Elizabeth: A journey to ethical elegance
Last month, stylist James Dimech presented his haute couture show Elizabeth: a journey to ethical elegance, at the Palazzo Brancaccio in Rome, under the auspicies of the Chamber of Fashion, Malta. “The fashion industry has not been very kind to our planet,” he says, “that is why I like to take an alternative approach to fashion.
I use a polyester fibre made from 100% post-consumer plastic bottles and up-cycle from diverse waste materials such as tin cans. It’s amazing how these materials can be manipulated and transformed into wearable art pieces.” Elizabeth – a journey to ethical elegance he says, was inspired by the royalty of Queen Elizabeth 1 who strongly influenced fashion over the course of her reign in the 16th century “and the timeless elegance of Elizabeth Taylor, fashion icon of the 1950s. Each of the ten garments in this collection come with a story and it’s my way of paying tribute to revolutionary women through history,” he adds.
“Adapting my experience in architecture and origami, this collection reflects the exploration of form and structure. The monochromatic silhouettes of the garments are emphasized through hands-on manipulation of the fabric creating different cutting and folding techniques to create very intricate designs with an eye-catching three-dimensional appearance. The goldish metal pull-tabs, from recycled pet food cans not only make a perfect ornament to the black and white base but are also used as a statement in all garments to create awareness of stray animals.”
At first James Dimech began designing dresses with origami decoration which he folded by hand. These dresses took hours of painstaking labour. To create them he collected the waste paper cut off’s from printing companies and in doing so turned scrap paper into exquisite dresses, but they were not wearable.
He has a huge following and so people started asking him if he could create similar designs in a wearable fabric.
Since James is committed to protecting the planet from waste pollution he researched companies which were making wearable fabrics from used plastic bottles. It was not an easy journey for him because the companies he wanted to buy from only wanted to supply what he ordered in one colour and only in
big quantities.
This is an issue that many fashion designers are facing when they are trying to buy this type of eco fabric. Designers need the textile companies to encourage them and sell smaller quantities of mixed colours.
Only when James started publicizing his haute couture gowns by photographing them at the Manoel Theatre, Malta, did the textile companies suddenly wake up and realize the potential publicity for themselves.
James also up-cycles aluminium tabs from pet food packets, something that came to his mind to use as decoration, because he feeds many stray animals.
These tabs look completely elegant when sewn into his gowns.
The Chamber of Fashion Malta
Foundation encourages sustainability in fashion and the use of hand made decoration on clothing. Confident that James Dimech is an emerging talent with a great future, The Chamber made it possible for him to take part in World of Fashion July 2019 in Rome. This was his debut outside of Malta.
Exporting Maltese fashion design talent internationally is one of The Chamber of Fashion Malta Foundation’s missions.
The Chamber also gave an opportunity for 19-year-old Maltese model Rebecca Camilleri from Supernova Model Management to model James’ ten gowns and cocktail dresses at this event. It was Rebecca’s first debut in Italy, too.