Ralph Lauren Details Global Citizenship and Sustainability Initiatives
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Sustainable Closed Denim AW23 Campaign Lensed by Alexandre Haefeli
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Is Closed Denim a Sustainable Brand?
In recent years, sustainability has become a critical factor for the fashion industry. Consumers are more conscious than ever about the environmental and social impact of the clothes they wear — although still not conscious enough.
One such influential organization that Closed Denim belongs to is the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). GOTS is an internationally recognized certification that ensures the organic status of textiles throughout the entire production process involving both environmental and social criteria. Closed Denim's affiliation with GOTS underscores their dedication to sourcing organic materials, reducing chemical inputs, and preserving ecological integrity.
Closed Denim also partners with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), as they strongly believe in promoting sustainable cotton farming. BCI is a global initiative working towards making cotton production better for the environment and the people involved. By supporting BCI, Closed Denim ensures the responsible use of water, reduced chemical usage, and improved livelihoods for cotton farmers.
Read MoreGeorgia May Jagger Soaks Up Rays, Lensed by Emma Tempest for ELLE France June 15, 2023
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Georgia May Jagger covers the June 15, 2023 issue of ELLE France, soaking up the rays with a good book. Hortense Manga styles Jagger [daughter of Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger] in colorful swimsuits lensed by Emma Tempest [IG].
Is Georgia May Jagger’s hair 100 percent vegan, PETA approved and affordable by Bleach London? Jagger invested in the cult hair care brand in 2010. Their commitment to sustainability is also reflected in their use of recyclable packaging materials.
The quest for sustainable sequins is center stage at AOC this week, so let us check out Bleach London’s [IG] glitter gel.
Read MoreFish-Friendly Fashion Sequins from Stella McCartney and Lulu Has An Idea, Too
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This post on sustainable sequins is inspired by Zara’s June 2023 mermaid dresses, a delectable group of sequins-rich fashions photographed by Carlijn Jacobs.
Thinking out loud, I wondered if Zara used the new plant-based sequins — or at least recycled plastic ones — which does not help the fish.
Hope springs eternal with Zara and they have been excellent in marching towards more sustainable production.
Recently, LVMH’s Stella McCartney featured Cara Delevingne in Vogue’s April 2023 issue, wearing a jumpsuit made of BioSequins, lensed by Annie Leibovitz. This new angle on sequins got Lulu jumping up and down with excitement until she came up with a possibility of her own.
Evolutionary biologists say that humans are preconditioned to love sparkly, glittery things. Our ancestors were always on the search for fresh water in order to survive. Our eyes and brain are programmed to see sparkling surfaces in the distance, as signs of water.
Read MoreChloé x ERES Summer 2023 Capsule Hugs ERES Castor Oil Based Peau Douce Fabric
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Chloé’s Gabriela Hearst has two earth-friendly collaborations in play this summer. In this post, AOC focuses on the Chloé x Eres Summer 2023 Collection.
These images were shot by Leigh Johnson [IG] at Tenerife, Canary Islands. Models include Athena Wilson, Giedre Dukaiskaite and Mercy [Pophouse].
Creative Director Gabriela Hearst sought to create swimwear with the highest savoir-faire and instinctively chose to collaborate with Eres and the brand’s Creative Director Marie-Paule Minchelli.
When my new IA assistant Lulu spit out “Crafted with innovative second skin material Peau Douce from castor oil-based polyamide, Peau Douce boasts elasticity, resistance, shape retention and comfort characteristics for maximum summer fun,” my reaction was a big wow!
Note that I prompted Lulu to address the sustainability of Peau Douce, because I was skeptical.
Castor oil, which is obtained from a plant that is not used as human or animal food, was first marketed in 2009 as an alternative to petroleum-based fabrics.
Read MoreMassimo Dutti's 'Sul Mare' Getaway Clothes Are Using More Planet-Loving Fabrics
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Massimo Dutti shares its summer getaway collection “Sul Mare” with a focus on surface interest fabrics like raffia and crochet and angular cuts. The sophisticated collection modeled by Nikki McGuire is heavy with a rough elegance vibe through its use of natural fabrics including linen.
Styled by Delphine Danhier, the collection is photographed by Misha Taylor [IG], who captures the watery tie-dye prints and classic stripes.
