Designers grasp the nettle of green style – with help from Prince Charles

DRESSES made from thousands of stinging nettles picked in Prince Charles’ Gloucestershire gardens have been wowing the crowds at London Fashion week.

Punk designers Vin + Omi, who have dressed the likes of Michelle Obama and Kate Moss, used the nettles to make a pioneering eco-friendly fabric.

And the garments made from the fluffy, very fine, wool-type fibre coloured with natural dye were a major hit when they were worn by models on the catwalk at the Savoy Hotel.

Charles met the environmentally conscious designers at an event last year when they told him they were looking at nettles, cow parsley and horseradish as alternatives to man-made fibres.

British-born Vin, who goes only by his first name, claims the future king told him: “I’ve got a lot of nettles in Highgrove, why don’t you come and get them?”

More than 3,000 nettles were hand-picked from the gardens and processed to make the dresses and coats that were worn by models with extravagant face paint and headgear.

Apparently the process they used dates back to Roman times and head Highgrove gardener Debs Goodenough told Mail Online that the designers and students from Oxford Brookes University picked two van loads of nettle stems in June for the material, which looked quite silky.

“The designers had done something with recycled plastics last year, so His Royal Highness said, ‘Why don’t you come in and do something with my nettles?,” she is quoted as saying.

‘”I met them in the new year. They are such a great couple of guys, really cool and innovative and delightful and enthusiastic. It was a delight to work with them.

“Normally with nettles we don’t let them go to seed but just keep them under control as they are good habitat. But we have a lot. There is no shortage here.”

She said the fibre is made from the stems rather than the leaves so they had to be grown quite high and the team also took some old chicken wire, willow and hazel.

The designers told journalists they were stunned when Prince Charles invited them and praised him for being so environmentally aware.

They described it as a “very exciting new collaboration for us” and Omi said his mind was blown that a future king of England would have such a green ethos.

Omi added of the project: “It was surreal. We are not establishment at all. Our look is 1980s Camden punk.”

Now they are planning to work with Ms Goodenough to see if they can recycle more from the organic gardens.