London: Fashion models with dresses made of stinging nettles harvested on the Prince Charles estate in the southwest of England went to the catwalk in one of the most unusual offers of this year when London Fashion came to an end on Tuesday.
The quirky environmentally friendly clothing stemmed from an unexpected collaboration between the heir of the British throne, which is passionate about ecology, and the sustainable fashion pioneers Vin + Omi.
The designer Duo met the Prince of Wales last year and the conversation quickly turned to horticulture and his place in their fashion -oriented research and development.
“We looked at Nettles, Cow Parsley and Miersikwortel,” Vin said, the British half of the couple, AFP prior to their show.
“We discussed it with Prince Charles and he said,” I have many nettles in Highgrove, why don’t you get them? “,” He added, referring to the private home of the Royal in the Gloucestershire countryside.
And so the unlikely union between two self described “very punk” stylists and the upper echelons of the royal family of Great Britain.
“It’s a very strange marriage,” Vin admitted.
For Omi, from Singapore, the green ethos of Prince Charles was “spiritual”.
“You would not think that someone like the future king of England would (think) about it,” he said and noticed that “the right conversations about (the) environment” clearly fascinate him.
– ‘Hery Time -Consuming’ – –
The fruits of this shared interest were unveiled on Tuesday evening at the Savoy Hotel in Central London.
Under the creations that touch the catwalk: an elegant beige jacket, which looks like wool but in fact made of several thousand nettle plants, which would not look misplaced on the woman Camilla of Prince Charles.
The plants were collected and released from leaves by a team of students from Oxford Brookes University.
VIN + Omi has developed a technique to restore the fibers of every nettle stalk, which are then bleached with environmentally friendly natural products.
“Nettles are a very archaic way to make clothing,” Vin said, and noted that the process remains “difficult” and “very time -consuming”.
They were historically the source of substances for “the landless”, he added.
The duo has continued to work with the main gardener at Highgrove and investigates which other elements of the organic gardens – including discarded items such as bags or flower pots – can be creatively recycled.
They have already recovered wood from the site and converted it into jewelry to adorn the models.
Other creations of the couple from outside Highgrove were a shirt woven from recycled paint tubes and clothing made from recycled plastic collected from rivers and oceans.
The V&A, London’s Museum of Art and Design, is planning to acquire part of the clothing to enrich its permanent collection of sustainable fashion.
– ‘Hippies’ –
Vin + Omi’s eco-conscious designs seem to be tailored to the rising public alarm in climate change. However, that was not always the case.
“When we graduated 20 years ago, everyone called us hippies,” Omi recalled. “We predicted that sustainable fashion would be a big thing.”
The 43-year-old is encouraged by increasing activism around environmental problems, so that the extinction-rebellion printing group is praised-to-the-weekly focused on the fashion week and the wider industry-as “brilliant”.
The duo is working on around 40 projects worldwide, from Great Britain to China to the United States.
In New York they transform plastic from the Hudson River into locally sold T-shirts.
Elsewhere they investigate the potential of different natural materials, such as learning to make chestnuts or mushrooms.
But Omi is skeptical about the general efforts of the industry, which he considers to take the superficial environmental actions to make people feel better as the largely so-called “greenwashing”.
