Spring, is that you?

Hallo everyone,

I know that it’s still prrrretty cold outside (I have to scrape the ice of my car almost every morning and because I’m a small woman, it seriously count as a work-out folks 😉 so yes I KNOW).

But still… I feel the spring coming! One of the lovely things about spring are the newborn animals and of course the sudden and divers colors outside.. all the wonderful flowers..

Well I don’t see or have the typical flowers in the house yet but dear cactus, I warn you: soon you’re not alone anymore! 

SCOOP! 

Shirt : Komodo by FabulousFairFashion / Scarf : Hellen van Berkel, Watch : Kerbholz, both by Maryshoppings / Bag : Fikay by Maryshoppings

Pictures by Evy Waegeneire

Enjoy nature, you guys!

XoXo Mary

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An online trip to Fair Wonderland

Hi fair peopz,

After the ecological shopping tour in Brussels, a lot of people were eager to know more about sustainable shopping in the city.. I can tell all of you that there are more cities waiting in my shopping cart. But first things first: My new online discoveries!

 I offer you a couple of webshops full of ecological treasures where you can shop with a clear consciousness.

 Avocadostore is a German based webshop with a clear and conscious heart, they want to offer an online market full of green stuff that is also payable with a normal sized bankaccount 🙂

I personally think they manage it well! No nonsense clothes with a good quality.

Dress : Komodo

Dress : Braintree

 

Fine Birds  is also a German based webshop and uses “It’s only Fine Feathers that make Fine Birds” as their main philosophy. Their main goal is to combine luxury with fairness.. sounds great, right?

You can score nice all-day pieces but also some high-fashion coolio’s too.

Shirt : Deep Mello

T-shirt : Noble Project Charity Fashion

 

• Nice to know : Both Avocadostore as Fine Birds are selling the nice vegan shoe collection of Nine to Five! #verrrywantedbyME

 

Nine to Five

 

 

SupergreenMe 

Belgian Based webshop full of ecological clothes but also other nice green necessities 🙂

They offer nice and sweet clothes to wear on an everyday-basis.

T-Shirt : Armed Angels

Cardigan : Froy & Dind

 

Giving clothing pieces a 2nd life, certainly gives you points for sustainability.

If you like vintage pieces and you love handmade material, well then you certainly like the selection of clothes in the online closet of ‘LA RELIGIEUSE’.

Jacket : Vintage Guy Laroche

Jacket : Vintage

 

Have a nice shopping spree sweeties!

XoXo Mary

 

 

An eco-fashion tour in Brussels!

Hi dear fashionista,

 

I really love to take you all with me to Brussels on a sustainable shopping trip!

I confess to you all of my sweet spots and wish you all a good hunting 🙂

I have a soft spot for high-end 2nd-hand clothing so first I introduce to you 2 secondhand-shops I really love in the Quartier Dansaert.

From an ethical point of view, 2nd-handclothing is really ok. In our consumption-society of today, people are tired of clothes much faster than the expiration date of the clothes and certainly if they are made by hand (designer pieces often are!) and made out of natural fabrics like cotton and silk (sustainable products!).

Afterwards I let you meet my favorite honest designers in that hood. 

1. Leon Lapage : Vêtue

No dusty feeling over here! Vêtue is a nice minimalistic shop which has the look of a fancy boutique and, in a way, it certainly is. There is a nice selection of high-end-labels and all of the clothing are in a really good condition.

New in the hood : the Vêtue Man Store, same street and same professionalism.

Adress :

Léon Lepagestraat 12 , 1000 Brussel 

2. Kartuizerstraat :  Isabelle Bajart

Isabelle Bajart is certainly my favorite shop.

You can find here a selection of high-end goodies of all ages, from vintage till quite recent collections and here’s an extra nice tip : in the sales-period, you can find big designers for  really small prices.

Not all the clothing is in a perfect condition but it’s certainly an honest price if it doesn’t.

Clothes, shoes, bags and a big selection of belts can be found there. And outfits I made earlier with things out of this nice shop can be found here and here

Adress :

Kartuizersstraat 25 , 1000 Brussel

3. Valérie Berckmans

That I’m a fan of Valérie’s work, you already knew from this article I wrote for FabulousFairFashion.

Valérie uses ecological fabrics and produces in Belgium and France. She doesn’t care about seasons, she presents her new collections whenever she feels like it.

