G7 and fashion houses join forces to make clothes more sustainable - The Guardian |
- G7 and fashion houses join forces to make clothes more sustainable - The Guardian
- Ann Demeulemeester Doesn’t Miss Fashion at All. She Has Other Plans. - The New York Times
- Columbus fashion designer hoping to make Paris dreams come true - 10TV
- In New York and London, Fashionistas Prepare for a Fall of Fashion Week Protests - The Daily Beast
| G7 and fashion houses join forces to make clothes more sustainable - The Guardian Posted: 20 Aug 2019 10:00 PM PDT There have been few fashion statements over the years at G7 summits (dress code: world leader suit, sensible shoes). But this year, G7 leaders will be joined by more than 20 fashion retailers and brands, including the owner of Gucci, Kering, H&M and Zara's parent company, Inditex, for a key fashion moment – a global pact to fight the climate crisis and protect biodiversity and the oceans. The deal to be concluded in Biarritz at the weekend comes as the global fashion industry faces an unprecedented backlash from young people concerned that it is contributing more to climate change than the aeronautical and shipping industries combined. Without action, the industry could account for a quarter of the world's carbon budget by 2050. The issue is soaring up the agenda, with models on the catwalk at London fashion week next month set on a collision course with campaigners from Extinction Rebellion who want the event scrapped in the face of the climate emergency. Growing numbers of young people are turning away from fast fashion towards reuse and resale sites such as Depop in the UK, Thredup and The RealReal in the US and YCloset in China. The secondhand market is expected to overtake fast fashion in the next few years and be 50% bigger than it by 2028, according to a report by market analysts GlobalData for Thredup.  The surge in environmental concern is forcing brands to accelerate sustainability plans and club together to bring about change not only in stores but with the factories and suppliers they share around the world. Last month Inditex, the world's third-largest apparel company, announced that all of its collections would be made from 100% sustainable fabrics before 2025, the first international high street store to make such a commitment. It is switching to renewable energy and pledging to send zero waste to landfill by 2025. Quick guideWhat is the Upside?Ever wondered why you feel so gloomy about the world - even at a time when humanity has never been this healthy and prosperous? Could it be because news is almost always grim, focusing on confrontation, disaster, antagonism and blame? This series is an antidote, an attempt to show that there is plenty of hope, as our journalists scour the planet looking for pioneers, trailblazers, best practice, unsung heroes, ideas that work, ideas that might and innovations whose time might have come. Readers can recommend other projects, people and progress that we should report on by contacting us at theupside@theguardian.com The UK parliament's environmental audit committee investigation into sustainable fashion has also prompted action, despite the government rejecting a recommendation of a 1p per garment tax to fund better textile recycling schemes. The committee's report published in February named and shamed brands such as Boohoo, JD Sports, Sports Direct and TK Maxx, which had been slow to take action: failing to use sustainable cotton, collect used clothing or sign up to the government-backed sustainable clothing action plan (Scap). Scap, whose nine large retail signatories including Next, M&S, Primark and Asos have committed to reducing their water use, carbon footprint and waste sent to landfill by 15% by 2020, said it had seen a notable increase in inquiries about joining up. With the spotlight shining on the fashion industry, Primark, one of the flag-bearers for the kind of one-use fast fashion so heavily criticised by environmental activists, is experimenting with clothing recycling bins at its new store in Birmingham and has pledged to introduce a full scheme this year. It has also launched sustainable cotton jeans and eco-friendly glitter. Giorgina Waltier, sustainability manager for H&M in the UK and Ireland, said: "There has definitely been a significant change in people's attitudes towards sustainability and fashion in the last 12 to 18 months, with a real sense of urgency around these issues and a definite demand from consumers for more action and greater transparency from brands." H&M, the Swedish group that also owns the Cos, & Other Stories, Monki and Weekday brands, is aiming to have 100% recycled or sustainably sourced materials by 2030, up from 57% now. It is also testing out a free mending service. Marie-Claire Daveu, chief sustainability officer at Kering (whose boss François-Henri Pinault, was asked by French president, Emmanuel Macron to help pull together the G7 fashion-industry deal) said the international fashion pact would enable global retailers to share best practice and ideas and combine their buying power to push for change right back to the agricultural practices involved in supplying raw materials. "Many companies have taken the initiative but if they do things on their own it has less impact on the ground than if they work together," said Daveu. She said the group could combine efforts to find solutions to problems such as effective recycling of textiles and fibres for garments that can't be worn again. "More and more customers and clients, generation Z and millennials, are expecting