Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Early October 2021, Stella McCartney took the runways of the Paris Fashion Week by storm with a Spring 2022 collection, celebrating sustainable mycelium fashion (Friedman, Oct. 5, 2021), aka patented recombinant mushroom technologies. Scroll forward to COP26 in Glasgow UK, and the hottest cruelty-free House of British fashion was also present, exhibiting: The Future of Fashion. A showcase of fashion innovation powered with such sustainable patented technologies as Mylo™ leather and Microsilk™ (Mitchie, 2021). An exhibit that brought together the fashion industry, responsible for an estimated 18% of GHG, into sharp focus.
Indeed, lab-grown mycellium and silk thread technologies have a much smaller carbon footprint. A smaller footprint compared to the millions of animals in cattle ranching, whose hides are used to manufacture shoes, accessories and apparel; or compared to the use of silkworms, and the impossible use of spiders. More deeply, however, lab-grown Mylo™ leather and Microsilk™ are 100% cruelty-free, the hallmark of Stella McCartney fashion (Stella McCartney). A truly synergistic hallmark that brings together climate change, sustainability, ethical treatment of animals, and the best of the fashion world, all under a single banner.
The fashion industry’s commitment “to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 in line with keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius”, consistent with the provisions of the UNFCCC(1) 2015 Paris Agreement, was initially set forth in the UNFCCC 2018 Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, launched during COP24 in Katowice, Poland. However, as Stella McCartney pointed out in an interview on Nov 4th 2021 with CNN, the fashion industry is “the most unfashionable” in terms of sustainability, as it still lags far behind with no regulations in sight for monitoring emissions, setting deadlines, implementing accountability, or for supplying incentives for change.
A viewpoint that appears largely shared by other fashion industry leaders, since according to Vogue, the COP26 Fashion Charter event resulted not only in additional signatories to the existing group of 130 brands(2), but also a renewed commitment to more concrete, more ambitious, and much stronger action in view of achieving the goals set forth in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate action (Chan, 2021). Tighter control, such as phasing out coal from tiers one and two suppliers by 2030, and no new coal by 2050, or requiring brands to submit plans for climate action. A COP26 takeaway in the form of an amended UNFCCC Fashion Charter for Climate Action, considering that, according to The Global Fashion Agenda the Fashion industry’s emissions, at their current pace, are set to rise to 2.7 billion tons by 2030, which is double the amount required to keep climate warming below the 1.5 degrees (Fashion on Climate Report, 2020).
The patented technologies driving Stella McCartney's Future of Fashion include Mylo™ leather, and Microsilk™, both produced by the California Bay Area company Bolt Threads. Leather that meets the Stella McCartney criteria of “ cruelty-free alternatives that look and feel luxurious and have [in this case] an environmental impact that is up to 24 times lower than animal leathers.[ilalics mine]" (Stella McCartney). Likewise, Microsilk™ is a vegan product, made entirely from yeast, sugar and DNA, with high tensile strength, softness, elasticity and durabulity, fabricated using green chemistry practices to minimize the environmental footprint.
Indeed, according to Stella McCartney, there are no sacrifices in The Future of Fashion. Quite the contrary, when technology, ethics and sustainability are synched, The Future of Fashion is invigorated, and more stunning than ever, as evidenced in the included clip of the Stella McCartney Spring 2022 show (Cohn, 2021).
Imagine now what might happen, considering that the fashion Houses of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy, Celine, Loewe, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, and the like of luxury and prestige, belonging to the LVMH group, are all on board (i.e.; signatories) for climate action!
References
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/designers/a36182113/fashion-designers-fungi/
COP26 – The future of Fashion – Stella McCartney.
https://fashionunited.uk/news/fashion/stella-mccartney-unveils-future-of-fashion-exhibition-at-cop26/2021110358986
http://www2.globalfashionagenda.com/initiatives/fashion-on-climate/#/
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/05/style/stella-mccartney-mushrooms.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/fashion/mylo-mushroom
https://unfccc.int/climate-action/sectoral-engagement/global-climate-action-in-fashion/about-the-fashion-industry-charter-for-climate-action
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