed out in the next cycle of fashion seasons before it has a chance to become fixed. The result will be considerable consumer confusion - and ennui.” - Fiona Harkin, on the eco-fashion trend, in the Financial Times.

Lutz & Patmos’ smaller, eco-friendly line, Leroy & Perry, is returning for its second season for this Fall - and what kind of friends would we be if we didn’t let you in on the sneak peek?

The collection’s small, just like the very first one Tina (Lutz) and Marcia (Patmos) designed for this Spring. We don’t know how we feel about the mustard cape (click through) but we’ve already bookmarked the little vest at left to pair with a loose tee, tiny shorts and strappy sandals for October.

The line began with a conversation between Lutz & Patmos and Barneys - Barneys lamented that they could never find any good sweaters to sell, so Tina and Marcia spawned Leroy & Perry (named after the streets they each lived on when they first moved to New York) for Barneys Green. Most of the clothes are eco-friendly, and 1% of all proceeds go to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Each piece retails for under $300, which we could live with - though you can buy the Zampa Tunic from Spring on sale for $169 right now…

Last week, we raised some hell about big companies making t-shirts that say “recycle” and “earth day” - even though the companies are major polluters, and exactly 0% of their clothing is 100% natural.

Someone at the Wall Street Journal must have heard us, because their Sunday fashion story broke down which major fashion companies claim they’re “green,” and which of them actually are environmentally and/or socially considerate.

Among the winners in the article are Loomstate (left), Patagonia, and Timberland - the latter two because they make their clothes and shoes with recycled materials; the denim because it comes from organic cotton.

Meanwhile, Edun gets a gold star for using fair trade fabrics and encouraging poorer global communities to sustain themselves through fashion endeavors - although the WSJ says fair trade companies can’t be 100% “green” because they use major fossil fuels to ship their clothes to America and Europe.

But the labels the WSJ says to avoid at all costs are the ones claiming their bamboo fabrics are “Green.” Although bamboo is a sustainable plant, the chemicals used to break it down to soft fabric are toxic, which cancels out the whole purpose.

The article is great and very informative, but we wish they’d mentioned one more option for recycle-friendly shoppers: Vintage! Wear something really gorgeous from the ’90s! It won’t end up in a landfill, and you’ll end up on the Sartorialist!

Confession: I love Lindsay Lohan.

I know. It’s bad. I can’t help it.

I love her and her leggings and her comedic timing and her oh-so-cool bad girl ways and I can’t help but worry about her desperately failing career.

So I was thrilled to read in WWD that she’s landed herself a job.

Unfortunately, the job description made even me, a true Lindsay lover, cringe. The troubled starlet’s “turned her attention to ethical fashion,” a cause she’s failed to mention in the past twenty-something years.

The campaign in which she stars aims to encourage clothing donations to an outpost in London’s Covent Garden in exchange for credit card points.

We love the idea, the cause and the reward, but why is Lindsay posing in vintage clothes for its promotion?

And will she really encourage people to get fashionably green?

Tomorrow night’s events roster includes a fashion show benefit in support of Bobby Kennedy’s Riverkeeper Foundation and the Amazon Conservation Association.

The show will take place at the Hilton Ballroom, and will also be the premier of Maggie Norris’ eco-couture collection - we don’t know what that’s going to look like, but here’s a fun detail:

Lydia Hearst, newest Gossip Girl addition, will be strutting her stuff on the runway.

Her sister, Gillian, and Lauren Bush will be in the crowd, no doubt table modeling FEED bags.

If you were planning on using some old t-shirts as rags or just bottom-of-the-dresser-drawer fluff, you might want to hang on a couple more weeks.

Starting April 13, all Barneys stores will accept all those “vintage” tees from Urban you bought when you first started school, and hand them over to Loomstate so Rogan Gregory can turn them all into a way cooler limited-edition t-shirt collection to be sold exclusively at Barneys for the holidays. Proceeds will benefit 1% for the Planet, and the whole thing is sponsored by the Sundance Channel.

If it strikes you as a rip-off to return to Barneys after eight months and buy back your own old stuff (mixed with a bunch of other people’s old stuff), take comfort in that you’ll receive a 20% discount on the line (and on other Loomstate) for exactly fifteen days in April.

And if the whole thing strikes you as a little too cool for green, you could at least show up to the kick off event at Barneys on the 22nd to be DJ’ed by, of course, Paul Sevigny.

We all know green is the direction to which department stores (many kinds of stores, actually) have been inching.