Her shop in Brussels is nice, as is she 🙂 She does your styling with pleasure and honesty. The pieces are minimalistic but always a little catchy, subtile and stylish!

Adress :

Van Arteveldestraat 8, 1000 Brussel

4. Maureen De Clercq 

This designer teaches in the Fashion Academy of Sint-Niklaas and shows her métier in her own label. The pieces are all made in Belgium and I like to call them ‘classic with a twist’. A beautiful honest look guaranteed!

Adress:

Leon Lepagestraat 61, 1000 Brussel

So I guess you’re in for coffee now?

Or maybe something stronger.. I can recommend ‘Les Gens Que J’aime‘ for both, a typical Brussels type of place.. no further comment needed, just walk in and enjoy 🙂

Adress :

Zuidstraat 15, 1000 Brussel 

 

Have a great afternoon, hunters!

I always do out there 🙂

XoXo Mary

 

Who made my purse?

Dear fair people,

You may noticed it already: Maryshoppings is totally in love with the fashionable designs from Abel, a Dutch company that designs goodies out of leftover-leather.

Letty Scheers, the designer, makes everything herself in her studio in Groningen, the Netherlands.

She hates waste but loves quality. Hey, that sounds familiar 🙂

Some eye-candy for you :

I don’t know about you but she had me by the first sight.

As you may know, I also write for the blog Fabulousfairfashion and a month ago I interviewed Letty about her vision on fair fashion.

Letty: “Fairfashion for me is fashion with consciousness, made with a clear eye for people and environment. On this moment the industry stands too much on clothes who are produced in countries with bad working quality and too little focus on environmental issues.

I refuse to work that way.

It’s really important for me that I have enough transparency to my customers.

I use recycled leather, leftover-leather and eco-leather. What I use and where it comes from is something that my customer needs to know. To increase the knowledge of the customer, I’m currently busy with making ‘Bag-Passports’. My bags soon have their own passports with all the information you need to feel comfortable and to sleep with a clear consciousness. ”

You can read the whole interview in Dutch over here.

So who made by purse?

 

Letty did! 

Thank you so much Mrs Scheers 🙂

And now a happy announcement to finish : YOU can buy your own Abel-purse with your own preferences at Maryshoppings!

A balloon bag costs 159 euro.

Some teasers to totally convince you :

 

Write an email to maryshoppingsblog@gmail.com with your preferences at the end of this week!

XoXo Mary

Something old, something new,..

Hi dear fair fashionista’s, 

This week I present to you a couple of ‘old’ catches that I combined with some new, pretty and honest stuff.

It’s sale season and one of my habits then is to undertake a sustainable shopping trip to Brussels. I present you here one of my recent catches, combined with some honest clothing I shopped online!

When I give information about my outfits, I often notice that there are 2 different opinions towards 2nd-hand fashion.

Some people love the idea of almost-new stuff from great designers so very nicely (often hand)made or vintage pieces still in great shape.

Others are getting goosebumps at that very moment. 2nd-hand gives them an unpleasant feeling. For a lot of people it stays something dirty because it’s from people you don’t know.

I personally think that in our consumption-culture of today, there are a lot of great pieces that are ‘thrown’ away, just for creating more closet space.  With the possibilities to clean clothes these days, I think it’s really more dirty to buy something in a fast-fashion-store where it’s full of chemicals from the production and also fitted by far more people..

But hey that’s only my opinion 🙂

For the non-believer-camp , I gave it a shot to convince you guys, see for yourself darlings 🙂

 

 

Styling information : Shirt & Skirt : OLD/ Jacket + accessories : NEW

Shirt : Christian Dior by Isabelle Bajart, Skirt : French Connection from 2nd-Handstore in Cologne.

Jacket : Ambrym by Shopethica, Accessories by Maryshoppings :

Hair accessory : MIMZ, Necklace : All Things We Like , Watch : Kerbholz

PS: Stay tuned for all my Brussels-eco-shopping-tips!

XoXo Mary

 

A new Year of Fun!

Hi dear peopz,

 

A new year! Yay! New chances and new opportunities are coming.

I wish you all the best, may you dream big and find the courage to try hard.

Fair fashion has gotten a lot more attention these days so I’m confident that there will be more and more change more for the good in the future.

