Thursday 30 May 2019

MOUNTAINS OF CLOTHES

Fashion on the red carpet is always exciting in Cannes, this year even better, for me Ralph and Russo stole the show dressing the star of Indian cinema Sonam Kapoor. Glorious in white and she wore a trouser suit with a train. So glamorous. I met her Mother a year ago in Austria and then for tea two days ago and she proudly showed me her daughter.
The fashion world employs billions of people and has a turnover of trillions worldwide and that is why I am a Fashion Editor. I love it and have been enthusiastic about colours, textures, the fun, the necessity of wearing something striking since I was a little girl, so this is unlikely to change. However what about the growing mountain of old clothes?  I think about the unsold and the unworn, it is how to make clothes desirable and not waste them.  The bus stops are full of people wearing dreary unimaginative clothes and as I walked past Gucci yesterday it looked like an upmarket charity shop, large woollen pullovers over long skirts covered with colourful skirts and worn with groovy overlarge sunglasses and a colourful wig or turban. It is not a look I would like to wear, but you can create it from the back of your wardrobe and especially if you snitch it from your grandmother's precious cupboards instead of looking like you are a Communist.
I saw the collection by Kim Hersov, her delicate sandals and brand Alvaro were shown at Matches in Mount Street next door to the jewellery store of Jessica McCormack's in an elegant house in Mayfair. I went to a breakfast pop up shop in Marylebone High Street for the NSPCC,  decorated in Summer Flowers with clothes from Harrods and other shops unworn for sale. Fashion houses are popping up all over the place showing that in
 this uncertain political climate we women still love and spend money on fashion.
Heaven help us over the growing heaps of unworn clothes, and although the fashion world employs millions of people it must be bad for the planet? In the meantime, I will get inspiration from the innovative and will sell clothes I don't wear, it feels so hot.
The Swan Auction House, late September

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