Fashion is finally waking up to sustainability – but the lexicon surrounding eco-friendly and ethical fashion is fraught with inaccuracies. In ‘Get Your Greens’, Vogue explores how the industry is advancing towards a greener future.
Currently, only one per cent of textiles are recycled back into textiles. “Isn’t that crazy?” asks Stella McCartney. “I don’t accept that because things have always been done a certain way it’s the right way to do them.” 2019 is all about innovation at Stella McCartney HQ and textile-to-textile circularity is top of the list. “We are looking at every part of the system to see how we can make a change.”
The green activations McCartney’s team is currently working on won’t come to light for five to 10 years, but, as someone who has been committed to running a responsible business from day one, sustainable fashion has never been a quick fix or a trend to tap into. The thing that has changed? Her dedicated sustainability team, led by worldwide director of sustainability and innovation Claire Bergkamp, is growing. McCartney and Bergkamp are women on a mission. “It’s important that we are constantly ahead of the game and that we align with people who have the same vision and beliefs as us,” the former asserts.
Bergkamp is McCartney’s eyes and ears on the ground. She speaks to suppliers, visits the farms and the factories the brand works with, meets start-ups that are using sustainable methods and materials, consults experts and other labels, both big and small. She is as enthusiastic as the murmurs making waves in the industry suggest. “Nothing beats going to see things first hand,” Bergkamp asserts of her field trips. “Getting to know the people who make up our value chain is critical.”
“We talk about it for hours,” McCartney chimes in about the community of “really incredibly interesting people” they have met along the way. “I’m happy to get other brands to take a more modern, solution-based approach to business, so we are always sharing learnings and collaborating through partnerships, like Fashion For Good, to identify innovators that have the potential to disrupt the entire industry.”
These connections are more important to the brand than signing up to the circularity initiatives and environmental pledges that make the headlines when big brands join in to publicise their social consciences. “We only want to be a part of initiatives that are working to genuinely advance change,” states McCartney. “We are past the point where just talking is an acceptable action. We get behind the ones that will really and radically shake things up and address the serious issues we are facing as humans and as an industry.” The duo’s vetted list of brand partners, ranging from Parley for the Oceans to Adidas, are committed to the transparent fashion movement and push McCartney to keep driving them forward and vice versa.
Since breaking from Kering, the luxury conglomerate which owned a 50 per cent stake in Stella McCartney until March 2018, the team has adapted the group’s “pioneering” Environmental Profit and Loss (EP&L) tool, which measures and monetises the environmental impact of a brand, to serve Stella McCartney’s needs better. “We are finding ways to go beyond just reducing our impact to actually having a positive impact – embracing things like regenerative agriculture and fighting climate change within the supply chain itself,” notes Bergkamp.
But if it seems that the comments from the pair steer clear of specifics in favour of talking about the overall brand picture, you can hardly blame McCartney. As one of the household names waving the sustainability flag, there is huge pressure on her shoulders and, as she has said before – whether discussing her Bond Street store, a space with some of the cleanest air in London, or her Adidas collaborations – “we are not perfect”. Smaller brands look to established, certified business models like hers to lead the way, but, fundamentally, she is also trying to sell fashion.
Turning a commitment to the planet into a stylish proposition that is profitable (especially now she is an independent house) is not straightforward. McCartney’s refusal to use fur cost her a job at Saint Laurent during Tom Ford’s era at the house, and simple ideas, such as using sequins on a dress, are inconceivable because she has to find a new, environmentally-friendly way to make sequins, while offsetting the energy this innovation requires. “I am just a fashion designer, [having sustainable conversations] wasn’t part of my plan,” she told the Copenhagen Fashion Summit last year. The fashion industry is gradually waking up to the fact the two are not, and cannot be, mutually exclusive.
