JCR: Which early trends that you've observed in the fashion/lifestyle space do you believe will have resonance in the consumer-goods market in coming seasons?

PF: Eco-consciousness. I know that's not "early" but my personal reaction this year to brands like Loomstate, Edun, MoreTrees, Livity and Stuart & Brown is so positive I can't believe others won't respond in the same way. I have a feeling that mass-adoption to eco- consciousness will be led by fashion, not by car makers. Fashion talks to the right people who stimulate conversation in the greater public domain. Once people start wearing their eco-clothing, I hope they'll take a look at all the other products around them — the plastic products, the products with high waste packaging — and reconsider those choices too.

Okay kids, settle down. You'd think we were talking about abortion here. Perhaps I shouldn't have read this post while I was eating as I started to feel a bit queasy... and I was only having a salad and some organic crackers!! What is everyone getting so defensive about. I thought Elisa was trying for the most part to be informative and I found it helpful. Yet I must admit I have in the past been a tad annoyed with a self righteous vegan or two.

Once when a vegan co-worker (at a wedding dinner table for chrissakes!) repeatedly insisted I wasn't a vegetarian. I think I had just said I was more or less a vegetarian, but ate fish occassionally. She just kept saying then you are not a vegetarian. I finally picked up a big pork chop, crawled across the table and whacked her in the head and said, "I know I am not strictly a vegetarian, but in most circles it is easier than saying that I am a lact-ovo-pesca-vegetarian... (who happens to celebrate Christmahannukwanza... wait that's another story)." No, no, of course I did not do that, I just wanted to. Apparently, rigidity in her vegan lifestyle generalized to just plain old rigidity. I have now become quite comfortable with the term "vegaquarian". Live and let live people.

Recently, while at FIT on my journey to produce some sustainable style, one of my classmates, a dominatrix who wants to produce cruelty-free fetishwear (and I thought I was in a niche market!), said to me, "You cannot be an environmentalist and still eat meat." So, I wrapped her up in muslin and stuck pins in her.... no, no, of course not, I tried to understand and respect where she was coming from and have a dialogue. I told her I wasn't interested in putting people in boxes and saying you are bad and I am good. That is one reason I love Josh's The Lazy Environmentalist. You know the world can get mighty heavy to carry around on your shoulders. People can get turned off when they feel they are being judged for not being "perfect".... or at least quite defensive, as we see here. But if we feel we can shoulder a little bit of the burden, as Elisa stated, doing something is better than doing nothing at all.

My classmate also thought it was not a good thing that my vintage coat has fur on it. I was not going to let her ruffle my feathers, or my fur. I calmly told her, to me, it is reusing which I preferred over buying new. I would never consider buying a new fur. My feeling is that leather is a waste product and perhaps more environmentally friendly than pleather. I once talked to a guy at the Union Square Green Market who sold organic beef. I asked him about where his hides went, I thought why not at least support an industry that is more along the lines of my belief by buying his leather (hopefully, an idea to be developed in the future). So my point is, can't we all just get along? We all have our thing, either for the environment, personal health or life philosophies. In many ways, aren't we all striving for similar goals? Or maybe it isn't what you say, but how you say it.

So why not be vegan? Because I am happy the way I am I suppose. Because I am a little lazy. Because on some days I am lucky to be able to stop and get some food in me period, let alone vegan food. I am okay with my vegaquarianism and if you want to be a vegan, I am okay with that too. I embrace with my wallet more and more things that support my beliefs in sustainability. I also use a lot of natural and organic products which I believe are cruelty free. I can thank Elisa for some insight into wool production and should I use wool in the future, I will definitely investigate the source, but I am not sure I'll sympathize as much with the silk worm. I am fifty percent, I am trying.

By now I am sure you have all seen the meatrix, a humorous way to learn about the rather sad truths in factory farming, so, bon appetit, whatever you eat!!

During a 1999 protest of the World Trade Organization, Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown, looked on as an activist seized the microphone and demanded, "Who made your T-shirt?" Rivoli determined to find out. She interviewed cotton farmers in Texas, factory workers in China, labor champions in the American South and used-clothing vendors in Tanzania. Problems, Rivoli concludes, arise not with the market, but with the suppression of the market. Subsidized farmers, and manufacturers and importers with tax breaks, she argues, succeed because they avoid the risks and competition of unprotected global trade, which in turn forces poorer countries to lower their prices to below subsistence levels in order to compete. Rivoli seems surprised by her own conclusions, and while some chapters lapse into academic prose and tedious descriptions of bureaucratic maneuvering, her writing is at its best when it considers the social dimensions of a global economy, as in chapters on the social networks of African used-clothing entrepreneurs.