I give you 3 reasons to be confident:

1. I don’t know about you but I really read more about fair fashion in media lately.  In Belgian papers, there is slightly more interest, in the first week of the new year, I offer you an example out of ‘De Morgen’, I read this article and present to you the good news myself :

Source : Rankabrand.nl

Yes dear jeanslover, you can choose now in your favorite fair pants!

2) A lot of (Young) Belgian and Dutch Labels claim to have attention for fair fashion.

Examples : Ilke Cop , LN Knits & LN Beanies, Linda VS, Hooked,Wintervacht, Van Hulley, Vanilia, Ophelia Lingerie, Valerie Berckmans, Abeldesign

You can read about the vision of the last 3 in my article for FabulousFairFashion over here.

3) For those of you who can’t seem to find honest clothes nearby and are really eager to shop with discount in this period, I offer you 3 honest outfits with discount, to shop out of your chair! Click on the item below the picture to buy.

Dress : Studio JUX by Goodfibrations /Cardigan : People Tree by Goodfibrations/ Shoes : Swedish Hasbeens by Supergoods/ Earrings & Necklace : Mme Butterfly by Maryshoppings

Trouser: Armedangels by Goodfibrations / Boyfriend Jeans: Kuyichi by Supergoods/ Shoes : Wills by Chevalierdespieds/ Scarf : Hellen van Berkel, Earrings : MIMZ, both by Maryshoppings

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Dress : People tree by Fabulousfairfashion/ Cardigan : Armed Angels by Goodfibrations/Shoes : Toms by Supergoods /Sunglasses : Kerbholz by Maryshoppings

 

I hope you are ready for this year and happy to be part of the fair revolution!

XoXo Mary

Holiday o’clock

Hi fair fashionista’s,

It’s almost holiday season and I’m really looking forward to it.

Finally some extra time with lovely meals and great family talks.

But first it’s time to recharge the batteries. We’re going to the seaside for a couple of days with the only “dish” on the menu : sleeping and FrouFrou-time 🙂

I did some ready-for-(christmas)-holiday-styling.

 

 

Styling: White shirt: People tree by Fabulousfairfashion/ Sweater: Titi & the German Kid/ Sweatpants: People Tree/ Shoes: Veja/ Earrings : Mme Butterfly, Necklace : All Things We Like, Purse : MadebyMir, Holiday Bag : Fikay, all accessories by Maryshoppings

 

Why is it fair? 

People Tree developed the first fully integrated supply chain for organic cotton from farm to final product and we were the first organization ever to achieve GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certification on a supply chain entirely located in the developing world.

TITI + THE GERMAN KID is designed and produces in Belgium. There’s no information about the choice of fabrics but the production happens in an honest way.

Mme Butterfly is designed and produces in Belgium. She uses the sustainable product ‘porcelain’ that lives on forever.

All things we like is designed and produces in the Netherlands. The products are mostly handcrafted and made out of sustainable products like wood. They also experiment a lot with new innovative techniques.

MadebyMir is designed and made by hand in Beijing by an American designer Miranda. She only uses recycled materials.

Fikay equips widows and disabled adults in developing countries with a roadmap out of poverty by providing them with sewing machines, micro loans and training.

Veja has a clear vision combining fair trade and ecology and links it together with economy, social initiatives and the environment.

 

Okay you guys, my holiday bag is almost ready, Froufrou seems ready too..so I’m off! Happy vacation!

 

XoXo Mary

An honest bow !

Hi dear fair fashion people,

 

As you may know, once a week I also write once for FabulousfairFashion, an extremely cool and honest webshop for clothing, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

This week we offered some clear-consciousness-gift tips because what’s nicer to give than that, right? We made an honest bow on all of our presents. You can read our motives over here. 

Why I love to share it again with all you Maryshoppings-fans out here is because you can totally WIN a clothing or accessory-budget at Fabulousfairfashion AND Maryshoppings!

How do you win your fair outfit?

Follow Fabulousfairfashion & Maryshoppings on Facebook and follow all the steps.

Good luck sweethearts! I really wish you a beautiful outfit for the holidays!

 

We, from the fair-fashion-squat over here, are really eager to get together  with family and friends and of course we looove to style our own honest clothes.

Therefore a sneak peak in the getting-ready-to-party process of this week :

And ow yeah, we’re taking a bow again.. 😉

Styling information : 

Shirt : People Tree by Fabulousfairfashion/ Bow-tie : Two-O, Purse : MadebyMir, Watch : Kerbholz, all by Maryshoppings/ Earrings : La Ville Jewelry 

 

Have a great time!

