Green Gala 2011

The UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley announces Green Gala- a special Garden fundraiser on Saturday, June 18, 2011 from 2-5pm. The Gala will feature a sustainable eco-fashion show of unique designers curated by Permacouture Institute in a stunning Redwood Grove Amphitheater. Local artisan wine and food will be served amongst this preeminent collection of plants from around the world, and a live and silent auction of ‘green’ items will help raise much-needed funds to support the Garden’s living collection and educational mission. botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu permacouture.org

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Getting Ready- Green Gala "Greenhouse" Behind the Scenes...

The girls ready for flora fashion styling from Green Gala wondrous hair and make-up artist,  Shawn Burke.

 Morgana and Hannah modeling for Ambatalia.

Maya in Adie+George.

Equisetum Inspiration Jewelry.

Heidi for Feral Childe.

Kate for Stars+Ravens and Elizabeth wearing Adie+George.

Cory (left) from The Moon, dressing her mom in  the gorgeous, Staghorn Fern Dress. Kirsten (right) of Kirsten Muenster Jewelry,  wearing Birch Dress #1, for Stars+Ravens.

Jackie wearing a red cabbage dyed top for Spikit.

Maya in Adie+George artisan avocado pit dyed west coast alpaca and Liana in  the cactus inspired ensemble by Spikit

Sierra rocking the Ocelot madrone inspired outfit and plant dye forager's backpack...

Hair and make-up by the amazing Shawn Burke. Naturally dyed fuschia dress by Amber Elandt.

Skye,  of Skye Design,  dressing Cali in a Botanical Garden floral inspired dress.

Ayana glowing in Nicacelly.

Bronwen, in Ocelot, and Maya in Adie+George bringing the beauty of Bolinas to the Berkeley Hills.

Ambatalia girls...Ready for Anything!

Our deepest gratitude to all who helped make the 2011 UC Berkeley Botanical Green Gala Fashion Show an awe-inspiring Redwood Runway! Your help nourished both local and sustainable fashion inspired by and created from flora fashion as well as THE most diverse collection of plants in North America. From the bottom of our hearts,  as well as the forest floor...WE THANK YOU! More photos and posts to come!

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"Green Gala" in the Rustle of the Redwoods...

"Our flora are runway-ready for tomorrow's Green Gala sustainable fashion show and there's a murmur of anticipation in the grove. I hear "Green Gala" in the rustle of the redwoods and "tomorrow" in the song of the crickets."

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(betula papyrifera)

Hand-painted with oak gall ink on fabric...

Green Gala Designer Sarah Borruso of Stars+Ravens' paper birch (betula papyrifera) inspired textiles for her garden garments created especially for Saturday's Green Gala!

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Spikit Design-A Botanical Segment

Inspiration from the Garden's desert collection for Green Gala Designer, Ariel Bishop of Spikit Design.

Ariel Bishop's work in slow fashion pioneer Kate Fletcher's Sustainable Fashion and Textiles: Design Journies highlights her modular concept top formed by hexagonal pieces that can be removed and replaced when needed or completely deconstructed and rebuilt.

Born and raised on Kauai, Ariel Bishop, received her BFA from CCA(c) and went off in search of ethical and environmental design people and practices. She has spent time in the design rooms and the factories of the Fashion Industry, striving to find a better business practice that can balance between the world's demands and it's realities. Her love of adventure and the outdoors keeps her active and inspired. 

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Adie+George

Green Gala Designer's, Adie+George's equisetum inspiration from the Botanical Garden's "Weeden Trail"... The newest growth of the scouring-rush holds all the colors of the rainbow-an inspiring plant palette to work from indeed!

Creating biodiverse fibers and dyes from invasive "weeds" and "waste", helps to make room for even more biodiversity to thrive...

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Above Adie+George's "Seasonal Yellow" (re: oxalis in the winter and wild fennel in the summer) on artisan spun Northern California alpaca...a non-toxic plant dye made from invasive California weeds.

Adie+George, named after the designer's grandparents, is a collaboration between Mr. Larkin, Casey Larkin's, eco-fresh fashion aesthetic and technique, and Sasha Duerr, of Permacouture Institute's, seasonal, bioregional, eco-systematic approach to fiber and color. Together they make runway ready knits that speak as much to the inner vitality of the wearer as it does to our world's own need for green growth and renewal.

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Flora Fashion- FERNS

Ferns first appeared on the fossil record 360 million years ago!

