Coco Rocha in Diane von Furstenberg organic wool dress at Future Fashion. photo via style.com
It’s too bad that the first time I can write my postcard home about NY fashion week, happens to be after the tents have closed. For the last two weeks I’ve been in NY for my clients: Entermodal, Le Train Bleu, and Pinkham Millinery, planning events, meeting with editors, showing the Fall 08 collections to buyers, and with full disclosure: relished in NY’s vast range of culinary charms and cleared a little time to float in and out of some fabulous parties.
The season got off to a crazed start with FutureFashion, a celebrity clad event hosted by the non-profit: Earth Pledge. Part of the Earth Pledge’s overall mission is to connect designers with green textile resources, and the annual FutureFashion runway show is used as their public centerpiece. This year they invited 28 of the most respected designers in the industry (Marni, Burberry, and Yves Saint Laurent to list a few) to create a one-of-a-kind ensemble using sustainable fabrics and organic fibers exclusively. It is obvious that Earth Pledge is widely connected, given the celebrity attendance, designers involved, high production value, and caliber of sponsorship. A hurdle green events face frequently is legitimacy. To both produce an event that will be recognized by the fashion industry and the press as legitimately belonging with in it, while simultaneously integrating sustainable values and securing the thumbs up from the green industry remains a tall order.
Olga Sherer in Duro Olowu. Coat of organic wool/peace silk and hemp/silk. FutureFashion. photo via style.com
FutureFashion was successful on both tips, but perhaps swung slightly in the direction of the former. The event worked particularly well as a launch pad to showcase the varied spectrum of beautiful and refined materials that are renewable, sustainable, and apparently widely available to the industry. Earth Pledge reports it originally started with 50 fabrics just four years ago, and now their library has reached 600+ materials, with increased sophistication- inspiring news for the industry as a whole.
Magdalena Frackowiak in Rogan. Hemp/silk dress, Monique Pean jewelry of 25,000 year old fossilized woolly mammoth and walrus ivory with recycled 18 carat gold and fair trade diamonds.. FutureFashion. photo via style.com
Feeding directly into the PR machine, the event had impressive celebrity support. Spotted: Isabella Rossellini (which felt like running into royalty), Simon Doonan (Barney’s Creative Director), Nigel Barker (from one of my favorite guilty pleasures: ANTM), Lauren Bush, Carly Simon, and a plethora of style editors, tv reporters, and some of the participating designers. Shalom Harlow, who has evolved into the green fashion poster child, participated by gracing the Kumbuc all-wood catwalk (to later be recycled into furniture), donning a bustier constructed out of vintage wedding dresses by Maison Martin Margiela. Barney’s was one of the event sponsors, and for the remainder of the month all the garments will be on display in the 5th Avenue windows.
So how does Portland fit into the equation? The Earth Pledge event should be on the radar of PFW organizers, as an example of how the East Coast does green fashion. Alternately, with the host of sustainable designers, localized production, and green momentum Portland is gaining by the minute, perhaps Portland needs to cc Earth Pledge in the next memo that goes out? Sustainability has as much to do with looking to the past as it does with looking into the future. The materials library Earth Pledge is building is deeply rooted in capitalizing on technological advances. Having expanded access and knowledge in this realm would undoubtedly give our designers a leading, green, edge.
(with the close of NY fashion week I have gone intercontinental and moved over to London’s- more Field Notes about both fashion weeks to appear shortly)
WHAT TO DO NOW?