CORPORATIONS WILL DO ANYTHING FOR MONEY: carrot mob makes it rain

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.
i throw up more cash, and change the forecast. this is how it should work and what swyyne in ALL about. plus that asian dude is funny.

juicy melissa jellies and sandals 25% off!

ready for some open toe action? i just picked up a pair of these 80’s style melissa corallo jellies in clear smoke inhabitat shop for 25% off!

besides being 100% recyclable, melissa shoes are made from MEFLEX, a revolutionary breathable and non-toxic plastic and are totally cruelty free and devoid of animal products. plus, a startling 99.9% of melissa’s factory water and waste is recycled and the brazil-based company’s employees are paid above average wages and benefits. so if you’ve been waiting for the perfect excuse to scoop up a pair of uber-cute and sustainably made Melissa sandals or jellies, here it is!

PROJECT EARTH DAY Fashion Show Pics!

see more pics and read the full story here.

designer melissa kirgan, inhabitat.com editor in chief, Jill Fehrenbacher, designer
meiling chen, designer xing-zhen chung-hilyard and friend

the crowd waits anxiously for the show to start

xing-zhen chung-hilyard and melissa kirgan

abigail doan and yuka yoneda

that gall-darned swine flu is giving swyyne a bad name! solve it by making me give up bacon

in addition to making people even more paranoid about kissing pigs (don’t they have it hard enough already?!!!), the swine influenza is really giving swyyne a bad name. or, as some of my closest friends pointed out, i gave swyyne a bad name when, fueled by my narcissistic tendencies, I created a word that when typed into google search, returns “did you mean sweyne?” as the first line. no, i did not mean sweyne. i didn’t even know what that was until i clicked on it out of curiosity, thereby convincing google that a person actually did mean sweyne. curse you google!

anyhow, a couple (true) friends and my marketing mentor jim hopkinson of The Hopkinson Report have pointed out that perhaps this unfortunate event is a blessing in disguise. after all, whether it be for health reasons or to pine for the mcrib like this guy, swine hasn’t been on most people’s minds since the last luau they attended. so i’m turning this frown upside down with a challenge that i hope most of you cannot refuse:

if this post receives 300 comments by next week, i will quit eating bacon. that’s right, off the pork, cold turkey. to clarify, i’ll still be able to eat cold turkey, just not cold bacon. heck, to make it even more interesting, i’ll cease all of my pork-eating forever or at least until i am older and need collagen to keep my face up. the one exception to this will be visits to the yuen household because if i can’t eat pork there, i’ll just be eating water.

is this a blatant marketing ploy? probably. but i really hope everyone thinks of it more as a way to promote a cleaner, less wasteful lifestyle. i don’t know, i just keep thinking about those pigs walking upright at the end of animal farm…with no pants on. i think about that a lot actually. it’s not healthy. here’s the segue - wait for it, wait for it…

and neither is living this unhealthy, throwaway lifestyle that we’ve all become used to.

so come to the site, comment, and look around a bit for tips on how you can clean up your act a bit. help me make living a lifestyle where we’re more conscious about where our stuff comes from and goes to when we throw it an epidemic.

and i’ll stop eating this:

and this:

yes, that is a snout.

but i probably won’t stop doing this:

empire state building goes green for teenage mutant ninja turtles…and then they go green again

it’s nice when an icon from your childhood celebrates their 10th anniversary. The 15th anniversary is pleasant, but a bit more alarming - sort of like realizing that all of your friends are married with kids and you’re still sharing a room with your mom and three cats - not that there’s anything wrong with that. By the 25th anniversary, well, you might as well just cry…

happy tears, of course, because we’re talking about the teenage mutant ninja turtles! turtle power!

it all went downhill after april o'neill married casey jones and that had that wimpy kid

that’s right, the heroes in a half shell turn 25 this year, and it’s cause for celebration. in fact, the empire state building is turning on its green lights tomorrow to commemorate the occasion (of all of us 80s babies officially being old).

in other news, the empire state building announced last week that it would be greening itself (this time more than the lights) with a $100 million green renovation. the plan is to reduce the building’s energy consumption by 38% or $4.4 million annually.

so my question is, aren’t these stories totally related?!!! i mean, the clintons are cool, but i think a lot more people would be more interested in the greening of the empire state building if it were being done in the name of the teenage mutant ninja turtles. is it too late for a collabo?

pics courtesy of inhabitat and the official tmnt website, which i frequent often - i’m not even joking with you.

check out the 25th anniversary celebration here.