XoXo Mary 

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Listening to a body..

That’s exactly what Lingerie Designer Ophelia does when she designs her soft, delicate, sophisticated pieces.

All the lingerie is made out of qualitative materials, 100% designed and produced in Antwerp.

I have met Ophelia a couple of weeks ago during the Press days in Antwerp. Actually, I first saw her exquisite pieces of beauty.. hanging in a corner and they immediately caught my eye. There was something about them..

When I was talking with the designer, I found a soft-hearted woman with a strong personality. And let just that aspect exactly be why her collection shined out for me.

Ophelia really listens to a womans body and even better: she listens to the person who adores woman the most. With her project ‘(fl)uisteren‘ (a Dutch word meaning something in between whispering and listening) in which she wrote letters together with different men about their significant other. Based on their stories, she designed unique lingerie pieces. She believed that uncensored and authentic pieces would arise when bypassing the rationalizations, insecurities and assumptions of women. 

Why is this lingerie fair to me? 

• It is handcrafted by the designer in Belgium
• She buys her fabrics in Paris from leftover stocks so nothing goes to waste
• This particular limited edition collection is made out of overstock silk and french lace (designed & produced in France!)

We talked a while and she admitted that it is very difficult to know everything about the origine and journey of all her fabrics but that she really is doing the best she can to obtain that knowledge and walks always with the fairest option. I personally believe that this fair heart has and will contribute a lot of nice things to fashion and more in particular, your closet?

 

You can find all the info about Ophelia over here.

 

XoXo Mary

 

 

Sneaker-Search!

Hi there,

If someone would ask me what my style is, I would answer that it really depends on my moods but generally speaking I’m a classic girl with a twist 😉

Being a small girl, I have been wearing heels almost daily for more than 10 years now. But of course there are circumstances where you need  more comfortable shoes to walk or to work in. For me it has always been hard to search the perfect shoes for those events.

As I have grow older (not larger sadly ;-), I find myself more and more in those kind of circumstances though  :-). And, yeah, even I like it more and more to put my heels in the closet for a while.. only I need a proper alternative that fits my style and is also fairly made.

The sneaker trend wasn’t really my favorite one so I ignored him for quite a long time (woman and their blind spots.. 😉 )

But lately.. I gave my blind spot a chance, I began to see outfits that I would totally wear!

Like these combinations for instance :

Found on Pinterest : Look 1 and Look 2

What I like about these two stylish woman is that they are looking so classy but with a look that is still doable to jump in-and out the car and pick up some groceries, if you catch my drift 🙂

It’s also a look that you can wear to go out for work and meet up  with the girls for drinks later on, with a tote bag and a clutch inside.. you can go both ways in a minute! I don’t know about you but I find it very comforting for myself that one look can carry more than one option 🙂

So, back to the sneaker! I began my search like a modern girl: on the internet! My goals: a sneaker that is well formed with a bit of a higher platform cause I really don’t like it if it feels like I’m going underground literally ;-). Here is what I liked (within my price range) :

From left to right, high to low : Adidas, Reebok, Stella McCarthy for Adidas, Puma, Puma, Stella McCarthy for Adidas and Adidas : Selena Gomez Edition

 

2nd Step : Is what I like, also ethically made? I put on an ethical filter on the above selection and searched a couple alternatives too. From left to right, high to low : Toms, Veja, Toms, Puma, Puma

When I started my internet search, the big sports labels came up really quickly so I was seduced by their great adds and counted on their expertise to deliver me a qualitative sneaker and I have to admit that their models are really stylish to!

So first I picked my goodies and secondly, I used the rankabrand-app to test their ethical score. Rankabrand gives scores from A till E, all the information you find over here.

I learned that from my first selection Puma gets a ‘C’ and adidas gets an ‘E’, Reebok also gets an ‘E’.

C means that the company clearly made some steps but still needs a push to do better or to give more information about the whole process.

E means that they really need to do it better.

Then I searched for brands that profile themselves as being ethical, like Toms and Veja, but I also kept my favorites from Puma. I even sneaked a wedge sneaker in it 😉

I also used the rankabrand-app to test those labels and guess what? Veja scored also a ‘C’ and Toms only an ‘E’ cause they are not transparent at all about their production and choice of fabrics.

So I’m a bit confused and not wholly convinced over here..

What do you think? Which sneaker for the win?

XoXo Mary