Guilty Political Fashion

  I discovered the small company of Monsoon Vermont via a recent comment made by one of the founders on an old post about rag pickers in India.  I tend to be a bit jaded about trash-to-treasure products and eco-friendly fashion that encourages us to pay more or buy things we don’t really need in the name of green.  That said, I do appreciate the power of talking piece fashion, such as the umbrellas available as part of MonsoonVT’s Scavenger Projet.  Objectively practical and fashionable, these bright and beautiful items also carry a political message.

   The umbrellas and other recycled wares—bags, waste baskets, wallets—are made with discarded packaging collected by scavengers in Indonesia and double as awareness-and-fund-raising tools for the YE Water Program in Jakarta.

Photos via the MonsoonVT site.