PROJECT EARTH DAY FASHION SHOW AND AFTERPARTY!

you guys know that i rarely use caps, but if any event is worthy of textual yelling, it’s this year’s project earth day runway show!

produced by eco-fashion jill of all trades bahar shahpar, the theme of this year’s event is “through the looking glass: an exploration of scale and proportion.” don’t miss it!

buy your tickets here!

economic stimulus swapp!

if you’re bummin’ it like me, these clothing swaps are an awesome way to get a new wardrobe without breaking the bank.

today at 6:30!

: (

there was a veritable bevy of clutches, satchels and totes at bagtrends.com’s green arm candy party last night (pics to come), and my lady friends and i were particularly enamored with these yummy vegan clutches by NOAH (no animals harmed).

now i love animals as much as the next girl (just ask my pet squirrel Pee-chan, god rest his soul), but recently finding out that “vegan leather” most often means “plastic” was a bit offputting. i was surprised and happy when we asked the sales rep at the table about the plastic overlays on NOAH bags and he replied “well, it is recycled.”

that was all i needed to hear! both lillian and i had been on non-shopping binges, but these cruelty-free, recycled gems were too cute and guilt free to pass up (plus they were only $50)!

or so we thought…

how to get wasted and waste less

why we should all drink from kegs.

freecycle friday: theory dress shirt!

this week’s freecycled goodie is a royal purple dress shirt by theory (size s).

screw earth day

that’s what grist thinks and i concur.

remember analogies from the SATS?

valentine’s day: love
earth day: environmentalism

in other words, one day of godivas and frilly undies ain’t gonna make up for years of cheatin’.

so yeah, i’m really jaded, but i still want to make this earth day count. any ideas?

p.s. thanks for the tip about screwing earth day olivia!

the kyoto box: a microwave made out of two cardboard boxes - hot!

a microwave made out of cheap cardboard boxes?

kyoto energy, a kenya-based inventor, proved that eco-friendly innovation does not necessarily have to be high-tech to be revolutionary or effective. the company won forum for the future’s ft climate change challenge with their simple solar cooker, made out of two cardboard boxes with reflective foil and black paint to maximize absorption of the sun’s rays. when covered with a transparent film, the temperature inside the box ca reach up to at least 80C, allowing people to boil water, bake things and sanitize objects. think of how meaningful that could be for people in countries where just finding water clean enough to drink is a full-time job.

kyoto energy originally set out to find a solution for deforestation when it began the project (the kyoto box can cook without burning lumber), but found many other positive “side-effects” along the way.

for instance, the coolest part about this hot cooker is the ease with which it can be mass-produced and could be sold for as little as $10 a box.

HOT!

parisians love sharing bikes with the velib bike system: would this work in new york?

parisians are known for their ability to make anything look fashionable, so when i saw several chic locals riding around on identical retro-lookin’ bicycles, i figured it was the newest trend.

but, as usual, i was only partially correct. the pearly tan bikes are part of paris’s velib bike sharing system which was debuted back in 2007 as part of the mayor’s plan to reduce car traffic by 40% by 2020.

so how does it work?

alexander mcqueen to paris fashion world: wake up and smell the rubbish!

swyyne is in paris this week (sorry about the shortage of posts, i’ve been busy eating things like pig snouts and cockles!), and what better time to report about fashion’s favorite misfit alexander mcqueen trashing fashion at paris fashion week?

mcqueen challenged fashion’s throwaway culture with a runway made of broken glass, ravishing costumes made of trash and hideously lovely models.

check out the full scoop here.

pics courtesy of inhabitat

why is this a site?

swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.