Last week, MR editors mined the Las Vegas menswear tradeshows for trends and innovations. For my part, I left New York a bit apprehensive about my first Vegas round, but I returned invigorated and hopeful for spring ’09 and menswear at large.

One reason was the obvious popularity of green marketing, which we’ve been hearing about at increasing volume for some time. The Ecollective area at MAGIC was interesting, more for the lecture from Connie Ulasewicz, one of the authors of “Sustainable Fashion”, than anything we saw in fashion. The fashion must be more forward than the green if it’s going to sustain ITSELF. Our fashion director, John Jones, was bored with yet more eco-fabric camp shirts, and I was unenthused about a wide range of T-shirts with eco-messages.

But one thing did bowl me over: the imitation river boulders produced by Ronél Jordaan of South Africa. Handmade from merino wool, they were the very image of veined stone washed smooth by an alluvial flow. Almost as light as the Styrofoam prop rocks for which I’d mistaken them, they would look great in any home – but I couldn’t see what their green story was, or find who could tell me.

Image is what draws attention, not content, and Loomstate at Project were an example. They didn’t upsell the organic angle; in fact they didn’t even mention it when discussing their spring items. It’s not played up because the clothes should speak for themselves. When I mentioned it, Loomstate’s Moose Huerta told me that though the company has used organic cotton and low-impact dyes, natural dyes can be more harmful. Manufacturers have to use more fixative and more energy so natural dyes will take, and this isn’t always offset by recycling water. Besides, “the majority of our adjacencies aren’t organic,” he says – probably because Loomstate sells in better stores than those that sell only T-shirts.

Remembering the old “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra, I was happy to see Malcolm Fontier’s line of accessories (bags wholesale $47-142, wallets wholesale $15-36, toiletry cases) reducing waste with completely vegetarian bags using long-life polyurethane accents instead of leather. The pleather was more leather-like than the PVC usually used, and less toxic in the wastestream. I was told it lasted longer than PVC as well. Most importantly, and this is what stopped me at their booth, the bags were sleek and toned, showing their industrial design heritage.

Malcolm Fontier and bag at his Project booth.

Los Angeles’ Steve Vintage reuses vintage finds to make eminently wearable printed shirts, seersucker shorts and (most interestingly) vests. Each piece is unique, the vests retailing for $60-$65 in stores like Lisa Kline. He had a small booth in the Pool area of Magic, which was in itself a hotbed of invigorating fresh ideas.

Bill Lavin was also a reuser, mentioned in Harry Sheff’s blog and our August issue for his genius in leather. The effect is most stunning in person, as it was at his MAGIC booth. Though what he did to remaindered Italian leather wasn’t very green, what mattered is that he kept the piece goods from becoming waste after everything that had already been done to produce them. I was surprised that no one in New York is retailing his shoes yet!

Recycling could be found in unexpected places like bags made from plastic bottle fiber or bracelets made from recycled glass (Smart Glass jewelry). Project should be commended for putting plastic bottle recycling where it OUGHT to have been, but never was: in labeled bins beside the garbage cans. With all the free and promotional water being handed out at the shows, I shudder to think of how much perfectly recyclable PET plastic gets landfilled from each site.

There were countless other companies selling with green stories. Some didn’t have much of a story, so it was more of a hook – perhaps a green haiku. It’s a sad commentary that only Project had recycling bins, reminding the retailer trading on sincerity to be cynical of any marketing angle, and always check the ideology behind the inventory.