GO LIGHTLY
Having a label now means facing a question: why produce more clothes? Maggie Hewitt, of consciously made label Maggie Marilyn, considers the answer. By Jen Nurick.
Having a label now means facing a question: why produce more clothes? Maggie Hewitt, of consciously made label Maggie Marilyn, considers the answer.
Hewitt doesn’t believe in a reality where women will stop buying clothes. She is, however, determined to live in one where they minimise the impact of their purchases.
“Fashion is not inherently bad,” the designer states over the phone to Vogue from her native New Zealand, where she has helmed her ready-to-wear label Maggie Marilyn since 2016. “It’s the pace and the way we manufacture,” she explains.
At a time when the young are straining to get political leaders to heed their calls for sustainability, and the repercussions of refusals to do so are in plain sight (such as the destruction of the Amazon and Great Barrier Reef), there’s risk that pushing for changes to the fashion industry could fall on deaf ears among those in the business. But for 25-yearold Hewitt, whose philosophy of liveable luxury has earnt her a seat at the table of industry changemakers, the opportunity to grapple with uncomfortable questions is one she welcomes. In fact, she’s encouraged by the potential to solve them.
“The more we can grow, the bigger impact we can have and the more we can drive innovation,” she insists. On the surface, it’s an equation that seemingly sits at odds with offsetting carbon emissions and reducing ecological footprint – an irony not lost on Hewitt. Yet, as she explains: “We think the idea of sustainability should be that we should be against business, or we should reduce our output”, but, she contends, “in order to really drive advancements with technology and innovations, you need scale for that”.
A 2019 McKinsey & Company report, Fashion’s new musthave: sustainable sourcing at scale, highlights this further, identifying sustainable sourcing as an essential building block for future and existing apparel brands. The key learning was that brands must pivot business models to meet increased consumer demand for regenerative materials and transparent supply chains. Carbon offsetting alone (planting more trees, capturing methane) is a stopgap solution, and advising consumers to kick their shopping habits entirely is lofty and perhaps out of reach, even for Hewitt, who releases new collections every four months.
“Design at its purest needs to be a problem-solver,” she tells Vogue, reflecting that with new research come new problems. During a garment life cycle assessment, Hewitt learnt that Maggie Marilyn’s biodegradable packaging (it switched from
plastic poly bags in October 2018) releases more methane than plastic when it’s not composted and instead ends up in landfill. That’s why it’s especially important, she says, to welcome “new information that conflicts with what you thought you knew”.
The commitment from Kering (Gucci, Bottega Veneta) to work towards carbon neutrality, or LVMH’s (Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior) appointment of Stella McCartney as sustainability advisor to chief executive Bernard Arnault, demonstrates industry efforts to action change now. Meanwhile, a new masters degree in biodesign at London’s Central Saint Martins reflects a bid to secure fashion in the future. Even for Maggie Marilyn, a brand synonymous with sustainability that’s stocked in more than 50 stores worldwide, leveraging growth ethically has called for a strategy shake-up.
“[We’ve had to ask ourselves] who we really want to partner with and who is going to get behind the brand and promote and amplify our message,” says Hewitt. As a businesswoman and a designer, Hewitt balances the brand’s commercial viability with its core values, both now and for the future. Compromise is inevitable, but slow growth is reconciled with the promise of a long-term future. “I never want it to be confusing to our customers,” says Hewitt. “The stockists we’re partnering with now, the new stores we’re bringing on, are because we have the same common values for where we want the industry to go.”
Circularity is the ultimate goal and Hewitt believes it’s in the hands of the designer to eco-proof every step of the garment’s journey to that destination. “Not every customer is going to reduce consumption,” she admits. “[It’s about] making sure that a garment has the least negative impact in its afterlife. If it ends up in landfill, is it going to biodegrade? How can we bring those garments back to our warehouses and recycle them?”
She’s hopeful the introduction of a new fully circular line, Somewhere (named after her family home in the Bay of Islands), will offer an answer. “It’s an accessibly pricepointed, everyday essentials line with the same values of the main line,” Hewitt explains. Think blazers, T-shirts, denim jeans – neutral cousins to Maggie Marilyn’s current season candy-coloured stable. “When our customer’s love affair with their clothing is over, that garment is designed to be brought back, reprocessed into a new fabric and then recycled into a new garment.”
Somewhere is in step with Maggie Marilyn’s 2020 sustainability strategy. In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Maggie Marilyn is working towards having a regenerative impact, from monitoring water usage to making sure, where possible, that everything is locally made. Hewitt hopes young designers will follow suit, advising that there is no wrong approach to sustainability and simply asking more questions is a good place to start. “We’re not a brand that wants to point a finger,” she says. “We just want other brands to come along on this journey with us.”