brands to act," she said. "Listed companies also find more and more investors and financial analysts are taking factors like climate change into account on risk management. Chief executives and designers are also citizens of the world and very conscious that they have an important role to play in one of the most important issues of our century." "It's not an option, it's now a duty of running a global company." But there are fears that the G7 pact will only add complexity and confusion: there are already many groups involved in sustainability, including the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Global Fashion Agenda and Common Objective, a private enterprise that recently took over the former Ethical Fashion Forum, which was run as a charity. Several retail and sustainable fashion experts told the Guardian they were concerned that the array of standards and global groups which brands and their suppliers were now expected to sign up to could divert resources from actual action. "It's great what Macron is doing," said one big retailer who has held back from signing up to the G7 pact, referring to the fact that it was the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who asked Kering's boss, François-Henri Pinault, to help pull together the G7 fashion industry deal. "But our responsibility is not to just sign something and the job is done. It is fine to say stuff but actually doing stuff is what's important. Resources can be consumed by meetings. Let's keep the balance on delivering." David Moon, of Scap,said global initiatives served to get big company bosses focused on environmental issues but he said "national action like Scap can really drive change. We can [muster] capital investment and ensure people are measuring and managing change." The UK government has backed an extension to Scap when it winds up next year and the new deal is expected to involve more retailers and to take steps towards developing industry-wide systems to recycle and reuse textiles and fibres. Most big retailers now agree they have to adapt to survive. Waltier said: "Our planet doesn't have the resources available to facilitate the linear production model that the vast majority of the fashion industry operates and therefore systemic change is the only option." This article is part of a series on possible solutions to some of the world's most stubborn problems. What else should we cover? Email us at theupside@theguardian.com  |
| Ann Demeulemeester Doesn’t Miss Fashion at All. She Has Other Plans. - The New York Times Posted: 21 Aug 2019 02:00 AM PDT  There are chickens, a garden and a whole new line of products. Image  By KESSEL, Belgium — Six years ago, when Ann Demeulemeester walked away from the fashion label she founded in 1985 — a house known for an ethereal, monochromatic aesthetic embodied by nymph-like models with penetrating stares and dark brows — speculation ensued. What would she do next? Could the label, which she had so carefully cultivated to be the visual incarnation of a Patti Smith lyric, really go on without her? It is not unusual for designers to step away from fashion — some burn too bright, crashing out broke or exhausted — but Ms. Demeulemeester's case was unusual. She left something that was still succeeding — handing creative control to Sébastien Meunier — seemingly for no pressing reason other than urge. It turns out, though, that she was not done with designing. She was simply looking for a new language. "I wanted to leave myself time to try another kind of life," she said. "I wanted to be vulnerable again. To be starting out, finding something difficult." She has landed on a new medium, and Ann Demeulemeester Serax, a collection of porcelain dinner services, silverware, glasses and, in the near future, larger housewares, will be available in October. It was all conceived by Ms. Demeulemeester and her husband, Patrick Robyn, a former photographer and her long-term collaborator. For years, Ms. Demeulemeester, 59, lived in central Antwerp, in the only surviving Le Corbusier building in Belgium. (During her final year in college, she produced a fashion collection inspired by Modernism, and Mr. Robyn thought they should photograph it in a complementary setting, so they tried to contact the building's owner. A few years later, after a slight miscommunication over their intentions, they ended up buying it, cobbling the money together from relatives.) Now, country life defines her day. To be specific: a house in Kessel, a small town where, at one time, most residents were employed in diamond cutting. It is about 45 minutes from Antwerp, by car, and just shy of an hour from Brussels. "It's really in the middle of nowhere," Ms. Demeulemeester said. The house, from the outside, is imposing: giant, square, Palladian. It was built in 1864 on the instruction of a woman who had fallen in love with an Italian man and hoped to entice him with a house modeled on a Lake Como residence. (Her plan failed.) Inside, it's cozier. There is well-worn midcentury furniture, a stuffed horse's head with an added horn to suggest a unicorn ("Are you a princess?" children ask Ms. Demeulemeester when they visit) and an abundance of lamps. At the end of the grounds, a river flows, which, if followed for a little over three miles, leads to the country house of her fellow Belgian designer Dries Van Noten. He and Ms. Demeulemeester were members of the Antwerp Six, a cluster of talented students who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1980 and 1981 and quickly put Belgium, previously unremarkable for