Ethical Fashion

Green Dreamer – Ilaria Venturini Fendi – W

Green Dreamer

 

With her new line of bags, fashion scion Ilaria Venturini Fendi is spinning cast-off materials into chic carryalls-and changing lives in Africa in the process. Marion Hume meets the Fendi family’s first eco-warrior.

By Marion Hume

W | July 2011

 

“ I never understood why recycling had to be cheap or amateur,” says Ilaria Venturini Fendi. “But then, I’m a Fendi!” Indeed, the bubbly blonde Italian is the youngest daughter or Anna, one of the five Fendi sisters who re-imagined the possibilities of fur and leather transforming the family atelier into a worldwide brand. Her sister Silvia Venturini Fendi is the head accessories designer at the label, which is now under the LVMH luxury umbrella. And her niece Delfina Delettrez Fendi has made a name for herself with a goth-meets-glam jewellery line. Yet it is Ilaria, right now powering her jeep down a dirt track on her organic farm outside of Rome, who is proving to be the true style revolutionary of the famous fashion clan.

Her Carmina Cmpus line-which includes totes, purses, computer bags, and iPad covers- is grabbing attention for using old stuff in new ways. The Bags, made my communities of disadvantaged people, are about as green as it gets. Many of them are created out of reclaimed and recycled material including leftover fabrics, old blankets, and even discarded soda-bottle caps. But let’s nip in the bud any thought of “eco-ugly” fashion- this is Made in Africa-meets- Made in Italy, which translates into exuberant style fused with flawless finishing. On offer at such rarefied global stores as Milan’s 10 Corso Como and London’s Dover Street Market, these are not your average do-gooder totes. The bag slung at Venturini Fendi’s feet as she drives for example, blends pieces of khaki canvas reclaimed from a safari tent (the ones used for five-star tourism become unusable after several seasons) with artisanal patchwork made from off-cuts of the kanga cloths that comprise the traditional East African garment.

Growing up in the Fendi atelier, Venturini Fendi made dresses for her dolls out of scraps. “I hate waste,” she says as she brakes to avoid a flock of sheep. “Always surrounded with precious materials, we were taught to be careful.” Farming is also in the bloodline, from her father, Giulio Venturini, who dies when she was 10. While his day job was in the construction industry his passion was nature. He taught his daughter how to ride, and she still remembers their country outings together. As for her farm, Venturini Fendi brought I Casali del Pino nearly a decade ago, with the aim of turning her back on the fashion business for being “so passive about what really mattered, like the environment.” Today milk from the aforementioned sheep is used to produce four kinds of cheese, including tangy pecorino. There are also ducks, pigs and hens as well as two donkeys so ludicrously tame they keep trying to nuzzle up and say hello.

It was her bees, however, that lured Venturini Fendi into producing high-end accessories in Africa. In 2007 the University of Rome asked her to share her apiarist insights with some visiting beekeepers from Cameroon. They, in turn, thanked her by presenting her with a traditional Cameroonian hat, which looks somewhat like a crazy crocheted hedgehog. Once a Fendi, always a Fendi: Rather than put the gift on her head, she immediately re-imagined it upside down and trimmed in leather, transformed into a funky little bag.

Just before meeting the beekeepers, Venturini Fendi has begun to miss the world she thought she’d left for good. She had reconfigured her greenhouse into a design studio, where she has been joined by a clutch of former colleagues from the days when she’s worked at Fendissime, in the Ninties, a youthful secondary line that was shuttered after LVMH purchased Fendi. The team’s goal: to figure out how discarded materials could be refashioned at the highest possible level. The results, plus those created by other eco-minded designers, would soon be sold at Re(f)use, a green emporium that Venturini Fendi set up in a family owned building in the heart of Rome.