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BLOOM-Flora Fashion

For more gorgeous images and flora fashion inspiration, see BLOOM Magazine , A Horti-Cultural View.

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Nicacelly

               Nicole Markoff, Aka Nicacelly's, Green Gala Botanical Inspirations

Nicole Markoff,  aka Nicacelly’s,  art and work bridges the genres of craft and design. She is the owner and designer of Nicacelly, an independent fashion line based in San Francisco that features multiple facets of progressive production techniques. From remixing and upcycling dead stock teeshirts spliced with appliqué, to creating fair trade and locally produced goods, each piece is a kaleidoscope of concept, travel and biography. She has won the best local designer award in 2006 (SF Weekly’s mastermind award) and 2008 (Bay Guardian), and has had work featured in numerous press outlets and on television (MTV, Bravo).

                                                              A Nicacelly Dress Sitting Pretty

Expanding on her design work, Nicole is currently deepening her art practice as an MFA candidate in textiles from California College of the Arts. With a perpetual interest in the roots of sustainability, Nicole continuously asks the fundamental inquiry of proper and expressive re-use of material, whether it be garment or product.

                                    "Comma Dress" of the Locally Sewn Nicacelly Collection

"My approach to these garments was to be inspired by color and line and then reuse dead stock fabrics from previous collections to build the looks- no extra water, no extra labor, no extra dye. For silhouette, because the colors are so saturated- as they are in the nepenthe and carnivorous plants’ magenta tones, I chose to keep the silhouettes uncomplicated and wearable, popping with vibrancy, but remaining minimal like the petals I was emulating. I worked in vibrant bamboo jerseys from a previous Nicacelly collection including one hand-dyed piece of soy jersey that I hand dyed a while back, and I was thrilled that they matched the images of my inspiration. The looks came together by creating gowns out of patterns I usually used for day dresses, with extreme length to showcase color." 

"Two plants (in the Garden's Collection) in particular- the Australian carnivorous plant that curiously looks like a miniature basket, and the magenta of the nepenthes plant called me in."

         A Pitcher Plant Mixing Deep Shades of Magenta...

Nicole is also inspired by "... the general geometric compositions of plantlife that effortlessly become organic (no pun intended) freestyle living forms. How appropriate considering the body is dressed using elements of geometry that come together to create a sheath for the organic and varying shape."

"The geometry of the spiral aloe, for example, encouraged me. While dressing the feminine form, to bring in some linework that would act as a nod to if not Fibonacci’s code, then at least the striking lines that occur within the space of curves. A stem that releases a bud, etc. This was lent to the yellow gown..." which you will see on the Redwood Runway...June 18th!

The Awe Inspiring Spiral Formed by the Leaves of the Aloe Plant

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Part Two...Made like Madrone: A Peek into Angelina's Studio

                                                 all images courtesy of Angelina DeAntonis

A part two sneak peek into our Green Gala Designer, Angelina DeAntonis of Ocelot's, artisan textile studio AND her beautifully designed pieces inspired especially for this year's Gala.

Her gorgeous work for the 2011 Gala Fashion Show is drawn directly from the rich palette and patterns of madrone bark, as well as other flora of the UC Botanical Garden's awe inspiring biodiversity of plants!

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“Branches Formed of Clay…” Inspiration for Hand-hewn Hues

Ocelot is dyed by hand and constructed in the Ocelot workshop in San Francisco, using the shibori technique 'itajime'

Angelina DeAntonis, the talented designer and textile artisan behind Ocelot Clothing, and one of our amazing Green Gala 2011 Designers, shares with us some of her botanically based inspiration for her Garden created pieces.

The designer among the madrones

According to Angelina, her concept is to create garments that "incorporate modern, useful, rugged qualities with a feeling of being hand-hewn, and are illuminated by dye techniques involving natural dyes on plant fibers."

As she says, " Imagine the allure of clothing that forms to the body through use, work and activity, something of John Muir in Japan in the 21st century.”

Serpentine manzanita

Angelina creates deep hued colored textiles with her modern revival of the ancient shibori practice of itajame (fold and clamp resist dyeing).

She is drawn to the allure of the madrone and manzanita color pallete ”particularly the shades of rust-red, luminous green, bronzy-orange to chocolate brown-reds to be found.”

A madrone in the UC Botanical Garden's Collection

As Angelina shared with us so simply and elegantly regarding her deep awe for the madrone as a muse,  "The branches seem to be formed of clay, malleable, bronzed.”

