Fashion and eco-friendliness meet this season on "Project Runway", as the eighth installment of the fashion design competition, premiering on Lifetime July 29, includes a green designer: Gretchen Jones, who signed up seeking exposure and backing for herself and her fledgling MothLove line, which features organic cotton and silk and some soy, pencil and bamboo fibers. “I’m a green designer because of my own ethics and my own concerns, but if you don’t have a strong product, it doesn’t matter what your social and ethical practices are,” Jones tells MNN. “For the green movement to move forward, we have to create products that are worthy of everybody’s attention and interest and dollar.”

 

Based in Portland, Ore., Jones sells her clothes locally at Frances May and nationally at American Rag and Fred Segal boutiques, but admits it’s hard to find domestically made sustainable materials in the Northwest. “To be truly eco is quite a burden. I’d like to move into no-kill silk. But being a one-woman show there’s only so much I can do,” says Jones. The cost of eco materials is another challenging issue, “especially when we’re competing with toxic materials made in China.”

 

On "Project Runway", she was happy to be able to use some “end run” fabrics that would have been thrown away, and loved that the first design challenge involved recycling another contestant’s personal garment. We won’t spoil, but Jones impressed the judges with the black dress she made. “I was really proud that I was able to produce something that was true to my point of view and esthetic,” she says, describing the latter as a blend of contemporary minimalist and 1970s bohemian.

 

Originally from rural Colorado, Jones grew up aware of environmentalism and conservation. “When you grow up poor, you end up being way more resourceful. You’re sustainable by default,” she says. Today, she uses wind power energy, purchases local foods and goods, shops vintage stores, and recycles “everything.” Taught to sew by her grandmother, she was into fashion at a young age, designing the first communion dress that her grandmother sewed. After detouring briefly into fine art, she returned to fashion at 22.

 

A fan of sustainable designers like Rachel Comey, Bodkin, Samantha Pleet and Phillip Lim’s 3.1 line, Jones notes that fashion’s top names “are really quite reluctant to go sustainable and I want to give them a run for their money.” Although she missed her Portland lifestyle while taping "Runway", she’s ready to give it up and return to New York City to grow her business and find mentors or backers, “anything from an investment in what I’m doing to working under people that can help guide me,” she says.

 

Win or lose, she came away with some great relationships “and a better understanding of what kind of designer I am, more solidified confidence and point of view as a designer, and I was able to learn from people that I really admire,” says Jones, but she doesn’t plan to watch, at least not yet. “I didn’t go on the show to be on television. I went to learn and expose what I do to the greater population,” she explains. “Right now it’s more important to focus on the tools I was given so I can represent myself regardless of the editing in a manner that feels true and authentic to myself.”

 

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Starring James Badge Dale (pictured right), AMC’s "Rubicon" is a conspiracy thriller set in a think tank in New York City, where Dale’s information analyst character stumbles upon encrypted evidence of a secret shadow government in a crossword puzzle. The title refers to the fact that “once you cross the Rubicon, nothing will ever be the same,” says Dale of the series, premiering Aug. 1. “By opening his mouth about this information, he’s made a choice that he can’t take back.”

 

Shooting in New York, where he resides, Dale takes the subway to work, recycles, and grows herbs on his deck. “I live in the East Village and we have a lot of community gardens. There’s a neighborhood effort to keep everything green,” he notes. “It’s a nice place to live.”

 

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Tune In: Planet Green inaugurates its second annual Blue August month of water-related programming, and with the crisis in the Gulf drawing attention to water issues, it couldn’t be more timely. Hosted by ocean conservationists Philippe and Alexandra Cousteau (pictured above) from the Gulf region and elsewhere, the programming kicks off Aug. 2 with the special "One Water", a documentary about the struggle to find potable water narrated by Martin Sheen. Other highlights include the Aug. 8 premiere of the six-part series "Ocean Blue", following Philippe Cousteau and his team of underwater explorers on expeditions to unravel the mysteries of the world’s oceans and the network premiere of the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove" on Aug. 30.

 

Discovery Channel’s 23rd annual "Shark Week", premiering Aug. 1, gets a conservation element this time out via partnership with Oceana in an effort to educate viewers about the predators and the threats they face from commercial fishing and pollution via blogs, social media and a PSA featuring TV host Craig Ferguson. Discovery and Oceana have also joined forces to support legislation protecting sharks.