Joyce Glasser reviews Fashion Reimagined (in cinemas, March 3, 2023 and on Sky Documentaries from 9 April) Cert 12A, 100 mins.
Becky Hunter’s Fashion Reimagined has the power to change your worldview and even your life. That statement is not made lightly, but there is no other explanation for why, shortly after seeing the film, I read about London Fashion Week with a newfound cynicism. The self-congratulatory headlines and boasts about London’s creativity seemed misplaced at the thought of the devastation wreaked on the planet from all those one-season wonders: with the sequins, the plastic fibres, the dyes and the long carbon fuelled journey through an average of seven different countries from farm or field to catwalk. In this enlightening and ultimately frightening, documentary, the real creativity comes from producing a stylish garment sustainably.
Producer-director Hunter had a camera to hand when she met Amy Powney in 2017, when Amy was the surprise winner of 2017’s British Fashion Council and Vogue fashion award. Amy, the Creative Director of the independent fashion company Mother of Pearl, wanted to use the substantial cash award to develop a line of sustainable fashion for London Fashion Week 2018. The tight deadline meant the project was the perfect subject for a race-against-the-clock documentary, but partly due to Covid, the journey to the screen took a few more years.
If you think that a fact and problem-solving driven narrative about wool and cotton set in pastures, warehouses and factories will be tedious, think again. The visuals are varied and often awe-inspiring. Everything is illustrated in an easy-to-follow manner so we know exactly where we are at every minute of Amy’s journey. Occasionally, unsettling statistics are superimposed on the screen, adding to the urgency – and the importance – of Amy’s quest.
Hong Kong being out of the picture, Amy, and Product Development Director Chloe Marks, head to Turkey for cotton then to France for the Premiere Vision exhibition (the world’s largest fabric market) for wool. There they make contact with an ecologically minded Austrian factory that will deal with relatively small orders. The problem is, they get wool from a variety of sources, some more traceable than others. The one supplier the owner could vouch for was Pedro in Uruguay.
The trip to Uruguay and to Pedro’s nearly zero-carbon sheep ranch is a treat. His whole process, from sheep rearing to rainwater collecting and recycling, sets the highest environmental standards. The problem is – ironically, partly due to labour costs – there is no place in Uruguay for Pedro to send the wool for processing and sewing. So Amy’s chain is now three countries: not optimal, but still down from seven. They do a deal in nearby Peru, but it falls through three months before their deadline, creating some unwanted tension in an already tense Walthamstow office.
Amy, who has a sister and two supportive parents, was born in a one-bedroom caravan without indoor plumbing. They lived off grid, but her father built a wind turbine. Bullied at school for her unfashionable attire, she saved to buy a pair of pair of Reebok trainers (remember those?) and was instantly accepted. That was her introduction to the power, and the cloning, wasteful world of fashion.
It was enough to steer Amy into fashion design at university, a period that corresponded with the rise of Topshop, Primark and a fashion-of-the-week, throwaway culture that saw entire lines of clothing replaced in the shops after just a week like a magazine. Then she read Naomi Klein’s controversial bestseller No Logo about the evils of globalisation, brand bullies and sweatshops, and, as she says, she “completely changed [her] course.” It was back to basics.
Altering the global supply chain is key to sustainable fashion, but the film shows that this is easier said than done as Amy lists the immediate challenges in creating a sustainable collection: Organic, traceable, socially responsible, animal welfare, carbon footprint. Minimise water usage and energy. Create a no frills collection.
Unwilling to take Pedro out of the equation (his visit to London with his family to see what his sheep produced is charming), Amy settles on her weaver in Austria who promises to only use Pedro’s wool for her collection. The only place for organic cotton is Turkey, and here Amy makes the biggest compromise. Never able to trace the cotton to the fields, she must trust the supplier.
With a combination of compromise, convincing, cleverness, and, yes, creativity, Amy can finally get around to dreaming up her collection on paper. You’d think this would take a year alone, but it’s the least time consuming aspect of the challenge.
This is, of course, a simplified précis of the complicated process that the film describes. Along the way, we learn that we buy three times as many clothes as we did in 1980 and wear them for half as long. Amy urges us to buy fewer, and better quality clothes; rent rather than buy and give away rather than throw away.
But my favourite part of the film is the killer statistics that stick in the gut. This one is particularly relevant for young fashionistas wearing polluting denim jeans and throwaway “Save the Planet” t-shirts: “Fashion is the 4th largest contributor to climate change in Europe and the 3rd largest consumer of water.”
And here’s another: “Traditional denim washing uses 1,500 litres of water for one pair of jeans…one person’s drinking water for two years.” Or this one: “35% of ocean microplastic comes from synthetic clothes shedding in washing machines”. (The fleece you are wearing is all microplastic so if you own one, please don’t wash it!).
This one is not captioned over the images: Mother of Pearl’s collection is the only sustainable collection at London Fashion Week 2018.
What the film omits is the price tag for sustainability. Amy’s clothes are beautiful as well as sustainable, but we never learn the retail prices. And how do you convince the millions of Primark and H & M customers to put their money where their mouth is or to just do the right thing? And, who, given the company profits, employment and government taxes involved, will put an end to a gravy train poisoning us all?