Why green is the new black

About two years ago, I wrote in this column about the concept of recycling discarded clothes.

My thoughts were prompted by my own massive wardrobe clearout and imagining what one could do with the treasures unearthed if every fashionable being in this country did the same and got together to sell their unwanted rags for charity.

Little did I know that, almost two years later, a friend and I would be hosting our very own fashion swap, where friends got together, exchanged their old clothes for a whole pile of “new” ones and raised money for charity at the same time.

Like so many things, the recession has fast tracked the coming to pass of fashion and lifestyle concepts aimed at targeting the cash-strapped consumer. And if the planet is saved along the way, well, that's a bonus.

Now there's more and more talk about buying quality as opposed to quantity, offering the consumer the opportunity to spend a little more on items that are unique and will last longer, thereby saving money in the long run.

Could this mean the end of the fast-fashion conundrum that has had such a massive impact on the industry in recent years?

Writing about the recent menswear trade show in Florence, Suzy Menkes said in The New York Times last week that there had been a palpable sense of a rejection of fast fashion.

She witnessed it in the brands where there was an increased focus on craftsmanship and individually worked garments, which showed that they had been touched by human hands.

And now comes news that Philippe Starck, one of the most influential modernist designers of our time, is to collaborate on his first fashion collection — though he refuses to call it fashion — created with sustainability in mind.

Launching in October this year, the range, called Starck with Ballantyne, is the result of the designer bringing his techno-knowledge and hard edge to traditional cashmere.

Made in partnership with the 88-year-old Scottish brand, the collection is a mix of women's clothing and menswear, with waterproof cashmere the basis for a line he hopes will provide an alternative to the fads of contemporary clothing.

He told The Guardian newspaper that he has designed a range of clothing that is sustainable, classic and impervious to the petty constraints of fashion.

“The public will take maybe three years to understand the concept. It's not fashion. We won't be big in the newspapers. The clothes are non-photogenic, but intelligent people will discover us.”

Monsieur Starck might not want to call it fashion, but he's certainly creating a new kind of style snobbery for which I have no doubt those in the know already have their names on a waiting list.

Starck says the high-speed turnover of fashion produces energy, material, waste, and gives birth to a system of consumption and over-consumption which has no future.

His garments have been made with “new ergonomics and contemporary fittings” to ensure they stand the ravages of time.

Buying into the recession shopper's desire for investment fashion, Starck is convinced that rising concern about the sustainability of mass consumerism will encourage more people to look for longer lasting solutions to their wardrobe dilemmas.

Starck's new collection comes in a range of sober shades, from taupe to midnight blue, with flashes of fluorescent yellow.

And one in the eye for the fashion set is that Starck has deliberately omitted the colour black, saying it is a “fearful non-choice”. It's the easy option, “a laziness, a weakness and ultimately a vulgarity”, he told France's Le Figaro newspaper.

I'm hooked. My only sadness is that all this talk of sustainable fashion doesn't bode well for future clothes swaps.

Source: The Times

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