Fashion Goes Green – Recycling Auto Parts Into Trendy Accessories

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Fashion’s got a conscience lately. The trends are strongly into recycling. Handbags made from used truck and tractor tire inner tubes or plain used car parts.

Maybe that doesn’t sound convincing to you, but when big screen names turn to designing (ugly) vegan shoes, we could anticipate by taking this new green wave! (damn! And think that last week I just threw at least 4 handbags when I changed my car tire that I found cut off without any chance of survival! Only if I knew this recycling thing earlier, I would have saved the handbags budget for this year!). Anyway, let’s take a look at the new green products and see if this new trend is any good.

If you think something’s wrong with this handbag, imagine that’s called “Dad’s Baby Case”!!!

Lots of room for Dad’s & Babies things. Padded bottle pocket works well for baby bottle or water bottle. Also makes a great Messenger bag for anyone. Virtually indestructible!

Impressive! Now let’s take a look at a handbag I found for us, girls. Since it’s daddy’s time to carry diapers and bottles, I think we would be just fine with this bag made from tire inner tubes and croc patented.

Now look at these handbags! Colorful, all fresh! Not that I would give in for one of them, but at least that changes from the first ones, black and dull. And not only do they make recycled handbags, they’re also into jewelry! Cuffs made from tea tins or earrings from leftovers commercial signs! Consumerism all inverted! Nice!

And that’s not all! The Wall Street Journal reported more designers take the recycling creation road! Furniture builder turned lighting designer Scott Sullivan who now sells rugged industrial-chic lamps made out of used car parts (solderman.com). Mixed-media artist Allison Strine takes vintage license plates and gives them a new life as charms and key chains (allisonstrine.etsy.com or uncommongoods.com). Armando Ramirez, sculptor, creates mini statues using spark plugs, sheet metal and bicycle gears (novice.com).

On the other side of the catwalk, car companies like Ford, General Motors and Volkswagen, AG’s Audi are thinking about 2011 and beyond when they’ll present the new colored cars.

Since a new paint color takes about five years of development and testing and runways don’t paint a car just like that, in-between colors need to be worked on. Designers supervise the process; head masters are confirming the trends when present at the Fashion Shows.

In the mean time, let’s take a look at the 2009 Lincoln MKS in “Tuxedo Black”, the 2008 Chevrolet Equinox in “Blue Flash”, the 2007 Buick Enclave in “Cocoa Metallic”, the 2007 Hummer H3 in “Inferno Orange Metallic”, the 2008 Ford Fusion in “Moss Green”, the 2008 Audi A4 in pure white or the 2007 Ford Edge in “Dark Amethyst”.

I for one think this last news about the catwalk oriented car designers is far more style offending than the handbags made from truck tires. At least those of us who are trying to make a difference by recycling, reusing, won’t do the damage the cars would inflict on the environment.

What do you say? Are you waiting for the moment when you’ll buy a Hummer just to match your Jimmy Choo bought yesterday? Or give in to that new Lincoln just because it matches that uber-trendy clutch you got for who-knows-what-occasion?

The handbags I presented you earlier came from Passchal (passchal.com) and Renee Christopher (harwearbyrenee.com), the car pictures from the Wall Street Journal.