AMBER LIGHT
SUPERMODEL AMBER VALLETTA’S NEXT ACT IS HER MOST CHALLENGING YET: SUSTAINABLE FASHION
AMBER VALLETTA IS IN A HURRY.
After our shoot, she’s headed to the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, the world’s leading event on fashion sustainability. It’s the third time she’s hosted, and Valletta’s passion for making change is palpable.
“Lack of awareness is our biggest problem,” she tells me. “The second is the excess of clothing, shoes, bags... And we’re not just talking luxury goods: it’s anything that there’s an excessive amount of.”
Indeed, fast fashion in particular is a huge problem for the environment – an estimated 80 billion new garments are produced each year and when you consider that it takes 2,700 litres of water to make one cotton T-shirt, that’s a lot of resources being squandered. For Valletta, whose mother was an environmental activist and inspired the model and actress’s quest for change, the solution is to think more clearly about what we’re making, and why we’re making it. “We’re not thinking in a circular way about anything we design, and we don’t realise that when we take a raw material from the very beginning, we grow something raw all the way to the end of life.” With clothes clogging our landfills, this “end of life” problem is growing bigger, literally by the day. “That’s why I recycle my sneakers,” Valletta tells me, explaining how she takes her used tennis shoes to a special bin where they’re then sent to be broken down and repurposed into surfaces for sporting grounds. “People think you can throw clothes in the trash and they’ll biodegrade, or they think if you donate it, that it’s magically gone to a special place, like a third-world country or to someone locally who needs it. And sometimes it does, but the bigger truth is that there’s a lot that doesn’t.”
It’s clear Valletta knows her stuff. She’s passionate about creating new technologies to make fashion greener, as well as making sure the stuff we produce and consume is disposed of carefully. In quick succession she lists all the ways textiles can be made more sustainably. “Whether it’s bionic yarns or plastic, recycling plastic, organic wool, organic cotton… there are tons of new fibres being used, or fibres that have been broken down from previously made ones, like blue jeans for instance. These new materials and innovations often don’t use as much water and create less waste, like laser printing and laser cutting.”
One of the most exciting discoveries for Valletta? Leather made from… mushrooms. Valletta smiles when she sees me raise my eyebrows at the idea. Fungus? Really? Yes, really: San Francisco-based startup Myco Works has created the leather from organic fungus waste. Not only does it take less time to create than real leather – two months as opposed to two years – it’s breathable and naturally antibiotic to boot. “I think certain big brands are going to start using leathers that have nothing to do with animals. There’s also citrus fibre. The way fashion is changing right now, you’re going to see the rate of all of this, the technologies, coming quicker and quicker.”
Valletta has been at the forefront of these changes. In 2013 she launched her online fashion portal, Master & Muse [currently in transition]. The site bridged the gap between cutting-edge fashion and mindful manufacturing, with a carefully curated selection of sustainable brands chosen by Valletta herself. In one of the site’s collections, she tells me, “We sold these leather jackets, like motorcycle jackets, that were made with the excess leather from motorcycle seats. They were totally cool, and they don’t look any different.” Recently Valletta, whose bona fides also include acting alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Will Smith, also narrated four short documentary films about sustainable fashion.
Many climate change campaigners describe an “aha” moment, a period in time when everything clicked for them – seeing vast amounts of rubbish or noting the earth’s rising temperatures, for instance. But for Valletta, a passion for the planet has always been there. “[My mother] was a big activist; she stopped a nuclear power plant from being built on American Indian land, very close to the town where I lived. She was arrested. She went to rallies. [She] even took us [kids] to a protest – we had so much fun because we got to yell.”
Widely recognised as one of the most successful models of the ‘90s, Valletta took environmental studies at New York University. “[Back when I started modelling] there wasn’t much discussion about sustainability or environmental issues, but slowly, when Al Gore became vice president, that
started to change. I began hearing it, and obviously I connected with it because of my history and just started paying attention.” Learning about the damage already done, says Valletta, made her goals clear. “I honestly felt this would be a lifelong mission: to be a champion for the environment.”
As she heads off to Copenhagen, Valletta is swift to acknowledge the fear of sustainable fashion within the industry. “People get very afraid. They ask: does that mean people are going to lose jobs? We’re not going to need farmers anymore? Well, we’re still going to need to make things. We’re still going to need some natural resources in the beginning from the raw materials, but the enhancement and innovation will create more jobs. It’s just going to take us all a minute to pivot, you know what I mean?”
Nowadays, Valletta’s own closet is, as you’d imagine, sustainable: a mix of heirloom pieces, items that have been passed down, vintage clothes, and, she adds, “some basics, hopefully from someplace where they’re either using sustainable materials or they’re investing in new technologies.” She says she doesn’t buy much anyway, adding that she has clothes in her closet she’s been wearing for 15 years. When I joke that it must be easy for her, as she still has the same body she had when she started her career, she quickly puts me in my place. “It’s not that. I can’t fit into everything I did before, but to me, it’s better to invest wisely than to buy a bunch of stuff you’re just going to get rid of. And if you can’t afford it, then still be very intelligent about what you’re getting.”
So how can you convince people to change their habits and be reasonable, when fashion is all about frivolity and quick changes? Valletta agrees that it’s hard to make these issues sexy in an industry obsessed with glamour and looks. And then she suddenly corrects herself.
“But you know what, it’s a lot sexier to be on a planet that’s thriving and healthy, than everyone walking around in decontamination suits with polluted air... We’re headed in a very scary direction if we don’t make changes. The reality is that climate change is here, and pollution is here and water resources are depleting. So we can either live in denial or we can wake up and get moving, and I think now is the time.”
“IT’S A LOT SEXIER TO BE ON A PLANET THAT’S THRIVING AND HEALTHY”