Schone Maternity
Schone Zoe Top
Why It's Good:
It's got all the characteristics of a perfect party top: It's gunmetal gray (the season's hot color), with a silky splash of color, and it shows some sexy shoulder. No one would even guess it's a "maternity" top.
Why It's Green:
The Zoe Top is made of bamboo, which we're fans of because it's a rapidly growing renewable resource (plus it's really comfy). Schone Maternity hand-sews its designs locally using fair labor and it has an inspiring maternity wear recycling program.
Where To Get It:
http://www.saksfifthavenue.com |
$98.00
Click here to purchase directly and check out more Schone Maternity eco-fashions at www.schonematernity.com.
Oh, Mama—We Love These Clothes!
Maternity clothes are inherently un-eco. After all, you wear them for only a few months and then what—you'll save them for your next pregnancy, right? Puh-lease. As any previously preggers woman knows, you're more likely to burn them in a bonfire while you dance around naked. With that in mind, I really wanted to find some maternity clothes that were at least made out of environmentally-friendly fabrics so that I wouldn't feel like I was single-handedly destroying the planet before my baby even got to see it. My search resulted in bland, unfashionable Earth Mama "creations" that I wouldn't be caught dead in (even if it did mean the planet would go kaput). But then one of you wise and wonderful Sprig readers tipped me off to Schone Maternity, a chic eco line designed by Rebecca Schoneveld Cheek, who says she was inspired by the "seriously awful clothes" her sister wore during her pregnancy.
There are so many reasons to love this line. The most important being that the clothes look like anything you'd happily wear in your pre-pregnancy days, like this Zoe Top, which will get you through all of your holiday fêtes. And then there are all the ways wearing Schone's designs are helping to save the planet for your bebe: They're hand-sewn using eco fabrics (bamboo, hemp, and organic cotton to name a few) in a fair labor, family-owned-and-operated sewing room. And when your pregnancy is over, you can send your maternity clothes back to Schone, where they will clean and repair them before donating them to Mama's House, a nonprofit that helps young mothers (so much better than burning them in a bonfire). And there's more—as a "thank you," Schone will send you a pretty, hand-woven, hand-dyed silk scarf, which it has purchased directly from the artisans in Laos who make them, thereby helping to sustain their economy. It almost makes you want to stay pregnant. Almost.