The Red Carpet Goes Green at Oscar 2012
Ifyou looked very closely at the red carpet at last Sunday’s Oscars, you might have noticed a bit of green—and we’re not talkingabout best actress nominee Viola Davis’s emerald frock. This was “green,” as ineco-friendly.
A handful of notables, including bestactress nominee Meryl Streep and best supporting actor nominee Kenneth Branagh,chose to wear specifically eco-friendly fashions created especially for theOscars ceremony. And when Streep, resplendent in a sweeping gold gown, acceptedher Oscar, she became unofficially the first Academy Award winner to do so in a Lanvin custom-made, eco-friendly design—a first in the Frenchfashion house’s 100-plus-year history.
Bringing the hot-button issues ofenvironmentally sound and ethically produced apparel front and center on thered carpet awards circuit has been the mission the past three years of LiviaFirth. The Italian-born, London-dwelling Firth has her hand in the eco apparelmarketplace as the creative director of eco-age.com,an online shop and magazine featuring apparel, home accessories, and jewelry,including Firth’s own designs.
Perhaps more important are her redcarpet credentials. As the wife of 2011 Academy Award winner Colin Firth (“TheKing’s Speech”), she is a regular on the awards scene and in a position to makea statement. That she began to do three years ago when she agreed (blogging allthe while for British vogue.com) tospearhead the Green Carpet Challenge (GCC), which calls for celebrities to usetheir visibility to promote fashion’s eco/ethics causes by only wearingsustainable and ethically produced garments to film-industry events.
The challenge was thrown her way in 2009by eco author Lucie Siegle, who penned ToDie For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World? At first a bit hesitant—she’dnever wear plastic, Firth swears in a video—she turned up at this year’s Golden Globes in an exquisite custom Giorgio Armani gown fashioned fromfibers spun from Northern Italian household plastic waste.
Since 2009, Firth has worn, amongother eco wear, a dress made from the remnants of one of her husband’s suits, adress made from garbage bin scraps from several fashion labels, and, for the2011 Academy Awards, a dress “repurposed” from bits and pieces of 11 periodthrift shop gowns from “The King’s Speech” era.
For this year’s Academy Awards, atwhich Colin Firth awarded Streep her Oscar, Livia went plastic again, wearing acorseted red “hybrid” Valentino gownthat combined recycled PET polyester fabric with Valentino’s house silksleeves. In addition to Streep, Firth recruited Branagh (Ermenegildo Zegna merino wool) and bestactor nominee Demian Bichir (Zegna eco-friendly silk/superfine wool blend) tohelp spread the word. And Mr. Firth? He lofted the banner for recycling,wearing the same Tom Ford tuxedo hehad worn the year before.
On Eco Age’s website, GCC makes a strongpitch to designers, offering to help them source acceptable materials for their“one-off” designs to match with “one of our A-list supporters to wear on thered carpet and created with that person in mind. It is the perfect combinationof the A-list designer, brand, and star in the interests of promotingenvironmental and social justice and design innovation.”
GCC’s “core goals” include using naturaland “novel eco fibers” that create the “lowest possible ecological footprint,”a transparent supply chain, and traceable materials “free from deforestation,pesticide abuse, and toxicity.” Garments should be made for easy disassemblyand reuse, or made from salvaged materials, and designed to minimize waste. GCCpromises to help garner publicity and otherwise sell the story with itsstar-power clout.
Withluminaries such as Streep and Davis (who wore a salmon-pink Valentino fashionedfrom recycled plastic bottles when presenting an award at this year’s BAFTAs)and designers such as Stella McCartney,Ford, Armani, Lanvin, Valentino, KarlLagerfeld, and others signing on, Firth and GCC seem to be building steam.
Thefashion world is taking notice. Blogged Franca Sozzani, editor-in-chief of Italian Vogue, “The respect and care forthe environment, sustainability, and fair trade nowadays are features thatcannot be separated from the fashion world. Or at least from those who wish topreserve also the ethic, and not just the aesthetic, side of fashion.” —Carol A. Crotta