Focus on Linen
Linen is both linen as we know it [which is better than most fabrics] but also 100% European grown linen. This linen is grown without artificial watering and no GMO seeds and defoliants are used. It is produced in Western Europe and complies with the EUROPEAN FLAX® standard of the European Confederation of Flax and Hemp (CELC). Also this item is made in Portugal.
Calling Out Ramie
Massimo Dutti is also using ramie, an eco friendly fabric and the highly sustainable fiber, that is airy and beautiful. Ramie is made from the stalks of flowers and plants and is a chic vegan silk alternative or very lightweight linen which is lighter and airier, while obviously tailoring well.
Actually, I just did a ramie search on MD, and all these items are made with the fiber. It appears that most or all of the Massimo Dutti ramie products are also made in Portugal, which has a better chance of eco-friendly dye processes and positive worker welfare.
Read MoreHumanrace Samba Colors by Pharrell Debuts at VB 'Something in the Water' Festival
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AOC shares exciting news about the ongoing collaboration between Pharrell Williams and adidas — Humanrace Samba Colors by Pharrell, a collection of luxury footwear in a depth of colorways that embody the diversity and energy of Humanrace’s DNA.
Last weekend at Pharrell’s ‘Something in the Water’ Festival in Virginia Beach, music lovers with an Atlantic Ocean view got their first look at five new Humanrace Samba colorways: Yellow, Orange, Pink, Lilac, and Red. A Humanrace green colorway is also available exclusively to friends and family of the brand.
Pharrell elevates the Samba with all-around high-end leather upper and leather shoelaces sourced from ECCO Leather, a world leader in innovative and premium leather.
ECCO Leather’s water-saving tanning technology saves 20 liters of water per hide. The result is environmentally more sustainable production but higher color saturation. Humanrace always uses non-toxic vegetable dyes, and AOC assumes that is the case here. Read the Humanrace sustainability pledges.
Read MoreMaison Valentino Vintage Partners With 7 Global Vintage Stores in Exchange Voucher Program
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Valentino Vintage, an initiative by the luxury fashion house Valentino [IG], has expanded its presence by partnering with vintage stores in seven cities around the world, including London, Milan, Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Seoul, and New York. This innovative program allows customers to exchange their pre-loved Valentino garments for vouchers that can be used to purchase new items from the brand, extending the life cycle of luxury fashion.
Each participating vintage store was carefully selected based on its unique identity and cultural relevance within its respective city. For instance, London's Rellik, which opened in 1999, was chosen for its collection of vintage 1960s garments. The updated program now features a variety of Valentino's famous archival apparel in these partner stores.
Valentino’s Pierpaolo Piccioli, BFC 2022 Designer of the Year
The goal of ‘democratizing fashion’ in the luxury market is sincere at Valentino from all we know. AOC focused on Valentino’s brand values and how they fit in with the HENRYS: [High-Earners-Not–Rich-Yet] in a recent April 2023 post.
Read MoreCOACHTOPIA Scrappy Bags 'Think Different' and Sell Out on Coach Website
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On the rarest of occasions, AOC wakes up to a significant new reality in fashion world, a radical process that turns everything upside down. Going foward, we will share the news by playing probably the most important marketing video ever to date ‘The Crazy Ones’.
Today, April 24, 2023 Anne of Carversville shares ‘The Crazy Ones’ worthy: COACHTOPIA.
A defining component of Coachtopia, Joon Silverstein, SVP, global marketing, creative and sustainability explained to Vogue Business, is that it is built as a “community” and has invited a “beta community” of Gen Z environmentally-conscious, individuals to collaborate and give feedback on Coachtopia concepts and products.
Emerging artists will be key players in future product drops and design collaborations.
Coach flipped its traditional production process on its head. Rather than a vision and a sketch, designers started with scraps on a cutting room floor. The handbags are made almost entirely from materials that were destined for landfill, with excess leather fragments arranged into vibrant floral patterns and zipper tracks repurposed into embellishments. The waste-forward products are a bid to transform the supply chain and move toward a circular industry, Coach says to all press inquiries.
Read MoreCherokee Jack for Polo Ralph Lauren Spring 2023 Country Workwear by Sharif Hamza
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Rising [star] model Cherokee Jack appears in Polo Ralph Lauren ads, lensed by Sharif Hamza [IG]. The country clothes include denim, workshirts and timeless outerwear — “made to be worn and made to last.”
