Last Friday, Go Campaign -- which encourages kids to volunteer to help other children around the world -- held a dinner fund-raiser and auction at the Social Hollywood to honor Toms Shoes' Blake Mycoskie. Actor Ewan McGregor hosted the event.

“Toms is not only giving shoes to kids around the world but it’s inspiring people to think differently about business,” said Mycoskie, who wore a new silver Toms shoe for Neiman-Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. “When I accept an award, I get a few minutes to tell people: you don’t have to either do just charity or business. You can combine the two for more sustainable ways to help people.”

Toms Shoes has a policy where it gives one pair of shoes to children in need for every pair sold.

Ewan McGregor said he got involved with the Go Campaign after mutual friends suggested he let organization founder Scott Fifer stay on his couch in London while en route to a project in Tanzania. “I’m here to raise awareness and raise money for the project -- that's my job,” said the now L.A.-based actor who was wearing just a "gray suit." “A lot can be done for a very little.”

Dave Stewart and his Rock Fabulous quartet entertained the student volunteers and their families plus celebs Jonah Hill, Cheryl Tiegs and Danielle Bisutti.

-- Max Padilla

Photo: Ewan McGregor (left), Go Campaign founder Scott Fifer and Tom's Blake Mycoskie. Credit: Paul Redmond/WireImage

Gossip, first impressions, trends in the making, celebrities and style setters. A regular feature by fashion critic Booth Moore.

All the leggy, blond girls and wild-haired surfer boys were out Wednesdaynight at the Viceroy in Santa Monica to celebrate Blake Mycoskie's birthday. The founder of Toms shoes may be turning 33 (the actual date is next week, when he's going to be in New Orleans on a shoe drop), but he can still part-ay, as demonstrated by the gun-shaped flasks of tequila he was sporting in a waist holster made out of two open-toed Toms canvas shoes.

Mycoskie's business is going great guns, thanks in no small part to his AT&T commercial, which is in heavy rotation on TV. Turns out the folks from AT&T called the Toms 800 number to offer the gig to Mycoskie who was, ironically, out of touch, traveling in Chile. He went to check his e-mail at an Internet cafe, and finally got word of the commercial. And since it's started airing earlier this year, he says shoe sales have increased 600%.

Happy Earth Day! We here at the Los Angeles Times Image section know that desire drives fashion. But as the high cost of our wants becomes clear, some businesses are evolving with an eye to helping people and planet. The new vision? Here's a look at some local entrepreneurs who are bringing it to focus.

* Clothing designer Christina Kim weaves recycled materials as well as the work of artisans the world over into her eco-friendly, human-friendly Dosa fashions. Click here for more on Kim, and here for photos of her work.

* Pierre André Senizergues' Sole Technology, a successful Lake Forest-based skatewear company, is using eco-friendly technology and recycled materials in hopes of inspiring others to do the same. Here's more on him, and photos are here.

* Toms Shoes' entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie has, to date, given away 140,000 pairs of shoes in the U.S., Argentina, Ethiopia and South Africa. Read more about him here, or click here for photos.

* Local boutique The Way We Wore brings in designers to give flat frocks new chic (and fuel its Out of the Ordinary charity auction). More about that here, with photos here.

For more on eco-friendly fashions, including what to wear and what green-friendly online publications to bookmark, check out this package.

-- Times staff writers

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Photos: Top, Christina Kim. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times; middle, Pierre André Senizergues. Credit:Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times; bottom: Blake Mycoskie.Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times

Toms Shoes have become popular with skaters, hipsters and hipsters who wish they were skaters, so it seems fitting that Toms would collaborate with a huge skate brand on a limited edition line of shoes and boards.

The Toms and Element Skateboards line launches today with a collection of five styles of shoes --three for women and two for men.  Also, Element has designed a Toms branded skateboard to push around on while wearing what else? Toms shoes.

Element will follow the Toms "one for one" rule -- for every skate deck or board bought, Element will give a board away to a child in need of some wheels. 

The shoes from the collection are fun and splashy, with stripes, flowers and graphic prints. The shoes are all $46. Skateboards retail for $150 for a complete long board and $50 for the smaller deck.

--Melissa Magsaysay

Photos: Women's floral stripe shoe and men's Element print shoe / Toms Shoes

I stopped into the Toms Shoes pop-up store in Venice on Friday to reconnect with the brand’s founder Blake Mycoskie.  I was one of the first people to write about him back in 2006. A former contestant on “The Amazing Race” reality show, he was just returning to L.A. from Argentina, where he’d gone to relax, play polo and volunteer. Inspired by poverty in the country and by the traditional Argentine rope-soled canvas “alpargata” shoes, he'd created a business. The model? For every pair of Toms shoe sold in the states, he would donate a pair to a child in need in South America or Africa.

Since then, he has given away more than 200,000 pairs of shoes, many on “shoe drops” in Ethiopia and Argentina. Next year, his goal is to give away 300,000 more. The shoes come in a variety of colors, prints and plaids (including glitter for the holidays) and are affordable, at about $48 a pair. They are sold online at tomsshoes.com and at stores such as Whole Foods and Urban Outfitters. And you can’t help but feel good about buying them. Not that Mycoskie’s making a profit — yet. That’s for 2009.

Still, I think Mycoskie, who lives on a sailboat in the marina (how cool is that?) and works in Santa Monica, is at the forefront of a new kind of conscientious consumerism. He never went to college but is a natural-born entrepreneur who likes to talk about everyone from Richard Branson to Ralph Lauren, with whom he recently collaborated on a limited edition line of Toms. And he pays for his employees, all 30 of them, to go on shoe drops with him around the world -- so they believe in the product as much as he does.

It’s no wonder that former President Clinton became such a fan he invited Mycoskie to join his Global Initiative annual meeting in September — and gifted all the world leaders who participated with a pair of Toms shoes!

Check them out for yourself at tomsshoes.com or TOMS Pop-Up store, 1617 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice, (800) 975-TOMS.

-- Booth Moore

Photos: Top, Toms Pop-Up Store, and bottom, Toms glitter shoes. Credit: Toms