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This article first appeared in our Earth Day 2022 issue of My Green Pod Magazine, printed on 22 April 2022. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
It’s exactly a year since our first article about sustainable fashion in My Green Pod Magazine.
We like to use Earth Day as a stock-take day; we look back at the amount of work achieved within and adjacent to the industry over the previous year, and ahead to what we can hope to achieve over the course of the next 12 months.
Europe’s month of Fashion Weeks recently concluded, following a flourish of physical fashion shows – similar to pre-pandemic levels – that showcased the latest in creativity and innovation.
While climate-conscious protests have taken place at Fashion Weeks in the past, we can testify that the designers presenting here in London are the very designers helping to create a more ethical, responsible and conscious future for fashion.
We caught up with some emerging London- based designers for a look at their collections and to get a grip on what’s influencing them. We’re very pleased to say we think London is in good hands.
I can’t lie. I rather enjoyed the eye-roll I got in Milan when I said the word ‘sustainability’ to Eftychia Karamolegkou.
We agreed the term is prehistoric and overused in fashion, with brands shouting from the rooftops about ‘novel’ practices others have followed for years.
The Eftychia label instead creates what it does, as it always has. With a collection of what would formerly be known as work-wear, sophistication was given an element of fun: contrast panels of velvet against wool which, when the light hits, create a new, more cinched silhouette. Timeless and classic pieces with versatility and modernism reigned.
Robyn Lynch is an Irish designer who produced her first collections under Lulu Kennedy’s Fashion East label. This London Fashion Week (LFW) Robyn presented her first physical collection at the NewGen space at the Old Selfridges Hotel.
Robyn innovated with old-new pieces, mixing parts of discarded Columbia technical wear with knitwear and eBay-sourced clothes.
An overlooked tangent of ‘sustainability’ is the story and heritage of the workers, the people at the heart of it all.
Artisans in Freetown, Sierra Leone crafted the fabrics for Foday Dumbuya’s Labrum London collection.
Foday intertwined their story with his own by featuring prints of figures from the Mende and Kissi tribes. The luxury bags, in collaboration with Noskhari, used deadstock and off-cuts to reduce waste and add an element of circularity.
The Spanish-born, London-based designer has a signature gaze of contemporary and gender-fluid classic tailoring, which is timeless yet exciting and modern.
This season’s collection featured elegant silhouettes with slashed and cut -away details, further diving into the conversations of covering and uncovering, and evolving masculine and feminine identities.
The collection, ‘The Last Run’, was Inspired by aprés-ski – but the name also acts as a call to action on climate change. The show notes point towards the now-disappearing seasonality of temperatures; there was a mix of cold and warm tones and outerwear with short-sleeved tops and shorts.
Other emerging London designers such as Connor Ives, Harris Reed and S.S. Daley also used their collections to contribute to the sustainability dialogue, championing upcycling and deadstock fabrics. They joined more familiar names such as Priya Ahluwalia and Bethany Williams.
For this wave of designers sustainability isn’t just a trend, it’s embedded in how they have always worked and lived – and will be part of their brands’ DNA long into the future.
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