Some or all of the collection are produced in partnership with The New Denim Project an innovative textile group based in Guatemala.
Finely crafted from upcycled materials, this denim collection is designed to reduce the use of virgin cotton by incorporating cloth scraps into new yarns and fabrics.
Read MoreIs Mycelium the Connective Tissue of Nature's Global Communication Network?
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In the words of The National Forest Foundation: "Taken together, myecelium composes what’s called a “mycorrhizal network,” which connects individual plants together to transfer water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals. German forester Peter Wohlleben dubbed this symbiotic network affecting about 90 percent of plant life on the planet -- including trees -- the “woodwide web.” It is through the mycelium that trees 'communicate.'
Botanists and mycologists have understood this grand symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants for over a century. But positing the existence of a linguistic communication system founded on 'intelligence' is another subject entirely.
Read MoreKing Charles III Joins TIME 100 Most Influential People List 2023 As Beloved Mushroom Hunter
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King Charles III, awaiting his coronation as king of the United Kingdom on May 6, 2023 at Westminster Abbey, was honored by TIME Magazine on their new TIME 100 Most Influential People 2023 list.
When the new annual list is released, the person chosen to write about the TIME 100 honoree, can be as interesting as the list itself.
The person introducing King Charles in the TIME 100 2023 issue is Edward Enninful, OBE, editor-in-chief of British Vogue and Vogue European editorial director. [OBE stands for Order of the British Empire.]
The high-achieving Enninful agrees that on the face of it, he grew up a young Black boy in Ladbroke Grove without understanding how intimately involved then Charles, Prince of Wales was with the Prince’s Trust. The charity had dramatic impact on the lives of Edward’s community, directed by the then Prince on many fronts.
Just as British Vogue’s EIC Edward Enninful seeks to humanize King Charles III in his commentary for the TIME 100, AOC was impacted by a story that broke last weekend by royal biographer Robert Jobson. As AOC drills deeply into the topic of mushrooms, mycelium, talking plants and future fabrics made of mushrooms and other natural materials, then Prince Charles pops up frequently in our research.
Mushrooms came to play a critical role in comforting King Charles in the final hours that would physically take his mother and Queen away from him.
Then Prince Charles returned to his estate at Birkhall for a walk in the woods, drawing emotional and psychological sustenance from the trees, the earth and the quiet sound of the River Muick. Charles made good use of himself, taking a wooden cane and a basket to forage for mushrooms along his walk.
Read MoreThe Health Benefits of Natural Pools, Thanks to Edita Vilkeviciute in Mango Swimwear 2023
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Top model Edita Vilkeciviute is blessed to have a home in Ibiza, one featured in the July 2021 issue of Vogue Spain. We’re not clear if the top model swims in a natural pool on her property, but they are prevalent on the famous Spanish island in the Mediterranean.
In these images Edita poses in Mango swimwear from the 2023 spring/summer collection. The shoot takes place in San Andrés, Tenerife — part of Spain’s Canary Islands off the coast of southern Morocco and the disputed Western Sahara. Photographer Pepe Lobez [IG] captures the famous Lithuanian beauty — who is in high demand for sensual summer fashion stories and campaigns — styled by Rebeca Abad and Pili Álamo. Patricia Diaz Manzano provides the art direction.
A core way to experience the benefits of biophilia is through swimming, an activity that not only connects us with water, a vital element of nature, but also offers numerous physical and mental health benefits. Water is also key to Jungian psychology and the unconscious mind is symbolized by the vastness of the ocean and its crashing waves.
Read MoreGuerlain #WomenforBees Project Led by Angelina Jolie in Yucatan for 2023
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The partnership between Guerlain and UNESCO launched in early 2020, with the training of beekeepers with more than 50 hives based in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Cambodia and China. The five-year project has a goal of training 88 beekeepers from 44 biospheres maintaining 4.400 beehives, after which the partnership can be renewed.
In 2023, the program expanded to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, in collaboration with the Fundación Selva Maya and Maroma, a Belmond Hotel.
To learn that the new LVMH Belmond Maroma Resort and Spa, re-opening August 3, 2023 is also a co-sponsor of the #WomenforBees project, gives Maroma a sense of purpose that has deep roots in ancient practices and traditions.
Reading Maroma’s IG description of its “place” is quite breathtaking and a tribute to LVMH’s approach to 21st century values in creating brand identity with real integrity and an embrace of ancient wisdom.
