So how is it being realized in your collection?

For the summer show, it’s working with recycled industrial waste. I find it so sexy and cool and exciting. We have some lace pieces, and all of the lace is completely upcycled from what we have left over from maybe four or five fashion shows. All of our cotton and all of our denim is a hundred percent organic now, which is amazing.

Of course, tomorrow my organic crop might fail or I might not be able to source it. There’s a fragility in working this way, and you have to kind of hold your hands up and say, “You know what, we’re trying really hard, but we are not perfect and you can only control so much.”

What else are you doing?

We have a room that’s all one-off pieces that were basically pieces that we made but that weren’t put into production. They were just sitting around. I thought: “Why are these going into a sample sale and being chucked out? These are precious pieces.” So instead we’ve taken them and embellished them more and put little handwritten notes in them. And so they became hugely rare and precious and emotional.

You are now in a partnership with LVMH, so are these ideas and the manifesto going to trickle upward? Should we expect Fendi to go fur free?

You’d have to ask the Fendi gang. I hope so. The biggest impact we have in a positive way on sustainability at Stella McCartney is not using animal products. One of the many reasons that I wanted to join LVMH is to really infiltrate from within, and I think it’s a brave statement from them to invest in me.

I’m a vegan fashion house that’s not in line with a lot of what they’re doing, and the fact that they are betting on someone like me — that was a bold move. That’s a conversation starter. It says we’re looking at this and we’re taking this seriously. You know, it’s a big ship. I’m like this little pirate ship. I’m like the Sea Shepherd on the side.

Source: New York Times

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