This is what green living looks like now
Living an environmentally-friendly life no longer means compromising on style, says Yasmin Mills
Yasmin Mills is a selfproclaimed bon viveur. She loves glamorous holidays, fast cars, gourmet food and fine wine and she treats herself to designer clothes and luxury make-up. But she is also an eco-activist, committed to doing each of these things in the most sustainable way possible. “No one needs a style bypass to become eco,” she insists, when I meet her for tea at Urban Retreat, her favourite beauty salon in Knightsbridge. “Living sustainably isn’t about hemp shopping bags or lectures from earnest yoga mums; it’s about living well, eating well and thinking well – if you care for the planet in all areas of your life, you improve your quality of life.”
Mills, who worked as a television presenter before founding her own luxury events company, started greening her lifestyle more than a decade ago – inspired by her friends such as Jo Wood, Jade Jagger, Jasmine Guinness and Stella McCartney, who were all pioneering the eco-luxe movement. “I’m half Indian, which may be why I’ve always loved throwing parties and entertaining, but it was Jo Wood who opened my eyes to organic food at her pop-up dinners,” she explains. “She’d brought up all her children on organic and she educated me about living with less waste.” After adopting organic principles for her own family, Mills reformed her business model and started running eco-events with zero waste. “I was sickened by the amount of waste, particularly at children’s parties,” she explains.
Her clients couldn’t have been less interested in the plan – in those days, people still turned their noses up at organic wine and vegetarian dishes, she says – but there was no backing out. Mills’s daughters, Lauren, now 25, and Madeleine, 20, had latched on and were convinced their mother was doing the right thing. “Their generation is so much more vocal and passionate about their beliefs,” Mills explains. “They said, ‘Mummy, you can’t work with people who aren’t supporting the environment’. I decided to show them I had integrity and put my money where my mouth was. We can’t leave this problem for our children to sort out.”
It wasn’t an easy decision; Mills lost the majority of her clients overnight – any beauty label that tested on animals, any car brand without an electric protype had to go. But Mills stuck with it and within a couple of years the business began to take off. Now, with her boyfriend, the eco-chef Justin Horne, Mills runs zero waste events and supper clubs for high-profile clients such as Sadie Frost, the Ellen McArthur Foundation and Jade Parfitt, and also has her own eco-luxe homeware brand, Ecofetes.com. “The zeitgeist changed; everyone has become so much more knowledgeable about the environmental implications of our behaviour,” she explains. “We used to say to our parents ‘How could women smoke when they were pregnant?’ and it’s the same with plastic; the younger generations will ask ‘Why were you buying all your fruit and vegetables wrapped in plastic?’.”
Once you’ve committed to living an eco-luxe lifestyle, it’s surprisingly easy to find what you need, she says. She runs her events from her studio in West London, using electric vans and bicycle couriers and no single-use plastics. Her homeware range, which includes napkin rings by Jade Jagger, recycled glass vases and speaker systems made out of coconut shells, is run from the same space. “All businesses used to be like mine; it’s only since the Seventies that everything has been mass-produced. We got stuck in a toxic mindset, but I think it’s reversible,” she says.
Eco-luxe is not elitist, she insists, despite its luxury connotations. Along with high-end eco-labels such as Stella McCartney, are brands like People Tree, while mainstream designer pieces immediately become both sustainable and affordable if you buy them vintage and preloved. When it comes to the weekly grocery shop, buying bulk and package free is not only cheaper, she says, but far more aesthetically pleasing if you invest in attractive glass storage jars.
“Once you’ve changed your way of thinking you feel liberated,” says Mills, who is wearing an Armani sweater she bought at a charity second hand sale. “Eco-luxe lasts longer and there is more romance to it.”
She admits, however, she’s still finding her way in some aspects of the ecoluxe modus operandi. She still hasn’t found a satisfactory conditioner bar, for example, and she’s not convinced by the reusable ear buds she tried last week. Her daughters – Lauren is a producer and Madeleine is an art student – are constantly introducing her to new brands, though, and encouraging her to adapt her ways. Next week she’s returning to television, launching her new green video diary on Instagram TV, where she will meet other eco-luxe pioneers and discover new ways of living more sustainably.
The quest to find chic eco-products and more luxury ways of being green is all part of the joy, she says. Yes, you have to trial and error but it’s all out there if you keep looking. “I don’t see what I’m doing as particularly revolutionary,” Mills insists. “I’m just being a responsible grown-up and using my common sense – and having some fun.”
‘I decided to show my daughters that I had integrity and put my money where my mouth was’