Kitx’s Kit Willow Is One of Several Designers Showing Their Sustainable, Artisan-Made Work at Buckingham Palace During London Fashion Week
On February 19, sustainable fashion will get a stage most designers could only dream of: Buckingham Palace. Livia Firth, the founder and creative director of Eco-Age, has launched a new initiative called the Commonwealth Fashion Exchange, which partners designers with artisans in British Commonwealth nations to create pieces that are environmentally conscious and highlight each country’s heritage crafts. The finished products will be on display at a reception at the tail end of London Fashion Week.
Kitx was a no-brainer to include. The Australian designer Kit Willow has been dedicated to ethical and low-impact design since she started her brand in 2015, and takes it about 10 steps further than her peers. For her Fall 2017 collection, for instance, she used pailettes made from recycled bottle caps that took years to develop; in this fast-paced industry, that sort of patience is hard to come by. It earned her a fan in Emma Watson, Hollywood’s most ardent supporter of ethical fashion. Willow’s main concern is the sourcing of materials: She uses 100 percent organic silk when she can, or switches to cupro, which has a similar feel but is made from recycled cellulose, a byproduct of cotton. She also uses tons of linen, which is organic and requires less water and fertilizers than cotton, and often mixes cupro and linen together for a surprisingly glossy, satin-y hybrid. “Fashion is the second-biggest polluter in the world, and a lot of it comes down to the materials,” she explains. “We forget that fashion starts at the dirt level. It starts with the farmers, the cotton crops, the dyeing, the deforestation of trees for [wood-based fabrics like] viscose . . . . It has a profound effect on water and land, which is where we’re seeing the impact now.”
For the Commonwealth Fashion Council project, Willow teamed with artisans in the Solomon Islands, who created beads using a special natural shell. “They actually use them as currency there—they trade in shells, not coins or paper notes,” Willow says. “I felt that was quite symbolic, seeing their currency as art on a garment. You would never know by looking at them—they’re just beautiful beads. We also used a straw-like material from the bark of a tree, which the artisans hammered down and softened using alkaline from coral, then bleached it in the sun.”
Revealing the hand in her work has always been important to Willow, but for this initiative in particular, it was about keeping those crafts alive. “So much of the magic in fashion stems from a human skill, like hand-weaving and beading,” she says. “For many artisan communities, they’re on the last generation of people working with these skills, because they’re going to work in other fields where they can earn more. We’re [at risk of] losing a lot of those crafts.”
Nest is doing its part to encourage companies to support the artisans who may have been forgotten in the age of fast fashion, too. But the Buckingham Palace event will do a lot to elevate the conversation and bring greater awareness. “Surrounded by industry leaders, royalty, and heads of government—it really feels like the beginning of the whole industry coming together to support this movement.” You’ll have to wait until the February 19 to see Willow’s finished product, but knowing her, it will be reliably elegant and sleek, with a touch of warmth and earthiness. Which brings us to our next question: When will Kate Middleton wear it?
