Animals & Insects

Amidst the fashion world’s growing interest in the luxuriously soft fabric that can be made from South American camelids like alpaca, one member of this family with uncommonly fine fleece has been largely ignored: the guanaco, the alpaca’s feisty cousin. Enter Adriana Marina, who is fighting for the guanaco’s place on the commercial stage.

In this exploration of the hidden stories behind materials such as wool and rayon, silk and polyester, and vegan leather, writer and sustainable fashion expert Alden Wicker found some inconvenient truths about the animal rights movement.

When you put on a stylish jacket made of rayon, vegan leather, or even recycled plastic, are you sure you’re helping the planet more than if you had bought one made of animal leather? In this journey down a very twisted rabbit hole, sustainable fashion expert Alden Wicker, founder and editor-in-chief of EcoCult, finds answers that may not be particularly comfortable for the animal rights movement.

In a growing number of artisanal shops dotted around the globe, indie perfume artists are bottling a world of scents left untapped by commercial fragrance houses.

If you’re tired of smelling like everyone else, you can say ‘no’ to the big perfume houses, and their overpriced, generic scents. In a growing number of kitchen labs and small shops around the globe, small-scale perfume artists are bottling a world of intoxicating new scents. Some seem to give new meaning to the concept of time travel.

A writer searches Istanbul’s cafés and alleys for the king of the ney, an enigmatic — and at times, endangered — flute that has long been a mainstay of Muslim musical traditions.

While the United States and other prosperous countries have struggled to keep their honeybees alive, Greece—a country suffering from a decade of intense economic troubles—continues to produce what many consider the world’s finest honey. What’s the Greeks’ secret? And why can’t honey producers in wealthier countries keep up?

While prosperous countries like the U.S. have struggled to keep their honeybees alive, Greece continues to produce what many consider the world’s finest honey. What’s the Greeks’ secret? And why can’t everyone else keep up?

Spencer Marshall is the proprietor of Marshall’s Honey, one of the biggest and most widely distributed artisanal honey brands in the San Francisco Bay Area. At his peak, Marshall had roughly 500 colonies scattered around Napa, Marin, and Solano counties. Now, at the age of 76, Marshall still maintains 350 colonies at more than a…