Barneys’ holiday window theme was green, Nordstrom just announced its own earth-friendly plans, and now JC Penney is labeling all organic/renewable/recycled products with a “Simply Green” sticker to help shoppers make more environmentally conscious purchases.

And as much of a help all these different moves are for the greater cause of slowing down harmful effects to the planet, we’re starting to wonder, when will the inching stop and the real all out changes begin?

We’re surprised that no major stores have announced any plans to go completely green. We’re sure there must be little ones dotting the country somewhere, but when will major retailers like Kohl’s or Macy’s set a standard of totally sustainable practices? Like, solar-powered stores, totally recyclable bags - or better yet, charging people to use new bags - or selling clothes only from designers who watch their own environmental effects in their work?

We realize this is a long shot and is probably decades away, but we’re already sort of wondering who will be the first. We think it’ll start with a smaller but well known store, like Barneys of Maxfield, and then eventually the bigger chains would have to follow suit.

The question is, will we see it in our lifetime?

Nordstrom is following in the steps of Barneys by going a little greener.

The Seattle-based department store introduced a reusable shopping tote to West Coast shoppers this past Saturday, featuring a cityscape illustration by Ruben Toledo; the tote won’t be available in Nordstrom stores across the country until later this year.

And for those of us either unwilling to part with $22 (the cost of the bag,) or too forgetful to bring the tote along on shopping trips, they’re getting ready for another green initiative - 100% recyclable shopping bags and gift boxes.

As of right now, the bags are only partially earth-friendly due to propylene handles; but those will soon be replaced with cotton ones, which will be filtered into stores while the old ones phase out, a move that should be completed by September, just a couple months before the new and improved gift boxes should complete their own transition.

We’re are all for this and hope that other retailers, big and small, follow suit. The next logical step? Companies like Urban Outfitters and Victoria’s Secret laying off on the 70 or so catalogs we get in the mail every five seconds.

Things fashion people frequently use in competition:

*Whose dress size is smaller.

*Whose dinner invitation is more exclusive.

*Whose runway seat is closer.

*Whose swag has the greatest resale value.

*Who knew that guy was gay first.

But now there’s another better-than-you prize to add to the pile, and it’s this:

Whose eco-friendly bag is the most green.

Today the Times UK reports “forget designer handbags - the eco rating of your handbag says more about you now.”

But we’re going to go ahead and say “no thank you” on this one.

After all, if you’ve started shopping with a big permanent tote, instead of the plastic or paper sacks given endlessly to girls at the supermarket, at Saks, or at Sephora, you’re already doing wonders for the planet by reducing the amount of waste that goes into the world.

And although it’s great to buy organic cotton, or recycled aluminum, or whatever else can make an amazing tote bag, your chosen sack shouldn’t be something that makes you feel guilty - “Oh my gosh, I thought I was being so eco-conscious by reducing my plastic bag use, but it turns out my Fendi tote was made with oil and electricity!”

Lugging groceries and Christmas packages around town in your reusable bag is certainly enough of a workout. We’re not sure the extra baggage of beating out everyone else’s eco-tote is really worth it (and anyway, we prefer finding our new bags on Etsy, to support emerging artists).

We finally saw the Barneys windows last night, and they’re pretty hysterical -

Plastic bottles cut to look like Christmas lights.

Reindeer made from soda cans.

Recycled paper subbed for snow.

But one thing struck us as odd - that the windows screamed for a Green Christmas, but their flickering lights seem to suck energy the way we devour Skittles.

Surely they must be solar powered? Fueled by little running mice? Something?

Determined to figure out the exact shade of Barneys’ Green, we approached their fashion director, Julie Gilhart, at the Calvin Klein party last night.

“I don’t know the specifics on how much energy the windows use,” she said candidly. “But of course we use electricity, we use energy - but nobody can decide to go totally green overnight. It’s a process. We’re making a huge effort to be as green as possible, and to spread awareness to our community so they can start making adjustments, too. And we’re really proud and excited about that… isn’t the reindeer fun?”

The reindeer is totally fun, yes.

We appreciate Barneys being both honest and aware with their eco-promotions, even if their Loomstate organic jeans are still a little too expensive. And the recycled plastic windows are a neat concept - maybe next year for the solar panels. And the cheap organic jeans. Please.

Barneys is really pushing the green thing this year.

First, Creative Director Simon Doonan decked out their window with a recycling Rudolph.

Now you can watch him in the hilarious video at left, interviewing Fashion Director Julie Gilhart about all the green products shoppers can buy from Barneys for the holidays.

But is it just us, or does Simon kind of sound like the street vendor hawking broken lamps in the beginning of Aladdin?