Queer Eye For The Green Guy
by on 03.15.05
We at Treehugger are passionate about transforming sustainable living, not only into a widely practiced reality, but a beautiful one as well. To this end, we have a confession to make: We hate hippies. Actually, no, we love everything about the hippie lifestyle -- eco-consciousness, social activism, desire for a better world. We just think that the standard earth-child personal style is... well, a little schleppy. Who's going to believe someone giving advice on how composting can make your life easier and better, when they're wearing a pair of hemp sandals that actually look like compost? Not us...
That's why we spend so much time schooling on green, clean, and keen clothing and image products for the well-dressed treehugger. If you're interested in turning around, or just sprucing up your image, you should take a look at Lou Bendrick's excellent essay on reasons and options for sustainable, and stylish threads. With quotes like "We greens have to stop looking like we eat bark and live in a root cellar", how can you go wrong? :: Queer Eye For The Green Guy [by DM]
Awesome!
Hear, hear! Its always been my position that one of the biggest things working against the movement towards sustainability has been its most ardent proponents. Its a sad truth that aesthetics and credibility are inseparable, and that - like you've said, the glassy eyed, bedraggled, flower child look really just doesn't sell the concept well to the average person.
Couldn't agree more, with Ron's and Treehugger's position about how we look and sound when we carry the message. (Might say the same thing about some Democrats.) Nicholas Kristof's piece yesterday touched on this same point, although I was underwhelmed with his logic. But let's not take "ardent" away from proponents. Instead, let's help them speak civilly and dress properly and spiff up their image. Above all, let's make sure our message is intelligible and accurate, meaningful, sensible, and persuasive. We at Garden Sense Online make it a point never to chide or harangue. We shine our shoes (challenging if they're berks) and comb our hair and do our best to "sell" our concepts to "the average person" when we speak. We foresake tie-dye entirely.
rawganique.com's got decent fashion -- presentable, anyway, and way, way better than anything else I've seen with even half the eviro-cred.
To clarify a wee bit...
TreeHugger loves the hippies! They have been the backbone of green living for many, many years. What we are trying to get at is that the hippy market is already well served. e.g. there's not much point in promoting environmentalism to environmentalists..
TreeHugger believes that for sustainability to go mainstream, it needs to have a different image/aesthetic. And it needs to be convenient. Most of us (including myself) are shallow (we care
about how things look) and lazy (we can't spend 6 hrs finding
an organic sofa). So, what we are trying to do at TreeHugger is to highlight the examples of compelling environmental lifestyle and make it easy for people to find them (searchable, categorized).
Hippy market = Done. (small percentage of population)
Rest of market = Started!
best,
Graham