Feel Good Guru

Had I not been staying, several years ago, in a 17th century French “magnanerie” or silk production workshop, now a gorgeous Provencal vacation home, I may never have been awakened to the dark secrets of sericulture and the plight of the industrious little silkworm…

“For centuries, the walls in here were covered in mulberry leaves,” said our charming host, Bernard Cay-Maubuisson, indicating the thick stone walls of his rustic and cozy living room. I imagine a lush interior garden with climbing vines and ripened berries hanging just so over the frames of his beautifully restored antique art. “And tens of thousands of silkworms munched on the mulberry leaves,” he added with a smile. My thoughts of an indoor Eden are replaced with visions of slimy larvae slithering over the furniture.  (more…)

Here’s a shoe company with a conscience, temporarily housed in a cottage on Abbot Kinney in Venice to showcase their shoes and their story.

Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, Toms Shoes, with their One for One program, gives a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase.

Founder, Blake Mycoskie, while on vacation in Argentina noticed impoverished children walking around with cuts and infections on their feet from walking miles every day without shoes to fetch water. He decided to start Toms, “shoes for (more…)

Hemp, organic cotton, eco-fleece, organic lifestyle. A minority women owned eco-clothing company using ecologically sound fibres and conscious clothing manufacturing designed and sewn in a converted garage studio in Eugene, Oregon.

Go organic. It’s cozy, it’s sexy, it’s eco-friendly, and supporting the creative goddesses of Sweetskins is a sweet idea.

Yeah! Bring on the Sweetskins!

“You will never look at a billboard the same way again.”

The guys and girls at Relan in Minneapolis have reinvented the billboard, upcycling it into a unique, one-of-a-kind handmade handbag line.

They take a used billboard about the size of a tennis court, already water and tear-resistant and manufactured to withstand weather of all kinds; then they clean it, press it, cut it up and repurpose it into funky purses, market bags, wallets, totes, (more…)