Maroma is a space of enchanting natural refinement, where ancient mysteries meet modern revelations. Our hotel is based on higher design—infinite and larger than the place itself. It was created originally by true believers of the Sacred Geometry, who aligned our white stucco buildings with the surrounding energy fields.
Understanding the respect that LVMH is giving to ancient wisdom and practices — writing about sacred geometry and the energy fields involved with the design of Maroma — had great impact on me, and I continue to process the many ways that LVMH is touching our lives in the world of luxury.
Read MoreIs SHEIN the Biggest Polluter In Fashion? Stats Are Damning and Astonishing!
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Almost like a fashion space rocket, China-based Shein [pronounced she-in, not shine] now owns almost a third (28 per cent) of America’s fast fashion market.
Few sustainability warriors saw it coming. And for all the convos about young people being passionate eco-conscious caretakers of our planet, at least in America, they have given a big hug to Shein.
In 2021, the Shein app became the most downloaded with over 17.5 million downloads across the Google Play and Apple stores.
Read MoreLevi Strauss & Co Partners with Pakistan's Artistic Milliners Organic Cotton Production
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Denim giant Levi Strauss & Co is now sourcing organic cotton directly from farmers in Pakistan as part of its membership of the Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA) initiative.
Levi's is sourcing the organic cotton through Pakistan-based denim mill Artistic Milliners' Organic programme which involves 2,000 cotton farmers in the Kohlu region of Baluchistan.
The vast majority of cotton farmers and pickers are women, and the focus of Artistic Milliners is female empowerment. Founded in 1949 with a small factory of 22 women, the company now has a workforce of 18,000 employeess.
Read MoreSydney Sweeney Joins Armani Beauty As Face of 'My Way' Sustainable Fragrance
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The story of Armani Beauty’s ‘My Way’ journey to market is deeply rooted in the sustainability values of the younger generation, many of their boomer grandparents and conscientious consumers of every age.
Photographer Dario Catellani [IG] photographs Sydney Sweeney in the 2023 campaign. The Italian visionary is known for his deep attachment to nature — beautifully expressed in the Etro FW 2020/21 ‘We Are All One’ Campaign.
Reading more information about Armani Beauty on the L’Oreal website — L’Oreal holds the beauty license — claims and certifications about sustainability are monitored and validated by the Sustainable Product Optimization Tool (SPOT) developed in 2013 to measure social and environmental impacts.
Based on 14 key sustainability criteria, it covers the entire process from production to the end of the life cycle, including the purchase of raw materials and the product’s use by the consumer.
Read MoreOlivia Martin in Miss Dior Fragrance by Brigitte Niedermair | Dior's Flowers Biodiversity Update
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Spanish model Olivia Martin poses in Dior Beauty shots for the house’s core Miss Dior Fragrance. Lilly Marthe Ebener styles Martin in images by key Dior photographer Brigitte Niedermair.
Dior writes: “At Dior, we are dedicated to preserve biodiversity. For our Maison, this mission particularly resonates through our never-ending love of flowers. They are not only the beating heart of our creative vision, they are also the origin, present and future of beauty. In the context of COP 15, we are reminded ambitious actions are essential to preserve flowers from extinction.”
By 2030, 100% of Dior gardens and partner gardens will be operated in organic or regenerative agriculture. Additionally, Dior Beauty is committed to reducing their carbon emissions by 46% by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to +1.5°C.
Read MoreElsa Hosk's Launch Campaign for her Helsa Brand, Lensed by Yulia Gorbachenko
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Supermodel Elsa Hosk looks like she walked out of a 1950s movie, filmed in the south of France. Elsa is wearing tailored must-haves from her new Helsa Collection — created in the mood of Katharine Hepburn and lensed here by Yulia Gorbachenko [IG]
Writing about the debut of Helsa last August, I said: “Hosk is keeping this launch like a quiet ebb. The Scandi beauty has always stressed the importance of sustainability and it would be shocking if she doesn’t create sustainable products.”
Many of the Helsa pieces are made with Recover, a recycled, heavy-duty cotton. Bravo. I love Elsa Hosk with my whole heart, but sustainability is not a strong message in Helsa so far.
Read MoreTED Talk Favorite: Janine Benyus' 3.8 Billion Years of Nature-Inspired Design
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