It’s safe to say that going green has been one of the major trends in fashion over the past few seasons, but leave it to the Italians to elevate the process to an act of style and superior aesthetic. Yoox.com, the Italian giant among online luxury retailers, is launching yooxygen.com, a subsection of its main site, which sets in motion the overall ecological make-over of the company.

This dedicated area opened its digital doors yesterday to coincide with Earth Day, offering ecologically an ethically conscious products including fashion, design, jewelry, books and music. Yoox’s main partner in this venture is the Green Cross, Mikhail Gorbachev’s non-governmental organization which works to promote actions that ensure a just, sustainable, and secure future for humanity.

In addition offering eco-friendly products from established labels—Stella McCartney’s vegan-friendly accessories line, Camper’s shoe line made from coco fiber and jute and Levi’s jeans in organic cotton and recycled denim materials—Yooxygen also collaborates with a variety of designers to present limited-edition items only available on the site. These site-exclusive products include Ilaria Venturini Fendi’s covetable Carmina Campus line of one of a kind, brightly colored clutches made of aluminum panels that were once part of of Venetian blinds. Katharine Hamnett, meanwhile, is reissuing certain styles of her famous ’80s slogan t-shirts in an ethically produced organic cotton variety, and hard-to-find contemporary jewelry line Caboclo will unveil items handmade by native craftsmen from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. And, of course, there’ll also be vintage pieces available as the ultimate contribution to recycling.

Heading up the design segment is prized Italian design firm Pandora, whose biodegradable tableware objects are being sold at MOMA New York as well as other prestigious museums in the world. They have created an eco-sustainable, limited edition aperitivo kit made entirely from biodegradable materials exclusively for Yooxygen.

The eco consciousness goes beyond this green product selection, however: Yoox is planning to offset 100% of the carbon dioxide produced by outsourced shipping to customers in clean energy and reforestation. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the green revolution within the company, which includes a new fleet of company hybrid cars and adopting renewable energy for the Milan-based office. The high-profile project has also attracted help from Magnum (founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson). The legendary photo agency produced an online photographic essay that presents a point of view of the world’s nature through the eyes of the best photographers in the world.

—Christina von Messling