H&M has long championed the sustainable fashion movement. But the high street giant’s latest Conscious Exclusive collection, launched this weekend, highlights the incredible technological innovation behind what will become the future of the fashion industry.
Crafted from fabrics and processes that transform food crop waste into a natural fibre, the AW20 Conscious Exclusive collection is created from fabrics made from sustainably-sourced wood pulp, or use a unique garment-to-garment process. Resulting in a selection of incredibly advanced materials including a jacquard taffeta fashioned into two show-stopping cocktail dresses, the new fabrics have been transformed into a stunning capsule of opulent evening wear, voluminous tops, ruffled dresses and sharp tailoring in a fresh pairing of colour and print, all of which feel perfectly relevant for this year’s more considered party season.
“For A/W20, we really wanted to be trailblazers – pushing the limits of creativity and sustainable fashion – by focusing on waste,” revealed Ann-Sofie Johansson, creative advisor at H&M. “As a result, the pieces in this collection are crafted from truly amazing materials produced from waste. Working with this kind of transformation and being able to speak to our customers through beauty, we hope that waste can be part of the future of sustainable fashion.”
Accessories include bold necklaces, earrings, and shoe clips made from recycled metals, and a pair of sunglasses crafted from Made of Air®, a material partly made from waste biomass. Shoes created using VEGEA™, a vegan leather partly made from grape by-products, can be worn as both a mule and boot with a removable sock. Meanwhile, prints throughout the collection are inspired by floral wallpaper that has peeled off over time or tapestries from days gone by, while flower appliqués and moth motifs allude to both life and decay.
Encouraging consumers to “wear the waste” in an endeavour to change fashion, the collection campaign features Zinnia Kumar, an Australian-born, London-based ecologist, activist, and model.
“I’m thrilled to be a part of this Conscious Exclusive campaign, especially as H&M is paving the way for sustainable collections to become the industry norm,” says Zinnia. “As consumers, we will no longer need to differentiate between fashionability and sustainability, as they will become one and the same. As an ecologist working in fashion, this fills me with hope.”
Shop the collection now at HM.com
