Fashion Week. A week during which top designers preview their upcoming collections, some see it as a vapid tradition of parading the up-and-coming styles of apparel that are generally completely out of reach for most Americans. Attendees include major retail buyers, stylists, celebrities, media and the "fashion press corps;" and people with enough money to afford the clothing can usually finagle an invite as well. Fashion Week happens a few times throughout the year in major cities around the world, but the week hosted in New York City is considered by many to be the one at which to be and be seen. It's easy to dismiss this event as one of the ultimate representations of materialism, frivolity and superficiality; nevertheless, it is undeniably trend-setting.

This year, in addition to setting trends in hair, makeup and clothing, sponsors of Fashion Week tried to set trends in environmental friendliness and sustainability.  

Aluminum water bottles were all the rage for backstage thirst quenching. Now, I know you may be scoffing right now, "Oh puh-lease, fashion, designers, models, stylists...how shallow." Although I may be the first one to agree with you, with the increasing apparentness of the climate change crisis and our dependence on foreign oil consistently increasing, can we really afford to snub any arena that has the potential to influence positive social changes?

Other events this year, such as the Live 8 concert series in July, have used pop culture as a vehicle by which to change hearts, minds and everyday actions... motivating people into shifting gears to go green.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, a strong advocate of green businesses, remarked, "You cannot make a product greener without making it smarter." This statement is particularly true for bottled water. According to National Geographic's The Green Guide, last year Americans spent "...nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash." Not to mention the fact that producing this amount of plastic water bottles consumes 1.5 million barrels (equivalent to 63 million gallons) of oil a year.

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Isn't it then smarter--not to mention more advantageous to one's personal economics -- to drink from an aluminum water bottle? In addition to the extra padding to one's wallet, this issue also directly relates to the U.S.'s chances of lessening dependence on foreign oil.

So to be smarter is to be greener. To be or not to be doesn't even seem like a question.