Barneys And Loomstate Team Up With Sundance Channel To Extend Green Initiative

We can give our usual cynicism a rest today and give some credit to Barneys for continuing with the environmentally conscious promotions it started during the last Holiday season. The store is teaming with organic denim resource Loomstate for a t-shirt recycling program running from April 13^th to the 27^th. Customers are invited to participate in Tune In. Turn On. Drop Off, an initiative to include donating old t-shirts at all Barneys stores (including, presumably, Co-op locations) which will be restyled, redyed, printed and sold as limited edition items during the next Holiday season. In return they will be awarded a 20% discount on Loomstate merchandise. Only suitable t-shirts will be included, and others that can't be resold will be diverted to other recycling purposes.
Julie Gilhart, Barneys fashion director announces,

"There is a fast growing environmentally based fashion movement that we feel is the New Cool. It is redefining what luxury is all about. We must work together, educate ourselves and inform people of how to participate. Everything we do now must have a conscious thought to it. Thinking, walking and talking and with the flag of intention to create beauty through fashion in a more organic, sustainable way is the future."

Sundance Channel will film the entire project for a documentary to be included on The Green, the cable network's upcoming, weekly block of programming devoted to the environment. Barneys plans to bookend the event with VIP music performances, featuring Actress Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward and their band She & Him in Los Angeles on April 15^th and British singer Kate Nash in New York on the 22^nd, Earth Day.
While we found last year's holiday promotion a littl on the didactic and schoolmarmish side, we could appredciate their intention, and it's actually comforting to see that Barneys' dedication to environmental issues has so far extended beyond an advertising concept.