Healing a Messy Separation

The American designers trying to bring their fashion closer to the planet

“Topographically the country is magnificent – and terrifying. Why terrifying? Because nowhere else in the world is the divorce between man and nature so complete.” The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller’s 1945 memoir, written on his return to his country of birth (after a decade as an expat in Paris) was “a loaded gun to the head of America”. However, the severance was not as complete as he believed – the split has become ever more cavernous, and the 21st century has made the divorce the messiest imaginable. The human whir of America loves to consume. Its appetite for the new is feverish. There is a fever for dresses, for shoes, for bags. Fashion, the vehicle for the fevers, does not care about nature: it cares about unnatural beauty and it cares about money. But there are American fashion designers and archives that are nudging humanity back into sharing a room with nature.

Conner Ives is an expat. Born and raised in Bedford, New York, he moved to London to attend Central Saint Martins, and never left the city. But he hasn’t deserted his homeland completely, he drenches his collections in Americana. He has described his brand as “silly, sustainable, and sexy” – “things of quality have no fear of time” is printed on the hang tags. “I like the interplay of elevating items that we may think of as mundane and frumpy into objects that are glamorous, desirable, transformed. The transformation itself becomes the design process,” Ives tells me. “In AW23, we took codes that we have become known for and started to meld them together. A bias dress, cut in vintage T-shirts that have been spliced together. Boxer shorts cut in vintage scarves. For me, it’s all about investigating the interplay of dress codes, and how a modern woman might want these codes to mix with each other.”

The synchronicity between the churning, ever-creating fashion machine and the bludgeoning of our planet is inescapable. And Ives sees this clearly. “It was an existential burden that weighed on me; this industry that was so exciting and fun when I was starting out was also the cause of so much irresponsible practice and waste.” He continues: “Sustainability is a word that gets thrown around in our
industry the same way that we throw around quiet luxury, or elevated basics. It virtually means nothing to us now, so I’m weary to even speak on it, because what does it mean?” But Ives balances the hankering for beautiful garments whilst aiming to preserve the planet in a smart, cheeky way (his SS24 collection is titled ‘Late Capitalism’). Ives calls sustainable fashion production “the Wild West… incentives or means by which to wholly investigate sustainability claims. In opposition to this, we implement a transparent production process.” Standout pieces from previous collections include exquisite dresses made from vintage piano covers – the silk and tassels reveal and conceal the wearer’s body – all is voluptuous, slinky, desire oozes. “Most fashion nowadays is just noise. That’s why I like to lean into what makes us unique in other ways, the idea that these are clothes that have been loved, have lived lives, and are now living another life.”

Whilst Ives makes use of deadstock and vintage materials to create his collections, an archive such as New York-based ARARA, run by Beatriz Maués, repositions, rather than remakes, already used clothing. “An archive exists to highlight what is worth keeping – what pieces are made from a place of consideration, quality and timelessness? To me, that is ever more important in times where the vast majority of what is being produced by the fashion industry is harmful and, too often, pointless. Technology has become an excuse to produce and explore with materials that will not decompose and the pace of the fashion calendar fuels overproduction, which only results in waste.” Maués tells me about a new strategy in her native Brazil – a no-refund policy, meaning that after purchase “you can exchange but you cannot return… I find that wonderful, because it makes you think about what you’re buying, which we desperately need to do!”

We live in a time of stone-grey in/visibility, of trying to stand out whilst blending in. Fashion is more paranoid than ever, copying others in order to be individual – it’s currently a very un-risky business. As Maués observes: “Fashion is currently elitism’s best friend,” but shopping from an archive attempts to detach the elitism from fashion, which, in theory, can remove the prevalence of copycat mentality stoked by those fires of elitism. Buying from an archive maintains that true style is about finding the beauty in what others might see as ugly. “It has been my opinion for a while that style is the universal language. When you find yourself in a foreign place and you do not speak its native language, your style will speak for you… it is utterly important to know who you are. Sure, it’s not something that comes effortlessly, but it surely is worth the effort.”

If America has divorced itself from nature, New York brand Collina Strada is explicitly trying to heal that separation. “I am infinitely inspired by nature,” head designer Hillary Taymour tells me. “The colours and beauty this planet has to offer cannot be matched to clothing. I always try to match the colour of a sunset, or a moment in the desert, and I am always humbled because nature will always do it better. It’s like taking a picture of the moon.” But, as with their SS24 collection, titled ‘Soft is Hard’, there is nothing woo-woo about Taymour’s approach: “If you have a credit card or money in your wallet you are all playing the game of capitalism… I have chosen, if I am playing, to make sure we are being as low impact with the brand as possible every step of the way.”

It all starts small and stays small for Taymour, the designing process beginning in a simple place: “How I want to style things or pieces I feel I am lacking in my wardrobe.” It is in this sensibility that the brand remains as sustainable as possible. Taymour “localises production as much as possible, even if that means higher costs. We use as much deadstock as we can throughout all the seasons: Rose Sylk, regenerated satin, recycled denim, etc. I am able to get creative while making, just as if I was not trying to be sustainable.” Taymour continues: “My approach to Collina is to not have massive growth and end up being the problem with production. We use all of our production waste and all of our scraps we turn into jewellery bags. One dress in the next collection was made from leftover fabric from a Met Gala dress that never made it to the carpet. We support two families of manufacturers in the garment district. If you stay small and support the people you work with, we can create a world where people can do what they love.”

Photography by JENNA WESTRA

Styling by JULIE VELUT

Hairstyling by KABUTO OKUZAWA

Makeup by AYAKA NIHEI