Be Black & White about Eco Chic in a Sexy Tee by Patrick Mohr

When a basic fast-fashion tank top retails for under $5, it's clear that the hidden costs are anything but chic...from the sweatshop factor to the carbon footprint left by pesticides, erosion, nutrient stripped soil, chemicals, electricity, water, and general pollution.

"An entire industry built on the concept of disposable whim, mass production and excess, has caused us to forget the value of garment," muse the eco-minded style mavens at NOT JUST A LABEL. "Rarely do we consider the complex process that went into the conception of even the humblest tee – from the growing of cotton plants or extruding of synthetic fibres from petrochemicals, harvesting, cleaning, spinning, dyeing, knitting or weaving, printing, cutting, sewing, not to mention the consumable resources required for each process, and the distribution between each of these stages. On a mass produced scale this becomes absurdly cost effective, but at what expense...We have forgotten that fashion should be a love story, not an affair."

To help save fashionistas from themselves and also having to choose between their conscience and their fashion-forward look, NOT JUST A LABEL recently launched their first limited edition Organic Collection for Spring/Summer 2010 featuring up-and-coming talents including Japanese designer Aoi Kotsuhiroi who takes a poetic approach to her work, Spon Diogo (Denmark), and Germany's Patrick Mohr, with these cool guy/girl black & white tees.

"My inspiration for this shirt is that I do not make any difference between men and women, or black and white," explains Mohr about the organic cotton jersey tees which are sourced from Lurdes Sampaio, one of Portugal's leading certified-organic cotton knit suppliers. "It does not make any sense to me. I designed this t-shirt to bring both together, a unity of black and white, of male and female."