NED FASHIO NATUR E FROM
SUSTAINABILITY MIGHT have become a sexy issue in recent years, but the V&A’S latest exhibition, Fashioned From Nature, explores the multifaceted relationship between fashion and the natural world since 1600.
‘Fashion relies on nature completely for all its raw materials and on the planet for energy – to process the fabrics, to transport them around the world and bring them to our doorsteps,’ explains curator Edwina Ehrman of the exhibition, which includes such oddities from the V&A’S archive as an 1875 pair of earrings formed from the heads of two real honeycreeper birds (above).
But far from dwelling on the past, Fashioned From Nature also looks at the innovative fabrics of today that help form part of the solution to fashion’s enormous environmental footprint – from a clutch bag made from pineapple fibres to feathers spun from glass and Emma Watson’s 2016 Met Gala Calvin Klein gown fashioned from recycled plastic bottles. There’s also a Ferragamo ensemble made from ‘Orange Fiber’ derived from excess from the Italian citrus industry and leather substitute Vegea, which comes from wine industry grape waste.
‘Just as chemicals were so important to textiles in the 20th century, the 21st century will be dominated by bio fabrication,’ says Edwina, represented here by the Stella Mccartney look made of Bolt Threads, a synthetic spider silk fashioned from genetically modified yeast, sugar, water and salt. Edwina admits the science might sound ‘slightly baffling’ but innovations like this couldn’t be timelier: billions of tons of clothing are bought and discarded every year – and the planet can’t keep up.
These fabrics might be the shape of the future, but what is the one thing we could do as consumers to make a difference now? Edwina’s hope is that the exhibition will encourage people to really think about not just where their clothes come from, but what goes into making them, whether they can be made better and to look at clothing labels in the same way we look at food labels, considering: is it really worth this? What do I need to do to offset it? ‘If we can be more demanding as consumers, more enquiring and more curious, I think that would be a step forward’.
‘ What we’re absolutely not saying is that fashion is bad – what we’re saying is we need to find other ways, better ways of making amazingly vibrant fashion that we can all enjoy’. Fashioned From Nature, supported by I Love Linen by CELC and G Star RAW, opens at the V&A on 21 April, vam.ac.uk