Eco Friendly Fashion; An inside look at John Hardy's Reforesation Project

The Fein Girls are proud to present you with a new blogging series. Every Monday we will highlight a designer who is making a conscious effort to bring eco-friendly fashion into the limelight.

We kick off the series with Bali-based jewelry designer John Hardy, whose efforts to reduce his company's carbon emissions began before 'going green' was the mantra of the modern man.

The "Wear Bamboo, Plant Bamboo" Jewelry line officially launched in 2006 as part of the company's Sustainable Advertising program, which calculates the carbon emissions associated with the company's print advertising, and plants a corresponding number of bamboo seedlings on Nusa Penida, a small island off the coast of Bali.

One of our Fein Girls has had the special opportunity to venture to Nusa Penida, a two-hour journey via a very small and rickety fisherman's boat through one of the deepest sections of the Bali-Lombok Straight. The only Westerner on the vessel, (not to mention the only blond), our girl made herself comfortable on an uneven wooden plank next to a weathered Indonesian fisherman who was cradling a goat in one arm and spitting betel nut onto the floor by her feet. She recounts the journey as being only mildly terrifying, well aware that the waters she was crossing were largely shark-infested.

Nusa Penida is an island devoid of electricity, plumbing, and pretty much every other type of amenity which defines the western world. It does, however, have incredibly rich in soil--which makes it the ideal location for a large-scale reforestation project.

(And reader, our girl made it there with all her limbs intact)

The idea of sustainable advertising is simple: the company plants thousands of bamboo seedlings of various types to diminish the amount of carbon gases released into the air. So when you purchase a special John Hardy piece from the "Wear Bamboo, Plant Bamboo" Collection you are contributing to the reforestation of an island, the restoration of oxygen levels, and helping decrease the poverty line of an island of rural Indonesian farmers (hello, job creation!)

Makes you feel good, don't it?





Below the John Hardy Kick Cuff planted 17 bamboo seedlings on Nusa Penida, while the Oval Drop earrings planted six and the Slim Ring planted three.