At first glance, fashion month has very little to do with sustainability: it’s a blur of new designs shown against large sets, in front of crowds that have flown in from all over the world. But in the past, some designers have used fashion month as a Trojan horse to showcase innovations or different ways of producing fashion that challenge the status quo.
This season was eerily quiet on the sustainability front. I reached out to a long list of luxury brands to check that I hadn’t missed anything, offering a wide range of entry points, from integrating secondhand items and material innovations to collection themes that touch on climate or social justice. Very few had anything to share. Between the high concentration of creative director debuts and the growing political backlash against sustainability, it wasn’t the moment for big declarations, I was told.
Still, as much of the industry rests on its laurels, some continue to beat the drum for sustainability. Here’s where it did show up on the runway and across fashion capitals this season.
The season of secondhand
Ebay kick-started both New York and London Fashion Week by bringing back its Pre-loved Runway, following a successful debut last September. Every look was secondhand, from head to toe, curated by Ebay’s resident stylists Brie Welch (in the US) and Amy Bannerman (in the UK). As model and secondhand ambassador Dr Brett Staniland noted, the shows were a “glossy” affair, helping to “dispel the myths about pre-loved being old or tatty”. The same evening as the Ebay show in London, Staniland walked in the Oxfam x Vinted show, styled by Bay Garnett. As well as flying the flag for secondhand fashion, the show celebrated a diverse mix of models, celebrities and “non-model folks”, including activist and acid attack survivor Katie Piper alongside model and activist Munroe Bergdorf.