its fashion, on the map. Today she and Mr. Van Noten often compare garden notes. Hers is 50 acres and includes Shamo chickens, which she recently bought for Mr. Robyn. There is also a small bathing pond, in which she takes a midafternoon dip, and a thriving vegetable patch. IN KESSEL, Ms. Demeulemeester has come to respect the relentlessness and unpredictability of tending to nature. She likes how slow the process is, the fact that validation takes years. She insisted that a reporter smell her favorite tree, a rhododendron. "You have to be strong," she said. "There can be a storm, and suddenly something you love dies. You have to learn to start again. I learnt that if an old tree goes away, another one will grow. A small one will take the place, in the light that becomes available." The obsession with rearing things by hand is what led her to housewares. One afternoon, she bought a bag of porcelain clay and set to work. She took to the process well, trying little bowls, then bigger bowls. Then came the cups, plates and ornaments, including two eerily lifelike heads, an angel and a devil, that sit, one cheek down, on her dining room table with candles extended from their necks, as if they've been impaled. Part of the appeal of porcelain was having suitable homes for her carefully harvested fruit and vegetables. Her husband suggested building a little atelier downstairs. There, clad in a white lab coat, Ms. Demeulemeester worked away for five years, slowing learning new techniques. "I had to learn to be so patient, to wait days until things dried, to wait while it baked, to accept that it may break and I'd have to start again," she said. "It was the opposite of fashion." She found it relaxing but would often find herself working into the night. "I always loved to sculpt," she said. "My clothes were always about shape. That's why they were always black and white. I felt much more like an architect than a decorator." MS. DEMEULEMEESTER attended porcelain master classes in England and France. She employed tutors. She went to Germany to see traditional manufacturers. She taught herself to make molds. She tested endless glazes. (Forty squares of porcelain, each a different, barely distinguishable shade of white, sit lined up by the atelier window.) She invested in an enormous German kiln by Rhode, which came only in bright turquoise. ("It's a horrible color," she said.) "I wanted to know how to do it all," she said, surveying shelf upon shelf of her creations. Why the mania? "I was raised Catholic — maybe that has something to do with it," she said. "If you wouldn't give the best of yourself, you would be lazy. I never saw my parents sitting down or relaxing or doing nothing. I still feel guilty doing nothing." Fittingly, her home came with its own chapel upstairs, a round room decorated with ornate frescoes, which today contains a record player and a couch. So perfect are the acoustics that sometimes the local choir asks if they can borrow it to rehearse. At the intimate dinner parties (fish suppers for between four and six) that Ms. Demeulemeester enjoys hosting, she began to introduce her handiwork. "I loved to always put a new plate on the table," she said. "Look what I made!" Sometimes guests asked to buy them. "It's amazing," she said. "It's like seeing your first collection, only it's not clothes." "'But it's so Ann!'" she recalled her guests saying. One business-savvy guest suggested she meet Axel Van Den Bossche, a founder of Serax, the housewares manufacturer. On visiting her "castle," as he calls it, Mr. Van Den Bossche was struck. "I was really surprised because I've been in the business of tableware for years, and I'd never seen something like that," he said by telephone, referring to Ms. Demeulemeester's hand-painted plates with meticulous, delicate brush strokes creeping in from the edge, resembling something between the edge of a feather and a hazy ray of light. "This was really something special." THEY SPENT A YEAR working out how to produce the Serax collection. Much of the complexity came from the demands of Ms. Demeulemeester's unrelenting eye. "I said to him in advance, 'Are you sure you want to do this? Because I'm a perfectionist,'" she said. "It's my best and worst element." It was an "emotional" process, Mr. Van Den Bossche said. "I've worked with several well-known designers, and I've never seen anyone like this, who goes into the detail like this." At one point, no one could be found to adequately reproduce the hand-painting. In the end, they settled on a studio of porcelain experts in China who received regular WhatsApp videos of Ms. Demeulemeester painting. The Chinese experts would film themselves and take pictures of the plates and send back the footage. Worried that their brushes weren't exactly right, Ms. Demeulemeester sent them her own. Finally, Ms. Demeulemeester said, one woman mastered the brushwork and slowly trained the others. The Serax line also contains lighting, which Mr. Robyn helps design. The pieces are made with platelike porcelain spheres and strips of porcelain ribbon. Each model has a sweet name: Lou, Luna, Gilda. Mr. Robyn always wished he had gone into interiors, he said, surveying the Kiki lamp, which has red fringing attached to long, spiky supports. When he was called up for military service (a practice Belgium suspended in 1992), when he was in college, he occupied his time painting the barracks a muted green to give them a new lease on life. Back in the garden, Ms. Demeulemeester surveyed her crop. "For me, the biggest luxury is going out with my basket and saying, 'O.K., what are we going to eat?'" she said. "You feel completely self-sufficient. The things we need, we make." Since leaving her label, she said, she feels "free." She has not attended any recent Ann Demeulemeester shows, even though they still bear her name. "If I start to interfere, I know myself, I won't be able to stop," she said. She hardly speaks to Mr. Meunier, she said, and she hasn't bought any new clothes, save for a pair of Birkenstocks, which she wears to garden. In the greenhouse, she plucked a swollen Coeur de Boeuf tomato. Later she served it chopped in a salad, divvying it up on delicate plates, which were hand-edged in red.  |
