At Paris Fashion Week 2024, sustainability took centre stage. Victoria Beckham copped flak from protesters for using leather in her collection and Stella McCartney sent luxe pieces down the runway featuring vegan leather trims and recycled aluminium sequins, sending a clear message that luxury and sustainability can coexist.
ELLE UK recently noted that “Sustainable fashion brands are on the rise. From responsibly sourced organic cotton…through to taking every painstaking measure to avoid sweat shop manufacturing, fashion and beauty brands are becoming more and more conscious.”, ELLE reported.
It’s no surprise that the term ‘responsible luxury’ is everywhere right now, with high-end luxury brands taking big steps to ensure their designer footprints leave as light an impression as possible.
Responsible luxury is where exclusivity meets ethical and sustainable practices. Think plant-based materials such as vegan ‘leather’. Sustainable packaging and the use of recyclable materials. Vegan and cruelty-free fragrance ingredients and fair-deal manufacturing practices. Considered is now cool, and luxury brands are taking their role as style-setters seriously.
A significant rise in sustainable fashion and beauty has seen a shift to more responsible practices in materials, packaging and product formulations. French luxury brand Chloé was a pioneer of responsible luxury, designing fashion and accessories with vegan fabrics and producing its signature line of vegan fragrances long before the term had been coined.
The new Chloé Lumineuse fragrance is no exception. A vibrant feminine floral built around a heart of rose woven with vanilla, Lumineuse is a vegan perfume formulated with natural origin fragrance and denatured alcohol and water—nothing else.
As considered outside as it is within, the signature Chloé ribbon that adorns every bottle is consciously made from 100 per cent recycled polyester and the Eau de Parfum Lumineuse bottle contains 25 per cent recycled glass.
An example of best practice closer to home is Australian fashion royalty, Bianca Spender. Her designs are created to exacting quality standards with sustainability at heart, using deadstock fabrics (end-of-run and leftover fabrics) for over half of every collection, and featuring natural fibres in all her label’s designs. All garments are manufactured in Ethical Clothing Australia-accredited factories, which provide transparency and fair labour practices for workers.
Spender also regularly supports initiatives such as The Social Outfit’s ethical styling challenge to wear “one piece, five ways for five days” to raise awareness and funds to support women from refugee and migrant backgrounds with training and employment pathways in the fashion industry.
Influencers and celebrities such as Bella Hadid, Zendaya and Billie Eilish also wear their sustainability credentials proudly on their sleeves, regularly seen shopping vintage fashion and re-wearing red carpet looks.
At the 2024 Costume Designers Guild Awards Eilish wore the same shirt and trousers ensemble that she first wore to the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscars party. She has publicly said that she believes that “wearing only new clothes all the time is unnecessary and unsustainable,” and recently collaborated with Gucci on their first vegan leather bag.
With the world’s population count now around eight billion and counting, understanding the impact our choices make has never been more important.
Next time you’re ready to make a purchase, take the time to find out your favourite brands’ sustainability credentials and put your hard-earned fashion dollars where they’ll make a positive impact beyond the wardrobe.