From “Helter Shelter” photographed by Hanna Moon
“This is the only conversation to be having in fashion right now,” the supermodel and activist Amber Valletta said to me at her Malibu cover shoot. Her thoughts on sustainability and environmental impact resonated powerfully when, a week later, the ravaging California wild fires engulfed the area. A key cause of them was climate change-induced drought. For our second issue of More Or Less, she spoke to Hanna Hanra and was photographed by Theo Wenner in a number of conscious and upcycled brands (including Patagonia, which has donated 1% of sales to the preservation of the environment since 1985 and recently gave its $10 million tax cut to environmental charities).
There is much to be hopeful for, but there is a long way to go. Fortunately, the fashion industry is one of the most creative and innovative in the world, and I am certain it will rise to address the environmental crisis of which it is a part. For this reason I decided to devote the second issue of More Or Less largely to raising awareness and celebrating the new, fun ideas that are being invented around the manufacturing of clothing in more ethical and eco-conscious ways. Not everything in the issue is sustainable, but I wanted to provoke thought about the choices we make with where and how we shop.
The young design duo Rottingdean Bazaar’s graduate show consisted of rental costumes, emphasising that clothing can be borrowed and shared, rather than bought and discarded. Colin Dodgson photographed the collection and Danny Reed styled it, while the set designer and folklore expert Simon Costin describes for us his surreal visit to the designers’ Sussex home town.
We asked 11 British designers – including Vivienne Westwood, Erdem and Simone Rocha – to create a couture piece made from their ateliers’ fabric remnants. Using waste materials to create a luxurious product was a fantastic experiment in bespoke upcycling.
Photography legend Mark Lebon opened his closet and his vast clothing archive to us, proving that clothes are something to be held on to and cherished for years, rather than a seasonal indulgence soon to be forgotten.
Thurstan Redding and Gary David Moore did a fashion shoot with all clothes sourced from Depop, the go-to used clothing sale social app of millennials.
Elsewhere in the issue, William Van Meter interviewed Kelley Deal, the lead guitarist from one of my all-time favourite bands, the Breeders, about her line of sustainable scarves. Lucinda Chambers scoured London’s Portobello Market for some amazing vintage finds, photographed by Jack Davison. Model Paloma Elsesser exudes power and confidence for 19-year-old Red Hook Labs student Genesis Gil. And Jamie Hawkesworth let us tag along on his summer road trip. Enjoy!
Jaime Perlman