| Columbus fashion designer hoping to make Paris dreams come true - 10TV Posted: 20 Aug 2019 02:56 PM PDT [unable to retrieve full-text content]Columbus fashion designer hoping to make Paris dreams come true 10TV Lea Marie Gardner, who goes by Queen, was invited to the Paris City Fashion Week show at the Eiffel Tower. But she needs to raise thousands of dollars in ...  |
| In New York and London, Fashionistas Prepare for a Fall of Fashion Week Protests - The Daily Beast Posted: 21 Aug 2019 02:35 AM PDT  Fashion month kicks off in September, when designers from around the world will showcase their spring collections in New York, London, Paris, and Milan. The looks sent down the runway will predict next year's trends; there will no doubt be bonkers sleeves, freed nipples, and blinding neon. But if protesters have their way, one more theme will be hot for spring 2020: dissent. While designers put finishing touches on their pieces, global activist groups are also fine-tuning their fashion week plans. From Donald Trump to climate change, they feel they have a lot to demonstrate against right now, and this autumn editors and influencers will have to trudge through a die-in or sea of signs to find their front row seats. As The Daily Beast reported last week, the final days of summer have turned into a mad scramble for those involved with planning New York Fashion Week's location schedule. After The Washington Post revealed that the billionaire Hudson Yards developer Stephen M. Ross planned to hold two fundraisers in the Hamptons that garnered a reported $12 million for Donald Trump's re-election campaign, the designer Prabal Gurung pulled his runway show from The Vessel, an art installation on the property. Dana Lorenz of the jewelry line Fallon also withdrew from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) after learning that Ross' wife, Kara, sat on its board. In a fiery Business of Fashion op-ed, Out magazine editor-in-chief Phillip Picardi wrote that "New York Fashion Week Has a Donald Trump Problem." A cultural center called The Shed, located near Hudson Yards, counts Ross as one of its board members. The Shed was the proposed future hub of NYFW, but after Picardi's piece went live, Rag & Bone decided against holding its show there. New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told The Daily Beast that Ross should jettison his friendship with Trump; both men are members of the Board of Directors of The Shed at Hudson Yards. Several designers also confirmed to The Daily Beast they would not be staging shows at The Shed. Rumors are swirling behind-the-scenes regarding what labels may plan to present at The Shed. Currently, no designers have spoken in favor of using the location, though a source at The Shed last week confirmed that "a lot of shows" were on the books. (They did not elaborate on how many shows were planned or which brands were scheduled.) That means activists will have to wait to know just who, exactly, they will have to protest come NYFW's September 6 kick-off. "I would hope New York, the epicenter of fashion, would be able to take a stand against the Trump administration." When asked if he would attend any Hudson Yards shows, Picardi responded immediately with, "Absolutely the fuck not. You can quote me, directly, word for word on that. The fashion industry benefits from smoke and mirrors, the curtain of luxury and mystique. [With Stephen Ross], the curtain has been pulled back." "Ultimately, the fashion industry has a really tough decision to make of whether or no they want to declare their values for publicity's sake, or they want to live their values," Picardi went on. "I would hope New York, the epicenter of fashion, would be able to take a stand against the Trump administration." Until 2010, Fashion Week events centered around Bryant Park, making it easy for attendees to hop from show to show. But with runways all over the city, Picardi admitted that things can feel "disjointed," and he understands "the ease" that Hudson Yards could offer as an official home. "So many of our editors who are queer, women, or people of color would rather pay for an extra Uber ride than feel complicit in the industry's participation with a billionaire who supports Donald Trump." "But ultimately, at the end of the day, there are plenty of spaces in New York that we can go to," Picardi said. "So many of our editors who are queer, women, or people of color would rather pay for an extra Uber ride than feel complicit in the industry's participation with a billionaire who supports Donald Trump. It may be inconvenient, but welcome to how so many people feel under this administration." Though Picardi will skip The Shed this fall and encourages others to as well, he draws the line at an outright boycott. "The thing about our industry is that people can lose their jobs for not attending shows," he said. "I can't expect my friends who are