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If you've developed an environmental conscience recently, you'll have your cloth shopping bags all ready to go. But what do you do with that kitchen cupboard full of plastic bags that you still have left over? After all, when plastic bags go to the dump, they take around 500 years to break down. Well, if you're one of the crafty women at Bay of Islands craft co-operative Origin, you will crochet, knit and knot all those old plastic bags into one much-better-looking new bag. The colourful, recycled plastic bags - great for grocery shopping or perfect for the beach - cost between $32 and $75 and are on exhibition in the Northland gallery until October 22, after which they'll simply be on sale in the shop. Phone (09) 407 1133 for more info.
If you're feeling inspired by that idea, then local craft website www.toggle.co.nz also has some cute bags made out of recycled plastic available.
Eyes abroad
Next February Karen Walker expands her empire further - this time into Australian department store Myer. There she joins established Aussie designers like Wayne Cooper and Jayson Brunsdon, both of whom have already done diffusion lines exclusively for the department store chain, when she launches a more affordable line with monthly design releases.
Handbag blooper
Popular Spanish fashion chain Zara was forced to pull a whole line of handbags from its stores recently because the design included swastikas. The bags had been made in India and the popular Hindu sign - you see the swastika symbol everywhere on the subcontinent, where it is a symbol of luck and wellbeing - was unwittingly embroidered into the corners. Which, if you are Hindu, is actually pretty appropriate for carrying around. However, since the 1920s when the Nazis got their hands on the swastika, it has had very different associations in the Western world. The Zara bag led to complaints from customers and reports in the tabloid press that ran pictures of the bag next to pictures of Adolf Hitler. So the mega-fashion chain decided it had better just dump the lot.
Round trip
Jewellery by Rosena Sammi, a former New Zealand-trained lawyer who started designing jewellery in New York, has finally made it back to where Sammi, a Sri Lankan, was raised.
The fabulous, modern versions of traditional Indian jewellery, which have already been seen on the likes of Claire Danes and Naomi Watts and featured in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue, will be available at Trelise Cooper stores. Priced from around $180 and going as high as $40,000 for those glitzy American celebrity numbers, they're bling, but beautiful!
T-shirt with your song?
These days everyone's a fashion designer. And hey, if Jennifer Lopez can do it, then why not some of this country's own talented musicians? Local musos from groups like the Black Seeds, Evermore, OpShop and Shapeshifter as well as Brooke Fraser have all come up with T-shirt designs for the 2007 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards. To get your hands on one of the free limited edition shirts made, you'll need to be one of the first 250 music fans who download finalists' albums at the Vodafone website www.vodafone.co.nz/music
