Book Reviews

Reviewed by Y.W. Chun

Climate change sizzles as a hot issue. Everyone has a duty to help save the planet by turning “more green” so that future generations of people and animals will have a place to live.

If everyone can help now, there’s still a chance to improve matters. Governments are implementing policies, but unless individuals pitch in too, the world may end within a few generations.

Tamsin Blanchard’s book, Green Is the New Black, How to Change the World With Style (2008, Hodder and Stoughton, 278 pages), tells how to be green and fashionable. There are many good tips:

Discover Your Style
There’s no need to buy new clothes for every season. When wanting something different, check charity shops, vintage stores and eBay. Why not recycle by gathering friends to swap garments? Blanchard advises how to do this without losing friends. After all, blindly following fashion destroys personal style and identity. Clothes seen on the models in fashion magazines don’t always look good on other people.

Buy Quality, Not Quantity
Favoring cheap clothes that last a season or just a few washes will pollute the planet and clog landfills. Paying for higher-quality garments that can last many seasons is a good investment, helps to define personal style and saves the environment.

Blanchard suggests what to look for in clothes. For example, quality polyester beats cotton because cotton lasts only a limited time. Clothes that need constant dry-cleaning increase a wardrobe’s overall carbon footprint. The author tells about caring washes, dry-cleaning green and designers with green-yet-fashionable clothes.

The book touches on where and why to buy eco-friendly or animal-cruelty-free products and on places for vegetarians to buy handbags or shoes. It gives many Web addresses for green products available online or for patterns to download when making clothes or handbags.

At times, Blanchard sounds a little ambitious about making fashionable things from recycled items like old curtains and unwanted clothes. Regardless, all the ideas have validity.

Other suggestions may be easier: Why not save on electricity by avoiding television for a week per month to read books or chat with family members? Why not plant a garden? It all helps the planet.

Born in Liverpool, Blanchard lives in London. After studying fashion journalism, she worked on the style pages of newspapers and magazines.

Green Is the New Black has merit. It’s a useful book worth keeping.