“As a stylist, it’s very difficult to be completely sustainable,” says London-based Karen Clarkson, whose clients include Lashana Lynch, Samantha Morton and Joey Richardson. “You can’t save the world by styling fashion. It’s about trying to incorporate little things that we may be doing into our work.”
The stylist and creative director recently dressed Richardson in a vintage off-the-shoulder Catherine Walker gown, instead of a new garment, for the premiere of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Behind the scenes, Clarkson recycles, employing reusable garment bags, reusing base garments where possible, and avoiding disposable supplies like sticky lint rollers. Clarkson also draws from her own vintage store and archive, Found and Vision, as well as searching certified B-corp luxury resale site Vestiaire Collective, which as of November 25 became the first global designer marketplace to ban fast fashion.
For more than a decade, both Livia Firth’s Green Carpet Fashion Challenge and Suzy Amis Cameron’s Red Carpet Green Dress, now RCGD Global, have challenged Hollywood stylists and stars to incorporate eco-friendly and slow fashion efforts into their outlets to generate Headlines. Firth attended the 2010 Golden Globes wearing an upcycled Christiana Couture wedding dress. “At the time, everyone’s perception was that sustainable fashion was basically hemp,” she recalls. Ella bafta in a Giorgio Armani dress made from recycled soda cans for Olivia Colman in 2019 by accepting her BFI scholarship in a custom dress by sustainable designer Deborah Milner.
Emma Stone once again wore her 2020 Nicolas Ghesquière-designed and feathered wedding reception minidress to the 2022 Met Gala.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images
Along with the fashion industry, Hollywood has ramped up sustainability efforts considerably this year. At the Met Gala in May, Louis Vuitton presented 14 ambassadors and friends of the house, including Gemma Chan and Cynthia Erivo, with stunning pre-worn looks from recent and archival collections. The momentum continued at the Oscars, with Kirsten Dunst, styled by Nina & Clare, wearing a fall 2002 Christian Lacroix couture ruffled gown from Beverly Hills vintage store Lily et Cie. As part of RCGD Global’s ongoing collaboration with Tencel, Tati Gabrielle shone in a custom Hellessy gown, ethically made from eco-friendly lyocell fibers. Billie Eilish wore a recycled Gucci dress to the Met Gala and incorporated sustainability awareness into her summer tour. More recently, Cate Blanchett, who is styled like Elizabeth Stewart, has reverted to wearing her own look in promotional rounds of her Tár.
“As leaders in the community, we have a responsibility to work with celebrities and influencers to produce a trickle-down effect,” says Kristen Stewart’s stylist Tara Swennen, who often dresses the actress and Chanel ambassador in the pieces. house file. “People look to us and to these moments for inspiration and innovation.” Swennen regularly incorporates vintage and cruelty-free fashion into the looks of her clients, as well as offsetting their required travel for work through a donation to carbon offset group 8 Billion Trees. Swennen is also on the advisory board of the New Standard Institute, which introduced the Fashion Sustainability and Responsibility Act, the first legislation to set standards for major brands in the industry.
On a mission to subvert the “Who wore it better” mentality that shames women, Swennen encourages clients to re-wear pieces even previously photographed on other celebrities. “I hate the idea that once something is worn on the red carpet, the show is essentially editorial locked and loaded for the rest of its life, and can’t be redone,” says Swennen. Last year, she teamed Andrea Savage with a silver-embellished Dolce & Gabbana LBD, which model Miranda Kerr wore a month earlier. US Weekly actually pitted the two against each other on her popular feature, which Savage gamely posted on her Instagram.
Swennen hopes that Hollywood can make a dent in the rise of harmful consumerism in fast fashion. Up to 11.3 million tons of textile waste is thrown away each year in the US alone, a staggering 2,150 items of clothing every second. “We need to change the way we shop,” says Swennen. “We need to change the way we take care of our clothes.”
At the Governors Awards, Cate Blanchett again wore an Alexander McQueen look that she previously wore in 2020 at the Venice Film Festival.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images
Similarly, vintage red carpet moments can be a way to encourage people to wear secondhand clothing. “[It’s about] wearing something that was loved so many years ago and giving it new life,” says stylist Laura Sophie Cox, who recently styled Never Have I Ever’s Richa Moorjani in an acid yellow 2002-era Prada sundress and dressed Ayo Edebiri of The Bear in a Fall 2003 Alexander McQueen “power suit”, both by Tab Vintage.
Stylists also say transparently produced couture can be another eco-friendly option. Colman’s stylist, Mary Fellowes, creative director and founder of sustainable fashion consulting firm GreenWith Studio, often collaborates with in-house design teams or provides guidance on incorporating “cleaner” materials and techniques for custom looks. During the rounds of Elizabeth McGovern’s Downton Abbey: A New Era, Fellowes also stocked up on Varana. The international luxury brand uses 100% biodegradable natural materials, sources products from artisans, and uses small-batch, ethical production at her workshop in Bangalore, India. “You can’t separate sustainability from diversity, inclusion and equality,” says Fellowes.
Firth adds that the stars who worked with the Green Carpet Challenge and wore sustainable looks at the events “say it completely changed their red carpet experience. Suddenly, they were walking with a purpose and telling a story beyond their own.” Samata Pattinson, CEO of RCGD Global, agrees, noting that “Who are you using?” Interviews can be a way to encourage sustainable designers, especially from underrepresented communities and the global majority. “There’s an opportunity to say, ‘I use this brand because your values align with mine,’” she says. “This is so much more than a beautiful aesthetic piece. This is a conversation. This is livelihood. This is equity.”
Pattinson also encourages stars who embrace vintage to use the moment as an opportunity to talk about the “history” of clothing design before fast fashion, when craftsmanship was valued and garments were made with non-toxic dyes and materials. natural.
Elizabeth McGovern in a Varana dress, which uses only biodegradable materials
Arthur Holmes/Getty Images
In addition, she suggests that the sustainability conversations around used items shed light on how people are affected in communities most vulnerable to climate disaster brought on by the fashion industry. Pattinson points to how discarded American clothing, under the guise of donations, fills markets and landfills in countries like Ghana and Chile. “That practice is suppressing local design industries,” she says. “Because they have this burden, they can’t showcase and uplift their own designers. Their own haute couture designers.”
Of course, no one, from client A to the stylist with a strong social following, wants to “greenwash” and promote misguided or simply incorrect performative practices. Therefore, ongoing due diligence investigation is essential; Clarkson and Cox recommend the Good on You app, which gives ratings on sustainable fashion. But ahead of awards season, more resources are readily available to expand the industry discussion. With the support of its long-time partner, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, RCGD Global launched its free online Sustainable Style Guide (rcgdglobal.com). And Firth-based creative agency/sustainability consultancy Eco-Age, creator of the Green Carpet Challenge, has just unveiled its own guide, the GCC Manual of Style.
Ultimately, the “goal of a red carpet stylist is to create each look with a story,” says Swennen. “One of craft. One of sustainability. One of inspiration. One that people can look at. And foster a new mindset while doing it.”
A version of this story first appeared in the December 7 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here for subscribe.
Source: news.google.com