Putting the hat-turned-bag into production involved a group trip to Dschang, the Cameroonian town from which the bobby berets originate. (Both men and women wear them,” she says. “They look incredible.”) After forging a collaboration if with local artisans, however, she was left with questions: How was she to know if she was paying workers too little or- just as damaging in a fragile economy-too much? For answers, Venturini Fendi turned to Simone Ciprani, on officer at the Ethical Fashion Programme of the International Trade Centre, which is the joint body of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. (Full disclosure: the author consults for the program.) The mission of the Ethical Fashion Programme is to harness fashion as a vehicle out of poverty, connecting the world’s most marginalized people to plugged-in designers in Paris, New York, Milan and elsewhere. Production of the hat-bags continues at a small scale in Cameroon, while artisans in Kenya produce a wider range of styles. Carmina Campus employs 69 Kenyans full time, many from the notorious Nairobi slums of Korogocho and Kibera. “It is about real people with faces and names and stories, who live in a different way now,” says Cipriani, who can’t help but be impressed by Venturini Fendi. “I was astonished to see her in the dump sites of the slums, talking with the people for a long time. It is not an easy place.”

Venturini Fendi’s latest project is a three-way collaboration between Carmina Campus, the ITC, and 10 Corso Como owner Carla Sozzani. This time the bags, which just made their debut at Sozzani’s Milan boutique, are lined and trimmed with leftovers from 10 Corso Como’s signature collections- but they are finished in Africa. “What I didn’t like when I was in fashion before was that what you created was gone in a season,” Venturini Fendi says. “Now I want ot make lovely things that last. When I hear that other designers want to do the same, I am happy.” Indeed Vivienne Westwood, who is also passionate about the environment, is collaborating with the ITC in Kenya-both women believe fashion’s aspirational aura allows the industry to punch above its weight when it comes to getting notices. In this lies a route to real change, and while moving fashion away from a trend-driven model is quite a lofty aim, forging a new path, has after all, been in the Fendi DNA for several generations.

 

“I want fashion to be the promoter of change,” says Venturini Fendi as she exits her jeep for a walk along the river that flows though her farm, “to the point that there will no longer be any need to make a distinction between fashion and ethical fashion.” 

Travel

Estate of the Art-Collezione Gori

Estate of the Art – Collezione Gori

by Marion Hume


In the gardens of a Tuscan manor house, an inspiring collection by modern masters. TUSCANY There is, of course, an abundance of celebrated art in Tuscany, but the experience of looking at it amidst jostling crowds is rarely tranquil. And what if your taste is for something more modern?

Collezione Gori is a rare treat: a private collection of art beautifully displayed in some 24 hectares of parkland surrounding a grand Tuscan manor called Celle. The estate displays some 70 works designed precisely for their surroundings by artists including Anselm Kiefer, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Richard Serra. The collection was started by Giuliano Gori, who acquired the old mansion in the Tuscan hills between Florence and Pistoia, in the 1970s and set about inviting artists to come to Tuscany, absorb the atmosphere, choose where they would like to see a creation displayed and then be funded to make that happen.

Entry to Collezione Gori is free, but the days of turning up at the gates on a bicycle and be let in are long gone. Today, you must write to the gallery well in advance- although the good news, as the collection prepares to celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2012, is that there will be more summer open days than in the recent years. Current artworks include a house of mirrors by Daniel Buren, a bamboo pathway to infinity and a couple of giant eggs.

Now structural renovations are complete, it’s also possible to enjoy the seventeenth century chapel, historic fountains and stonework in the garden next to the house. As well as modern installations – keep eyes peeled for the  Marta Pan and two Dani Karavan works- other treats include a number of 19th century whimsies such as an aviary, a tea house and an Egyptian monument. The landscaping, inspired by the English stately homes, includes two small lakes with crags and a waterfall. Amid all this is the unmissable My Sky Hole by Bukichi Inoue. Set in the olive grove, it sets visitors on a meditative journey through an outdoor corridor, down an underground tunnel and back up a spiral staircase into the light of a large glass cube.

For details on how to apply for a visit go to goricoll.it and allow at least six weeks notice. 

The Fashion Business

The Secrets of Zara’s Success – The Daily Telegraph

The Secrets of Zara’s Success

Classy, well-tailored, cheap-and ethical. Can the world’s favorite clothing store do no wrong?

by Marion Hume 

The Daily Telegraph | June 22nd 20011

How do we love thee, Zara? Let us count the ways. Some numbers make a good place to start: a company founded on just €30 is now worth an estimated €32 Billion. Last week its parent company, Inditex, of which Zara represents over 60 percent, declared an 11 percent rise for the first quarter to €2.96 billion.