fashion directors to miss anything. This is people's livelihoods we're talking about." Once they survive New York, plenty of those section editors will head across the pond to London, where they will face more protests. Earlier this month, the climate crisis advocacy group Extinction Rebellion called on the British Fashion Council to cancel all shows. In a responding statement, the BFC's CEO Caroline Rush declined to go that far, but agreed to meet with Extinction Rebellion activists to "share our plans." "We are facing a climate change emergency and all need to act," Rush wrote, adding the BFC can "use the platform of London Fashion Week to communicate not just to the industry, but to a wider public, that not all businesses are equal, that those that support a better future, are committed to change, are those that should be supported." As a result, Extinction Rebellion will heavily protest the event with "disruptive actions" such as a funeral procession to "commemorate the loss of life due to climate and ecological breakdown." The event will begin right outside 180 The Strand, London Fashion Week's mainstage. "We don't want to cancel fashion, but we are asking for a very high profile, very glamorous event that promotes excess to be cancelled while we convene to conceive what we are going to do about the climate crisis." "We appreciate going forward, a friendly, amicable working relationship with the BFC and we respect them and know that they respect us and respect the issues," Alice Wilby, coordinator and spokesperson for the Boycott Fashion Team, told The Daily Beast. "We don't want to cancel fashion, but we are asking for a very high profile, very glamorous event that promotes excess to be cancelled while we convene to conceive what we are going to do about the climate crisis." This isn't the first time Extinction Rebellion has crashed fashion week—protests popped up last season, too. But there is a symbolic significance to designers' spring 2020 collections. Next year is the U.N.'s deadline for world leaders to accept the Paris deal. "We are looking at this fashion week, which will be showing trends and collections for 2020, when it will already be too late to effect real change on the climate crisis," Wilby said. "Why are we talking about clothes to wear when we don't have a planet to wear them on? It's quite intense when you think about it like that, but also very simple." Members of Extinction Rebellion were partly inspired to call for the abolition of London Fashion Week after the Swedish Fashion Council cancelled their Stockholm showing. (Copenhagen hosts its own, more popular fashion week.) Activists in Paris and Milan have yet to speak out about any planned events, but both cities have seen a share of fashion week controversy in past seasons. Back in January, the anti-government demonstrations by France's Gilets Jaunes, who frequently clashed with police, inspired designers like Dior and Thom Browne to reschedule their shows in an effort to skirt disruption. "Why are we talking about clothes to wear when we don't have a planet to wear them on?" — Alice Wilby Though Hong Kong is not part of the official, "Big Four" calendar, Chanel plans to hold its Cruise presentation in November at the city's Kai Tak Terminal. But given the months-long political and social disturbances, a representative for the brand told WWD they are "keeping a close watch on events," and may pull out. The French couture line is not the only label with a commitment in the city; according to Hong Kong's Tatler, over a thousand are expected to attend the Centrestage trade fashion show. On Sept. 4, the opening gala will include collections from Anaïs Jourden and Altuzarra. (A PR for Anaïs Jourden would not comment on the matter to The Daily Beast; representatives from Altuzarra did not respond to multiple inquiries.) Brendon Hong, a Daily Beast contributor based in Hong Kong, said in an email that a protest specifically targeting the fashion community would be unlikely. Still, the industry denizens who take part in Centrestage will visit a city in the midst of extreme unrest. In Milan last February, PETA supporters dressed as "grim reapers," toting fur coats to protest the industry's use of the material. The organization may be infamous for its protests, but senior vice president Dan Mathews said that most of them occur in the winter, because fall collections tend to include more fur. "Protests are less of a priority in September, because they're showing spring clothes," Mathews said. "There's a lot more action in February." PETA has become friendly with most fashion designers, as more of the industry ditches fur. (There are still some notorious holdouts, like Dolce & Gabbana.) These days, Mathews serves more as a consultant to brands than a complainer. "I do miss it. It was fun. As delighted as I am to meet with brands, I do miss the Milan jail. The cops are very sweet." "We disrupted shows for Michael Kors, Donna Karan, Versace, and Armani, which resulted in them meeting with us and dropping fur," Mathews explained. "Before doing that, I sent letters asking to meet and discuss, and they simply had no time for us. Through disrupting, we became an important part of their agenda, because they didn't want their shows to be hijacked." Mathews looks back fondly on his time agitating. "I do miss it," he laughed. "It was fun. As delighted as I am to meet with brands, I do miss the Milan jail. The cops are very sweet." "The jails in Paris are so lovely in the spring," he added.  |
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