Bold Sustainable Swimwear from Mara Hoffman

It’s still pretty hard to find anything in the sustainable and/or ethical realm when shopping for premium apparel. Even though awareness has grown tremendously over the years, it still takes a little research to truly know what you are consuming. I am always writing a lot about independent, lesser-known (and very underrated) designers I find at music festivals or just while browsing the web (like ZhenNymph from my last post), but I try to keep things balanced and show options from the more mainstream market as well. Shopbop and Revolve are two of the most popular (if not THE most popular) shopping destinations online for premium contemporary apparel and accessories. I highlighted five sustainable or ethical brands found on the former last year, but sustainable brands tend to come and go, mostly because it’s still expensive to produce sustainably and unfortunately hard to get consumers on board with conscious spending in today’s fleeting fast-fashion market. One brand that has permeated the household name treshold to hold its longevity along with its other premium name counterparts is Mara Hoffman.

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New Ethical Bohemian Designs by ZhenNymph

Being exposed to the “transformational” or “conscious” festival circuit has opened me up to such an incredibly awesome new world of independent style. Many people know they should be shopping more sustainably, but aren’t quite sure where to look…and browsing through (and getting to know) the vendors at many of these events has gotten me accustomed to the true benefit of supporting some of these hard working artists—supporting small is always good, but it’s also about the quality (you can tell when there’s real love put into someone’s work), ethical nature (no sweat shops), and unique appeal (the creativity always blows me away)! I’m sure you’ve seen me pouring out my love for plenty of these particular designers over the years, but apart from specifics, this newfound knowledge has been a very useful lead in finding others that I may not find at festivals. One of them being ZhenNymph, one of my absolute favorites!

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New Unique Denim Pieces for Summer from BLANKNYC

I’ve been a huge fan of BLANKNYC for quite some time now! My experience writing reviews and content for Denimology.com has been such a great way to become more familiar with several brands I only window shopped in the virtual sense before, and this one has stuck with me strongly since then. I’d say they bridge the gap between the premium market and the more affordable side of contemporary fashion—they aren’t cheap, but the prices are awesome considering the edgy creativity and quality that goes into this super fun brand. So in that sense, I find them very affordable! I have a few of their jeans (the Skinny Classique in Good Vibes being my favorite), but it’s their jackets (especially their embroidered ones) that I seriously want to fill my closet with! The Embroidered Vegan Leather Jacket in As You Wish was a hit last year and is one of my favorites, as is a blue tie dyed piece and the Sea of Flowers jacket (shown below), which I recently acquired! There are so many more still on my wish list, even discontinued ones that I’ve had bookmarked on both Poshmark and eBay for years! I have to avoid looking at their site too much or my list grows longer and longer…

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