Translated, Zara was coining it while other retailers spent January to March moaning about recession and rising production costs. Next quarter’s financials look set to be more spectacular, if the response to the £49.95 blue dress worn by the Dutchess of Cambridge after her wedding is anything to go by.

So why do those as diverse as Kate and the business brains at Harvard which recently commissioned a study of the brand love Zara? Here’s a top 10.

1 The designs work in normal life.

Walk into a Zara. See anything you like? Thought so. A bug reason for this is that there is no Zara “style” – its appeal is broad. Yet you won’t find everyone else in the office in the same dress, and here lies the first clue to its supremacy. Although Zara may run  up 30,000 copies of an item, supply is spread thinly over its 5,157 stores in 81 countries, plus its online shop. Scarcity plus realistic design equals kerching! at the cash till. 

2 Fast Response to city-specific trends

A new white jacket arrived at the Manhattan flagship store. But customers passed, telling sales staff that New Yorkers prefer cream. A system is in place for retail staff to transmit such information straight to the design team at Arteixo, a tiny town in north-west Spain. Within a fortnight, a much bigger consignment of cream jackets had been dispatched to become a sell-out on 42nd street.

3 It’s mass with class

That Zara has its headquarters in Spain is significant. While influences are global, Spanish customers have always liked curvy cutting to flatter a proud bearing. The result is that Zara tailoring seems higher quality than other in this price range (blazers start at around £49.99), and styles are on-trend as opposed to too trendy.

4 A signifier of stylish city

A Zara store opening signifies a city has arrived sartorially. “Thank God, we won’t be a third-world fashion country any more,” said a Sydney- residing fan at the first Australian opening in April. Such was the delight down under that crowd control barriers had to be maintained for weeks. Those in Cape Town, Taipei and Lima may be equally excited.

5 Intrigue…

Just as consumers are driven by scarcity, so the press is intrigued  by the greatest fashion story never told. Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, 75, the son of a railwayman who is now rated as the ninth richest man in the world, has never given an interview- and probably never will. Next month, he hands over to his equally taciturn second-in-command, Pablo Isla.

6 A Brilliant brand name 

Those launching brands seek short, sharp names that work in every language. Yet this four-letter word was an accident. From 1963, Ortega’s company, which manufactured nightwear, was called Confecciones GOA (Amancio Ortega Gaona’s initials backwards). In 1975, he started to sell direct to public through a little shop in La Coruña and decided to call it Zorba. But the owner of a nearby bar of the same name protested. A new name had to come from the letter moulds already cast. Ironically, Spain is the only country in which Zara is pronounced not “Zah-rah” but “Tha-ra”.

7 The Green Frock

Inditex ups its eco rating by using wind turbines and solar power in its headquarters. Recaptured energy is even redirected into the steamers that press every garment. Items are despatched in battered boxes, which are reused and then recycled. Bicycles are provided for workers to whizz around inside vast warehouses.  Green, yes- but is also makes good business sense because it saves money.

8 Seductive, sustainable store design 

Store design is really working when you are too busy shopping to notice. Zara stores are built to seem airy and light-even on a busy Saturday-while the current in-store look, closely inspired by Prada, is for squadrons of mannequins gathered together to show off the season’s many looks. To decide on how its global stores should appear, Inditex tests entire “streetscapes” of prototypes for new-look Zara stores within a vast hanger at Arteixo. The radical Rome store, the prototype for all new builds, is on target to receive a platinum standard in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a seal of sustainable architecture that is one of the most demanding of its kind.

9 A hooray from Harvard

The ultimate business plaudit is a study by Harvard business school. What do the money men love? That Zara turns the fashion system, which usually starts with the whim of a designer, on its head, by putting the customer at the heart of a unique business model. But there is a downside: for this model to thrive, Zara’s “designers” are strongly “inspired” by the creations of others, who are neither acknowledged nor paid. Not for nothing had Daniel Piette, fashion director of Louis Vuitton, described Zara as “the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world”.

