Today is Earth Day! Turn off the faucet when you're brushing your teeth and turn the light off if you're not in the room, unplug any appliances that aren't being used and go the extra seven steps to a trash bin instead of just 'letting the wind' take your trash. Our office has 2 recycling bins and so many plants we have a little office garden (all potted).
For those of you who would like to go a step further than creating a greener environment for yourself but incorporate it more into your lifestyle, past Whole Foods, take a look at Glass House Shirtmakers. They up-cycle old shirts into new pocket squares, which is genius!
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| Salvaged shirts into new pocket squares! Featured in Esquire, image source: Esquire |
The colorful pocket squares are great to bring neutral suits to life or bring a more vivacious attitude in more vibrants blazers or suits with character.
Want to try this for yourself or tired of seeing that ragged shirt on him that he refuses to throw out or stop wearing? Try these instructions!
What you will need:
- Button Down Shirt
- Iron
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Scissors
- Sewing Machine (Preferably a Purl Stitch Machine, if not, a general home-sewer will work)
- Pins (if you are using a home sewing machine)
-Matching or Contrasting Thread to the Shirt
Step 1: Find old button down shirt
Step 2: Iron shirt and lay flat on surface
Step 3: Use a ruler to mark up a square (10" is average, 12" is large). If the shirt has checks or stripes, use the pattern as a guideline. Otherwise, try to make the side lines parallel to the shirt's side seams.
Step 4: Cut square out, use shirring scissors (scissor blades are zig-zagged) if available to prevent frayed edges.
Step 5-A, Purl Stitch: If you have a purl stitch machine, simply sew along the edge of the square to finish the edges.
Step 5-B, Home Sewing Machine: Fold the edges over twice and pin in place. Sew along the edge of the first fold (not the edge of the square itself).
Step 7: Pair with a jacket and enjoy!
If you aren't a fan of wearing a vibrant green aside from on St. Patrick's Day or during Christmas, subtle earth tones are a sophisticated way of wearing and acknowledging Mother Nature. Earth tones tend to be geared towards browns and greens and sometimes blues and dark reds. As long as the color can be found in nature, generally the forest, it's considered an earth tone.
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Earth Tone jackets and trench coat, left to right: tweed, houndstooth, linen, linen, textured gray-green, olive green trench coat.
copyright 9tailors, LLC.
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Interested in an earth tone jacket? Need a light trench coat for the Spring/Summer? Want to glisten up your custom made suit with horn buttons and a vibrant pocket square and shirt? Contact a style consultant at info@9tailors.com
An Earth Day Bonus?
Environmental campaigns used to be stressed in younger generations with posters and cartoon commercials about turning of the sink faucet and smokey the bear. FernGully came out and was mini-cult classic amongst toddlers and children, Captain Planet and Ms. Frizz (from the Magic School Bus) ruled the hearts of children before they went to the school bus. This was all before the big Go Green Initiative Campaign that took the nation by storm thanks to celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio who empathized the importance of carbon footprints. Now so many people are just expected to be green and cities are adapting with recycle bins being paired next to trash cans the option is at least there, take our restaurants are looking for compostable silverware and Epic came out to revive little hearts of newer generations, past FernGully.
With all those reminiscent glances, I leave you with the opening of Captain Planet to remind the grown adults what it was like to learn about the environment and not get too caught up with work or be influenced by Hollywood and trends about whether or not they should care. Trends can get tiring and it's nice to look back and be reminded why you began tossing beer cans and egg cartons into a blue bin to begin with.
