by Isabella Luxenberg
As the year is coming to a close and the holidays are upon us, it’s the perfect time to think about what we’re thankful for. I, for one, am thankful for the state of fashion today, particularly its ability to have a voice and a message beyond just looking fierce on the runway. In a world that is constantly on the edge of its seat, fearing the worst from what seems like political Armageddon and rampant and unchanging violence, fashion has the ability to put these concerns front and center all while keeping the uber chic guise of editorial. Climate change may be the hottest topic on the minds of socially aware Millennials and Gen Z’ers which is undoubtedly the cause of the designers more eco-friendly approach to fashion.
Just this past season, many designers have turned pieces of their collections into conscious works of art. Avant garde designer Kei Ninomiya’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection is a meditation to the beauty of tbe nature around us. The first act this runway show fell nothing short of avant garde, featuring big, billowing dresses that look like frothy white clouds or delicately woven fields of baby’s breath with ornate headpieces of vegetation and leaves. In contrast, the energy shifted to all black with dresses that gave an ode the darkness that plant and animal life is born out. Instead of the white clouds, we see the abyss, the endless dark of the night sky and a more tactical aesthetic of belts and leather. For the closer, he showcases the most obvious: greenery. Combining the black and white, he introduces light touches of foliage until floor-length fuzzy, green coats and massive gowns of succulents strut down the catwalk.
“I wanted to focus on creation,” Kei Nunimiya said, instead of feeling the doomed-and-gloomed resolve that many of us succumb to.
In a similarly positive manner, Paris has that, by 2024, it will become the “sustainable capital of fashion.”
“Paris Good Fashion,” which is what the initiative is being dubbed, “ is an open community regrouping fashion professionals, brands, entrepreneurs, designers and experts who will be working together to establish a roadmap of the steps that can be taken to make Paris the sustainable capital of fashion,” said Isabelle Lefort, a former fashion journalist, who made the announcement at the Institut Français de la Mode earlier this year alongside Deputy Mayor of Paris, Antoinette Guhl, and Frédéric Hocquard, an elected official within the Paris Council,
As the leading fashion capital of the world, Paris had the ability to set trends in style and sustainability that will never feel too last season and the city is already taking major steps in its first few months. Sébastien Kopp and François Morillon, founders of environmentally-friendly shoe brand Veja, have opened the flagship store of their newest project, Centre Commercial. The store has the semi-high-end feel of a Nordstrom, but with the heart of every puffer jacket and sole of every sneaker being deeply rooted in the environmental cause.
It is the goal of movements like Paris Good Fashion to promote ideas and action globally and the world is starting to take notice. Affordable eco-brands like Everlane are expanding into the mainstream. Throughout October and November, the predominantly online store held pop-up shops across the country, allowing wider access to sustainable clothing. Young people are particularly conscious to matter, making these sentiments the root of their work. Paolina Russo is a 24-year-old London-based designer who aims to do good in high-production fashion market by using unusable materials like “single shoes or scratched items in perfectly good condition” to craft bold sport-inspired pieces.
“A huge part of sustainability is that you need to make sure what you’re doing isn’t harming the environment,” she told SSENSE, “ But if you’re making fashion, you really need to be committed.”
What makes young fashion participants so valuable to the future is their dedication to action and eagerness to understand what has to be done to preserve what we have left of the planet. As a young person constantly speculating on what tomorrow looks like for fashion, planet Earth, and so much more, I, like Paolina, want to really be committed and I’m eternally grateful to my peers who are making sustainability happen. It’s easy to look good, but what’s truly fashionable is the ability to be good.
Sources:
https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2020-ready-to-wear/noir-kei-ninomiya
https://www.ssense.com/en-us/editorial/fashion/apocalypse-now-ish-six-moments-of-sustainability-and-destruction-from-ss20-womenswear
https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/paris-sustainable-capital-of-fashion
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/style/paris-fashion-environment.html
https://hypebae.com/2019/10/everlane-pop-in-at-nordstrom-sustainability-sweaters-denim-jackets-coats-shoes-release
https://www.ssense.com/en-us/editorial/fashion/paolina-russos-gym-bag-corsetry