Green Design Gets Sexed Up
Green Fashion Gets a Much Needed Dose of Fashion
The recent Esthethica show in London, hosted by the British Fashion Council, proves that green fashion can be downright desirable and fashionable.
Just because an object of clothing is green, doesn’t have to automatically mean it’s made of hemp, or shapeless – or any number of the other decidedly non-fashionable attributes that tend to get associated with eco-friendly fashion. "I’d love to see the day when we’re no longer divided into ethical and nonethical fashion," Orsola de Castro, designer of the eco-enlightened label From Somewhere recently told WWD.
De Castro recently helped curate Estethica, the British Fashion Council’s nod to "ethical fashion" at The Exhibition @ London Fashion Week, focusing on fashion that - while green, eco-friendly, and fair trade - was primarily about good design. "Of course, being ethical sets limits, but that encourages creativity."
Rather than guilting people into buying green, the Esthetica designers are employing a stealth approach: use cool design - rather than guilt - to further the cause of ethical fashion. "It was more important that my work is a fashion statement so it can provoke real change. That way we can show that sustainable can be beautiful," says Deborah Milner of London’s Ecoture - financed by the Estee Lauder brand Aveda - which produces custom-made evening wear from naturally-dyed fabrics that benefit indigenous communities. "I feel like Rumpelstiltskin," joked Katharine Hamnett, (referring to spinning straw into gold) about her new Katharine E Hamnett line which fulfills almost any eco- & fair trade-friendly criteria possible. (Prices range from around $60 for a tee, to $160 for trousers, and just under $300 for a dress.) Adds de Castro – who will be opening a new store in spring 2007 featuring garments fashioned from fabric remnants salvaged off of other designers’ cutting room floors: "Everyone recycles. It doesn’t make you a hippie."
