Wedding Dress Disolves in Water

I came across this wedding dress on one of my regularly-checked eco-blogs, Inhabitat. Birthed from a partnership between engineering and fashion students from Sheffield Hallam University in South Yorkshire, Engalnd, the dress disolves in water after the big day, creating five new looks. 

According to this article about the project, textiles have become the fastest-growing waste product in the UK. Last week, I payed a visit to the new H&M Raleigh just received at Crabtree Valley Mall, a retailer the article sites as a frontrunner in the low-cost, high-consumption division of the retail industry. A wonderland of trendy garments coupled by low prices means that the store can rapidly run through styles and keep the line of mall-goers, arms laden with $10.00 skirts and $8.00 blouses waiting patiently behind the register.

While, admittedly, for a poor college student the idea of being able to keep abreast of the latest trends without breaking the bank is a huge incentive, but it's also evidence of a much larger problem of textiles that are made without longevity in mind. According to the aforementioned article, 74% of all textiles bought in the UK this year will end up in the landfill. 

This is an interesting response to those statistics, as it has created a garment that is even more ephemeral than those jeggings you bought at Forever 21 last week. Obviously, the goal of consumers these days is being able to afford many different looks instead of just a few high-quality pieces, so why not keep that in mind as you make something that can be not one, but 5 different great-looking outfits.

Calourette Jewelry

I fell in love this morning. 

Stewart + Brown's Fall 2010 Collection

With the (beautiful) nearly 80's we're experiencing in Raleigh, the last thing on my mind should be cold weather gear, but I would break all kinds of rules for this coat.. From Here

T-shirt laptop sleeve

Came across this on swiss-miss.

Hey all yous guys. If you send HelloRewind one of your old  t-shirts they'll make it into a laptop sleeve for you... how nice of them. 

Bright LED Competition

Rafael Morgan: Light Drop

While we're on the topic of highly efficient LED lights, this also caught my eye on the LimitedHype blog. Third place at the Bright LED competition by designer Rafael Morgan out of Brazil, the display means to challenge us to think about the way in which we use energy. In his own words:

"The Light Drop is supposed to make people think about how we are dealing with our natural resources, in this particular case, the water, which is the main source of energy for every living organism in this fantastic world. Water is energy indeed. This wall-mounted lighting element illuminates the custom-molded polycarbonate bulb with an embedded, dimmable LED in the faucet. The intensity of the light is intuitively controlled by the tap (the more you twist, the more light you get) which also is a good way to contextualize energy use (though at a greatly reduced rate, compared to an incandescent version of the same design)."

It's no secret that I love all things that emit or reflect light, so I decided to go investigate the other winners of this show. This is my other favorite, also won first place:

mark francis + william chen + shireem hamdan

- Helen