10 Ethics Appeal 

Inditex is intelligent in its generosity to charity. Following the Haiti earthquake, Inditex sent €2 million of emergency reconstruction relief as cash, not clothes. You might think that those who have lost everything need clothes, but as a result of other fashion giants sending these, local clothing industries have never recovered, leading to a greater dependency on aid, rather than trade.

In Spain, some stores’ employment practices make it possible for those with mental and physical disabilities to join the workforce.

But let’s hold back on awarding Zara that tenth love point for now; a somewhat murky supply chain makes all fast-fashion tough to love. Potentially vulnerable garment workers manning sewing machines in countries such as Bangladesh, Turkmenistan and Pakistan. In Zara’s favor, though, much of its production is in factories it owns in Spain, meaning it can guard against the scary labour practices that haunt the high street.

However, you can help by letting them know how much that matters and even that you are prepared to pay a little more and wait a little longer to ensure fashion is fairer.

Remember how they listen to customers asking for cream jackets? Use that system to ask for clean jackets at the cash till or via zara.com. You could also suggest that Zara provides “swing tags” that detail your garments journey to you.

Why would the world’s biggest fashion force care what you think? Because Inditex has conquered by putting the customer at the care of the story. Do speak up.

 

Ethical Fashion

This Flower’s Power

This Flower’s Power

Departures | June 2011

Loro Piana sourced a rare cloth once used only by Southeast Asian monks. Its origins, however, have a far-from-blessed past.

By Marion Hume

Inle Lake, in southeast Burma, is a beautiful spot. Some 14 miles long and seven miles wide (it is hard to tell where the reeds end and the land begins), the lake is dotted with local fisherman balancing on the bows of their wooden skiffs. They live in thatched houses on stilts above the lake and grow vegetables on floating gardens tethered to the water bed with strips of bamboo. Through a camera, or just sitting back in a longboat and gazing at the scene, you would think this is paradise. It isn’t.

Burma (whose military regime arbitrarily renamed it Myanmar in 1989) is among the world’s poorest countries. Despite the release last fall of democracy fighter and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was placed under house arrest for opposing the dictatorship, the country is still very much under the grip of an autocracy. Sanctions designed to deny the generals and their cronies foreign currency mean that almost nothing from Burma can be imported into the United States. And although European sanctions do not cover textiles, considerable pressure has been applied on mass-market manufacturers not to source from a country where cheap clothes come at high price when it comes to human rights.

So what on earth is Pier Luigi Loro Piana, of the luxury label known for peerlessly fine garments in cashmere, vicuna and silk, doing here? Why is this charming Italian, who is hardly unfamiliar with private jets and yachts, sitting barefoot on the floor of a Burmese thatched-roof house? He is watching a woman remove sappy filaments from the stems of the country’s wild lotus flowers that grow everywhere on the lake. He moves on to watch another woman spinning yarn on a contraption that would not look out of place in a museum. There are looms here – of the type rarely seen in the West since the 18th century – and women sit at them, their hands sending shuttles flying to and fro.

These are among the world’s last weavers of lotus flower fabric, a textile prized for its fineness, lightness and extraordinary ability to keep its wearer cool in even the warmest of climates. When Mr. Loro Piana, the Marco Polo of fashion, learned that lotus-flower cloth, which was once woven only for the ceremonial robes of monks, was still being made, he headed to the source. The company offered to buy all production, which is only about 55 yards a month, and paid the community of artisans in advance, then pledged more orders season after season-and in so doing has helped ensure that a unique tradition survives and that the craftsmen are now paid fairly. As a Loro Piana spokesperson explains: “The fibre is great and exclusive, yes, but people are being helped. The idea behind the project was not just to give fish, as they saying goes, but teach them how to fish.”

In a select clutch of Loro Piana stores-none in the United States, where imports are still prohibited- the cloth, which has a nubby, linen-like texture of raw silk, is now available. It is sold loose to be later tailored into sumptuous jackets (from $5,600); its fineness makes it less suitable for trousers. Pier Luigi is hoping the US government will grant lotus-flower cloth an exemption from sanctions. With Aung San Suu Kyi calling for careful, ethical engagement with Burma once again, reviving the magical cloth of monks, which has the desirable secular property of cooling one down on a warm day, might be a appropriate way to begin.

Journalist, Ethical Consultant and Screenwriter