Seasonal Greens: AW22

Fashion month is an endurance sport of sorts. Between the opening show at Paris Haute Couture Week in late January and the closing presentation at Paris Fashion Week five weeks later, there are extended stop-offs in Copenhagen, New York, London and Milan. For every runway walked – more than half-a-thousand, no less – there are just as many of the aviation variety, primed to carry a coterie of editors, models, stylists and distinguished guests hundreds of miles away to the next round of shows.

It’s no industry secret, then, that these few weeks are diabolically unkind to the environment. Two years ago, fashion tech company ORDRE calculated that a year of fashion weeks sees 241,000 tonnes of CO2e pumped into the atmosphere. To put it into perspective, it supersedes the total yearly carbon impact of Samoa, Saint Kitts & Nevis or Tonga. That’s just taking flights into account, too, omitting the endless emissions caused by the hordes of clothes and ambitious sets ; not to mention the sensory overload of lighting, make-up, soundsystems, dinners, parties, afterparties, after-afterparties…

It’s why, in these more conscious times, a lot of designers swap IRL for URL, choosing to present their new collections or campaigns digitally to minimise their footprints. For others who do decide to stick to the runway, it’s high time to make those twenty-or-so minutes count, using their platform to further the exposure of sustainable design and cutting-edge fabrications. While progress has been made in pushing all brands towards more thoughtful practices, it’s still typical for the behemoths of the industry to feature sustainability as little more than an endnote, a subbed-in bit of subscript at the bottom of the press release, there to placate the more discerning reader. 

Others, though, commit to genuine, tangible actions, and a myriad of AW22 collection debuted in the last few weeks – both digitally and physically – glittered with this glimmer of hope. From Paris back to Paris again, here are the finest sustainable moments of the season just finished, balancing materialism with material change and proving that sustainable luxury really is taking off…

Rewilding is a hot topic; it gives us the power to rewind our planet, restoring an area of land to its original natural state. It was also the springboard for Gabriela Hearst’s collection for Chloé, seeing the Uruguayan designer splice together recycled fabrics to create re-imagined landscapes and patchwork patterns. She didn’t hide from using leather, either, eschewing ersatz versions in favour of the carefully-traced, real thing, using it for belted suits and puff-sleeve dresses.

Since 2014, Sheltersuit have been designing and distributing protective gear for homeless people across the world, centring on a signature modular jacket that transforms into a sleeping bag. For AW22, the not-for-profit joined forces with RE/DONE for four upcycled denim pieces and designer Lisa Konno for a new ensemble of weather-proof outerwear, drawing attention to the one-hundred-and-fifty-million people without a fixed home worldwide.

For AW22, Stella went Stella. Drawing upon iconic American artist Frank Stella, the designer referenced his sculptures and graphic prints via forest-friendly viscose and veloute-smooth velvets. Cattle leather was replaced with novel mushroom and grape alternatives, while knitwear twin sets were spun with traceable wool.

Time to ruffle a few leathers! Richard Malone’s AW21 collection harnessed deadstock fabrics to standout effect, using reclaimed leathers and recycled jerseys to craft ruched, looped and belted pieces. Malone continued the reign of his ‘Cadbury’ purple hue, applying it to majestic, decadent layers draped, tied and pinned with trademark deftness.

For ‘The Hands That Heal Us’, Bethany Williams celebrated the multitude of artisans who have lent their hands to her crafts, weaving together her label’s creatives, makers and manafacturers. The collection was packed with sustainable details, from screwable, removable buttons to cactus leather jackets, upcycled blanket bags to decadent bamboo silk.

For a digital presentation, Hillary Taymour’s upcycling-loving label Collina Strada spoofed The Hills with a mock fashion doc, fronted by intern Tommy Dorfman and throwing shade at green-washers. “Sustainability is so hot!” went one of the many zingers. Taymour’s all-star cast paraded around in outrageous, lysergic combinations of patchwork quilting and micro skirts, clutching diamante reusable bottles to prove conscious fashion’s sheer attractiveness.

Taking cues from Italy’s Liberty movement, Vitelli’s second season was a free-for-all of artisanal knitwear: a symphony of ribbed, cut-out dresses, plunging asymmetric cardigans and, to top it off, earthy crochet hats. The entire ensemble used upcycled yarn, continuing Giulia Bortoli and Mauro Simionato’s commitment – one perhaps a little scarce at Milan Fashion Week – to spinning a more sustainable 

Inspired by founders Rushemy Botter’s and Lisi Herrebugh’s Caribbean heritage, Botter’s collection ‘Dear Earth’ was a love letter to the blue planet, showcasing the duo’s vow to source eighty-percent of all their materials from reclaimed ocean plastics. Featuring pops of pink and aqua-blue, the collection also spotlighted a black coat emblazoned with a skull merged into the Shell emblem, a nod to the label’s Hyères Festival-winning collection, which mischievously dropped the ’S’ from the petrol giant’s logo.

The beady-eyed among us will have caught GERMANIER’s first ever runway show, a technicolour explosion concocted by self-proclaimed ‘upcycling king’ Kevin Germanier. All the (thousands!) of beads used to embellish thigh-high boots, suits, eccentric headpieces and masks were sustainably sourced from Hong Kong, once discarded and destined for landfill, but now given a new, enviable, life on one of Germanier’s bejewelled pieces.