Well it looks like the Carnabetian army marches to a new green tune. The street in London prowled by many swinging sixties stars started a new Christmas tradition this year that employs some pretty cool energy efficiency measures. Treehugger broke the news today:

Carnaby Street Wins on Christmas Decorations

by Bonnie Alter, London on 12. 7.07

It's a tradition, of sorts: every year in mid-November, C-list celebrities, always women, are enlisted to turn on the Christmas lights festooning major streets. Very tacky, and environmentally wasteful. So hurray for Carnaby Street, that funny little left-over from London's Swinging Sixties. This season they have covered the walking streets with festive paper chains in bright, irridescent colours.

It's an inventive alternative to energy consuming lights, and they didn't even have a super-model to "turn them on". The paper chain design will make use of the store lights in the shops at night and will interact with the holographic finish of the Christmas decorations, therefore using no extra electricity for the display. By using a highly reflective material and extremely bright colours, the oversized ‘paper chains’ will react to sunlight too, so that removes the use of electricity during daylight hours altogether. A great-looking idea on all counts. ::

Labels: decorations, holidaze, London, sarah, treehugger