As you can easily see from an array of posts in our eco-fashionista section, environmentally friendly women’s clothing is certainly making leaps and bounds, but we find ourselves wondering, what about menswear? To our surprise, nay, our shock, menswear is lagging behind women’s wear in a serious way.

A simple search online will show that most “green menswear” is actually in the early stages of production and manufacturing. We discovered that what the average green guy shopper is mostly likely to come across, if he’s lucky- is a few organic tee shirts. What we rarely find is an entire sustainable men’s line of clothing, let alone fashionable garments. Additionally, when we do come across a “green mens line”, we usually discover that organic materials and green processes have been employed only to varying degrees.

So ladies, watch out, menswear is sure enough to catch up in the green fashion race towards sustainability, but until then, it seems that the ladies are in the lead.

LA-based designer Deborah Lindquist has been a fixture on the green fashion scene since, well, before there was one. A queen of green fashion, she was repurposing and recycling vintage items while some of her A list clientele – Gwen Stefani, Jessica Simpson, and Paris Hilton were still in elementary school . Her designs are as figure flattering as they are ethically aware. Both couture and ready to wear, and completely environmentally fabricated, some of her signature items include recycled cashmere sweaters, scarves, fingerless gloves and other accessories, as well as beautifully crafted green wedding dresses.

Her first ever creation was a belt made from recycled leather, which was quite a surprise in an era that celebrated conspicuous consumption.

Lindquist’s current collection features “a few pre-loved fabrics that have become staples in her collection such as: cashmere, kimono, sari, scarf, wool, leather, and lace”. She is also experimenting with some new textiles such as “hemp blends, organic cotton, peace silk, modal blends, and soy chiffon”. When asked about the “greenness” of some of these fabrics, Lindquist is surprisingly blunt. Soy, for example, has its downside. Although the fiber is spun from waste generated by tofu manufacturing, soy is often genetically modified and requires pesticides and herbicides. This is a particularly sensitive issue for Lindquist, whose father almost lost his leg to pesticides after a mishap on their farm in her childhood. Other fibers debuting in her current collection are “peace silks”. Any other silk is made by “boiling the intact cocoons and unwinding the single silk strand onto reels”, but peace silks allow the moth “to emerge from their cocoons and to live out their full life cycle”.

Self dubbed environmentalists may wince at even the suggestion of animal fibers, however Lindquist is surprisingly philosophical about them. As long as the animals are well treated, de-hairing a goat for cashmere or shearing a sheep for wool is about as natural as it gets. We couldn’t agree more.

So what’s next you ask? Simply said: Spring 2009. But after that she’ll turn attention expanding her wedding line, children’s line and dog line.