Fashion Reimagined, a fascinating new documentary from Becky Hutner, includes a storm of terrifying statistics about the clothing industry. Fashion is the fourth largest contributor to climate change. Three out of five garments end up in landfill within one year. We wear clothes half as long as we did in 1980. And so on.
A new generation is, however, fighting to drag the industry to its senses. Hutner’s film focuses on the tireless labours of Amy Powney, creative director of the Mother of Pearl brand, as she makes genuine efforts to produce sustainable product for her No Frills strand. Many of us have become suspicious of the word “sustainable”. It is slung around with such abandon, one might reasonably doubt if it still means anything.
“You should be suspicious when you see the word because it’s been hijacked, unfortunately, especially by the fashion industry,” Hutner agrees.
Powney has thrown herself into the task. After receiving a significant cash prize for winning Vogue’s best young designer, she travelled the globe in search of alternatives to the rag trade’s current wasteful processes. We hear a great deal about the endless journeys fabrics make on their way to becoming a garment. We learn how hard it can be to trace the materials back to source.
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“Nothing is ‘sustainable’ – if you look at that word,” Powney, an unpretentious Lancashire woman, says. “We’re still producing stuff. Right? We’re doing it with the best practices we can achieve, but I’m still making something. The term should be a ‘more sustainable approach to making something’ rather than ‘this is sustainable’. We’ve actually changed our terminology recently to say ‘responsible’ instead of ‘sustainable’.”
You get no baloney from Powney. There is none of the pretentious air-kissy insincerity in which so many parodies of high-end fashion revel (you hardly need to be told what series and films I’m getting at). That is, perhaps, down to her upbringing. When she was just 10 years old, her parents moved from a comfortable home to a caravan in, as the film shows us, a part of Lancashire that looks as remote as the High Desert. The elder Powneys get their electricity from a wind turbine. They live close to the land.
Sustainability doesn’t need to be that much more expensive – if it’s done correctly. My prices are higher because we’re a small, independent business
— Amy Powney
“My parents did it more off a financial whim – so they could get out of the rat race and just live in a different way,” she says. “I don’t think they did it knowing about the impact of climate change. Since then they have understood it more. My father was at the front of the anti-fracking campaign in Lancashire because they were about to do it next to where their property was.”
I hope she will excuse me making ignorant assumptions, but that doesn’t seem like the archetypical background of someone at the top end of the fashion industry. The barriers of class are, surely, as resistant there as they are in any section of British society.
“My background is different from a lot of people in the fashion industry,” she says. “But I would say it’s not all that different to other people on this planet. There are a lot of people living off-grid – without water, without electricity – in the rest of the world. But, yes, in the fashion industry it’s not normal. We talk about diversity and inclusion. But people have yet to discuss… Well, I don’t like saying ‘class’, because I don’t see class in those terms. But I think people from different backgrounds aren’t included in fashion. It’s still a very elite game. It’s a cliquey one. It’s not the most friendly one.”
[ Fashion brands pause use of sustainability index tool over greenwashing claimsOpens in new window ]
Which prompts one to ask how the rest of the industry responded to Powney’s stubborn efforts to make real change in how her garments were produced. As we have already learned, the word “sustainability” – like the word “organic” – is useful as a cheap marketing tool, but actually living up to those claims takes risk, investment and innovation. We watch Powney slogging about South America in search of fabric that doesn’t waste oceans of water a day. Her social-media campaigns urge followers to “rent clothes, buy second-hand and ensure anything new is sustainable and passed on”. There must be some resistance to that in the industry.
“Whilst I’ve had incredible support, I’ve also seen a divide in the industry as regards who’s willing to get on board with it and who is not,” she says. “Now the film has been made, I think there’s a few institutions and a few people that are a bit frightened of it. It’s about statistics. It’s about what’s going on in the industry. It’s about supply chains and about the truth of how you do it sustainably – whatever that might mean. It is opening a can of worms. I have seen some resistance because it questions what they are doing.”
What about the consumer? Powney’s sincerity is unmistakable. The film makes a strong argument for her strategies. But it is hard to escape the suspicion that, difficult as she may find her mission at times, it is easier to pass on the costs incurred to well-heeled customers who are already prepared to pay €300 for a Mother of Pearl sweatshirt, or €396 for one of the company’s denim jackets. High fashion is, surely, using a relatively small portion of the resources being eaten up. Proper progress requires the high-street giants – those selling a sweatshirt for €15 – to get on board.
“We get that question a lot, being a more expensive brand,” she says. “Sustainability doesn’t need to be that much more expensive – if it’s done correctly. My prices are higher because we’re a small, independent business. So there are big corporations like H&M and Zara that could be doing so much better. They have the power to change. They have the power to put infrastructure in place. And it doesn’t need to come at that much more of a cost. The only thing cheaper today from 30 years ago is clothing. Nothing else is like that.”
[ It can’t be a choice between affordability and sustainabilityOpens in new window ]
The film clarifies that this is as much to do with ethical treatment of workers as it is to do with intensive, jet-hopping modes of production.
“You can’t buy a T-shirt for £1 and not know that is wrong. It’s not going to have gone through the best practices. It obviously has to retail for more than that if you want to do it ethically.”
So what are the main challenges to sustainability? The industry has set up – or stumbled upon – a vast matrix of suppliers and middlemen that allows it to churn out goods in quantities that would have seemed inconceivable a generation ago. Unthreading those connections feels like an almighty challenge, one made harder still by the hugeness of the conglomerates concerned. Then you have to convince customers the effort is worthwhile.
We’ve got another issue now facing us in that creative directors are now not appointed for talent and ability. They’re appointed with Instagram following
— Amy Powney
“I’d say probably the biggest challenge is trust – that people are doing what they say they’re doing even under certifications,” Powney says. “Who’s monitoring any of these things? So I think the level of trust is really complex. And we can only do so much. With the supply chain, you’re relying on other people and other decision-makers. And that’s complicated.”
Hutner’s film is not out to offer any comprehensive analysis of the fashion industry and all its quirks, but some wider points do emerge (and, yes, there is the required shot of Anna Wintour at London Fashion Week). We have, through the decades, become wearied by visions of company boards composed of grey-haired blokes. Men still tend to run the big fashion houses, both creatively and financially. Yet the people around Powney seem largely to be youngish women. That feels like a development.
“The people that sit in the boardrooms and earn more are predominantly men,” she says. “We’ve got another issue now facing us in that creative directors are now not appointed for talent and ability. They’re appointed with Instagram following and fame.”
It all feels like too much to cope with. But Powney displays, both in person and in the film, daunting levels of positivity. You get the sense there is no barrier she won’t lean a shoulder into. What does she still have to accomplish?
“In the short term, some sleep, Ha ha!” she says. “I have had two babies. We’ve been continuing to work from our office, but I just want to get back out on the road.”
A pause.
“Not that we want to travel too much because that’s not sustainable.”
Fashion Reimagined is released on Friday, March 3rd
