Moving the Needle
Wednesday 5th October, MATCHES FASHION
By Poppy Flatau
AWITA hosted a panel at MATCHES FASHION discussing the influence fashion and art has on changing attitudes and behaviour on sustainability. We explored the similarities and differences in how the art and fashion world are tackling sustainability. What works, what doesn't and how we can collaborate and innovate across sector lines.
Harriet Quick (Editorial Director at Luminaire) moderated a panel of Mary Fellowes (Founder of Greenwith Studio), Miranda Lowe (Principal Curator at Natural History Museum), Megan Reynolds (Fashion & Marketing Director at MATCHES) Illana Adamson (CEO of BeBetter) and Dr Jasmine Pradissitto (Artist).
As the world’s second most polluting industry, it is integral that the fashion and art industry takes major steps to prevent further environmental damage. Mary points out that “we're all swamped with choice with what we purchase,” giving the incentive to buy more with less thought. The problem of over consumption is unfortunately unlikely to change overnight, therefore many fashion and art brands have been giving major impetus towards sustainability when manufacturing products.
As emphasised by Illana, “sustainability is a misunderstood word”’ and is often casually thrown around. Mary spoke about the true definition of a sustainable product, being “something that either leaves the earth in the same or better state than in the process by which it was created.”’ For Illana, she puts this into practice by constantly asking herself whether ‘the actions I am doing now, or my company's actions, preventing future generations or the Global South, from having access to thrive and survive going forward?’ If this is the case, then the actions can be deemed unsustainable.
Illana also spoke about when her attitude towards sustainability shifted on a formative trip to the Grand Canyon, USA. Being so detached from contemporary society and so connected to nature, it made her reflect on “the whole other way that humanity has lived for thousands of years,” and how “we often forget that in our solution searching.” For her, adopting a climate positive attitude towards fashion was to connect back to a time when a lack of travel encouraged using only local resources.
Moreover, Jasmine pointed out that using nature when creating works of art and fashion is not only more sustainable but also more beautiful. She recalled her experience viewing the work of late designer Alexander McQueen, particularly his ‘Savage Beauty’ collection. He famously repurposed found objects and used them as the inspiration and decoration of his clothing. Jasmine compared him to a sculptor “but with fabric” and fashion as a whole as “just sculpting, but with another material.” Regarding her own artwork, Jasmine uses found objects to create sculptures. She draws strong inspiration from her surrounding environments and uses collections of objects to convey themes of memory and pollution.
Despite the art industry’s issues with sustainability, art in general is regarded as more valuable with age, due to its implications of memory and history. Jasmine spoke about the benefit to the fashion industry if this attitude was adopted for clothing. Pertinently, Ilana addressed the importance of every brand’s varying attitudes towards longevity, and how it correlates with the quality of clothes they produce. She used the example of a brand like BooHoo- a pinnacle of “fast fashion,’- making their preoccupation to focus on the short term, thinking about ‘how they make the next 2 years work.” On the other hand, brands mentioned like ‘Cartier’ and ‘Chloé,’ which have a vast collective history are constantly thinking how they make themselves “succeed for another thousand years.” Essentially, these high end brands have stood the test of time due to the greater quality of their products- something that they hope to continue for the greater good of their brands and the environment.
Mary gave the perfect example of how some luxury brands are using sustainable products to create innovative and high quality materials. She spoke about the use of otherwise wasted Pirarucu fish skin to mimic leather. Mary recalled the conversation she had with the founder of a Nova Kaeru. He was travelling around Brazil and began speaking to a taxi driver who had a connection with the local fishing community. When discussing the lack of sustainable leather, the driver proposed to him the use of this skin, which otherwise ‘gets dumped’ when the fish has been sold for food. Since this chance encounter, the Pirarucu fish skin, have been seen on “the runways of Rick Owens and Burberry.” As Mary points out, this is the “perfect example of zero waste of multiple industries working together so food and fashion and indigenous peoples and community.”
This process is also an example of how the production of more sustainable items does not have to be costly. As Miranda pointed out, there is just a lack of funding for these avant-garde materials because of “fossil fuels that are just so easy to use, and the green-washing that goes with them is also so easy.” Hopefully, the changes taking place within art and fashion will remove the fallaciousness of things wrongly advertised as sustainable, and the use of climate neutral materials will become standard practice.
This conversation was generally uplifting, as it shone light upon the constructive steps taking place within the world of art and fashion to tackle climate change. Hopefully, when these relevant changes are united with the adjusting attitude of the customer, there will be positive results. As Harriet reinforced, reducing consumption isn’t a depressing prospect, it only means shifting your mindset when “you purchase something, that you're kind of making a pact with it. You want it to be there for a long time. And you want to look after it as well.”