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Food, Clothing, SHELTER-Green Gala Natural Building

Marisha Farnsworth teaches ecological building at Merritt College in her home town, Oakland, CA where she works with students to design and build small structures made of earth, straw, bamboo and recycled materials. In addition to co-founding The Natural Builders, a contracting company based in the East Bay, Marisha has conducted research and design and has traveled to work on projects for organizations including Builders Without Borders, Architecture for Humanity, and Kleiwerks International. She is currently co-directing, Urban Biofilter, a bourgeoning non-profit that designs, implements and advocates for green infrastructure in environmentally degraded urban communities.

  Marisha Farnsworth and students from her Natural Building class at Merritt College began creating a beautiful new piece of structural art for the Garden entrance as part of the Green Gala festivities. Using natural materials and practicing traditional building techniques, artist Farnsworth will  install an elegant bamboo shade structure that has a woven feel with unique "patchwork" panels. The  construction in action was able to be seen at  the Garden entrance. Marisha and students will be weaving in discarded natural fibers from the Garden AND from our Designer's waste from natural fabric scraps.

Truly creating a beautiful merger of food, clothing and shelter, for our Green Gala celebration... we are excited to share with you more images to come!

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"The Moon" Shining Bright

With the Green Gala only a few weeks away, we are beginning to get glimmering windows into the process and progress of our talented artisans hard at work on their designs.  All the images and inspiration above come from a sneak peak of the gorgeous handmade Botanical Garden inspired couture courtesy of  the lovely and talented ladies at The Moon, a luminous and bright slow fashioned Oakland-based collective.

To be awed in person with beautiful botanical fashion, make sure to reserve your tickets now for the Green Gala Fashion Show, Saturday June 18th, in the Garden's Redwood Grove!

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Cycling through the Seasons

In the spirit of this amazing weather and the turn from spring rain to the early sprouting of summer, we are excited to introduce the work of SkyeDesign, Green Gala 2011 Designer.

Skye Schuchman is another native of the Bay Area, and a resident of Sausalito.  Skye is the founder of Skyedesign, which is the platform for multiple projects, which include Salon Du Bicyclette.

LOCALLY GROWN BIKES

And on the theme of local Bay Area Biking...

The Garden's annual Fiber+Dye Exhibit was also lucky enough to even have locally grown bamboo bikes (!) this year-handmade in Oakland by Stalk Bicycles.

                                          "Rolling Garden" on Stalk's Cargo Bike.

Happy cycling into summer!

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Check out the Green Gala website and purchase your tickets today!

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Ambatalia-Textiles for a Non-disposable Life

                                          Ambatalia Furoshiki Bag. Image by Paige Green

Ambatalia and its creator Molly de Vries, creates textiles for a non-disposable life, an inspiring and beautiful gesture of living with less-less plastics, toxicity, and endless consumption in our everyday landscape, while in turn actually living with more-functionality, efficiency, and beauty through the textiles that that carry us through the day to day.

Molly's own creativity is drawn from the joys in her daily life.   " My name is Molly de Vries. I am married to a beautiful man and we are incredibly blessed to have three amazing children that teach us every day how to love. I think of how we can become a resourceful society rather than a wasteful one. I see solutions and I love to create them. I make textiles for the sustainable kitchen, daily work and shopping. I love what I do."

We love what she does as well.  We look forward to her multi-purpose wearables in the Garden's Green Gala Fashion Show 2011.

See more of Molly's sustainable living inspiration here.

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Pollination Inspiration

Butterflies, besides being excellent pollinators in the garden, provide inspiration in their beautiful and dynamic color.

"Butterflies are diurnal, pollinating a wide variety of flowers that open during the day. They frequent big, beautiful, brightly colored blooms. Butterflies have good color vision sensing more “wavelengths” than either humans or bees and, unlike bees; butterflies can see the color red."

Photo from Ecouterre

The study of Biomimicry helps designers to learn from nature...resulting in asking questions from how Nature would design. The result? Gorgeous fabrics... like this dye-less textile that mimics the iridescence of butterfly wings, sans dyes or pigments!

Images from Biomimicry Institute

"Your eyes do deceive you—the sumptuous iridescent hue on this dress is purely a trick of the light. Sydney designer Donna Sgro fashioned the frock from the Morphotex, a nanotechnology-based, structurally colored fiber that mimics the microscopic structure of the Morpho butterfly’s wings, which despite lacking color, appear a shimmery cobalt blue. Manufactured by Teijin in Japan, Morphotex requires no dyes or pigments, nor the prodigious amount of water and energy used in conventional dyeing."

-Ecouterre