In February 2005, during the hoopla of Fashion Week in New York, a phalanx of models strolled down a catwalk wearing hemp/silk gowns, organic-wool dresses, and bustiers made from recycled polyester. FutureFashion, as the show was called, was something of a coming-out party for the green aesthetic movement.

Eco-chic is now sprawling across the cultural terrain. Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson, recently teamed with of-the-moment denim designer Rogan Gregory to create a clothing line called Edun (that's nude spelled backward). Edun produces fair-trade T-shirts, jeans, and organic-cotton sweatshirts sold at high-end department stores like Nordstrom and Saks. Gregory's been busy; he also colaunched Loomstate, which makes organic-cotton jeans that sell at Barney's for about $165. Meantime, clothing and accessories made out of obviously recycled materials - everything from newspapers and phone books to old inner tubes - are showing up on the runway and on the street. Upscale greentailers from Brooklyn's 3R Living to Green Loop outside Portland, Oregon, have sprouted like organic mushrooms after a sun shower to sell fashion and furniture to people with thick wallets and guilty consciences.

The surging popularity of organic material - fibers grown without pesticides or herbicides - demonstrates that the neo-greens want to know the source of what they buy. They associate organics with not just healthy eating but low-impact, earth-friendly, sustainable farming. For a generation of shoppers, the certified-organic label has become a Garanimals tag for grown-ups. According to the Organic Trade Association, sales of organic clothing were projected to reach $88 million in 2004 - up 30 percent in two years.

Web sites have begun popping up to help consumers appear fashionable and still be environmentally defensible. Every month, more than 430,000 people visit Treehugger.com, which caters to "design-obsessed undercover bleeding hearts." Launched in July 2004, this site is produced by a far-flung group of bloggers on four continents who earn $10 to $15 per post. Now the tastemaker of the green aesthetic, Treehugger postings help readers price-check sorghum ottomans or find that perfect pair of recycled tire-valve earrings. "We're trying to make it easy by aggregating the sexy green stuff," says Graham Hill, the affable 35-year-old Canadian who founded the site. Ventures like these, as well as self-described "organic pioneers" like Stewart + Brown, are finding opportunity by pushing back against both the high-style chic crowd and the high-doom environmentalists.

To the fashionistas, the neo-greens say: Fashion is a dirty business; wake up and see the consequences of what you're doing. Stewart's awakening occurred when she was working for Patagonia, one of the first clothiers to move to organic cotton. For a decade, she had been designing countless cotton garments without thinking about the source of the fiber. Then she toured a conventional cotton farm in central California. "It was so toxic we had to shower afterward to wash away the chemicals," she recalls with a wince. To grow the cotton needed to make one T-shirt, she learned, farmers use one-third of a pound of pesticide. The bug killer can contain cyanide, dicofol, naled, propargite, trifluralin, and other carcinogens, traces of which can seep into the soil, infiltrate the cotton seeds, and cascade into the food supply. "Cotton is marketed as this pure white American commodity," says Scott Hahn, a cofounder of Loomstate. "That's deceiving."

But green aesthetes aren't just about blaming the runway set. They're also taking aim at what Brown calls "hippie conservatism," the hand-wringing gloom and doom that equates virtue with a conspicuous lack of style. Brown and his peers are willing to utter the unspeakable truth: Hemp ponchos and vegan sandals are butt-ugly, and most people who wear them look ridiculous. For a twentysomething on Friday night, a nubby brown sackcloth just doesn't cut it. "The hippies have been the backbone of the alt-environmental movement," Hill says. "But aesthetics matter. We're trying to show that you can be cool and hip and still give a fuck about the environment." The green aesthetes take their ideology bright, not dark. "We try to be super-optimistic," Hill says. "We're pro-business, pro-solution. The space we're trying to fill is motivation by hope, not fear."

But one groovy mom-and-pop business does not a revolution make. Stewart + Brown's sales are on pace to more than double to $2 million this year, but that's hardly a fortune in the low-margin rag trade. Organic-jeans maker Loomstate is growing, but it sells less in a year than Levi Strauss sells in a day. And while Treehugger is popular, it gets a sliver of the traffic of Amazon.com or even Boing Boing. The green aesthetic may be a movement, Hill says, but many advertisers still don't see the green aesthetes as a market. What's needed to nudge them fully into the mainstream is not just clever triangulation but an entire infrastructure - efficient supply chains, improved technology, and power retailers.

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