Fashion Reimagined
A reimagining which makes this documentary a unique take on the fashion world.
To be aware of how different this film is from all other documentaries centred on the world of fashion, you only need to know that quite early on it contains these words by the designer who is its central figure: “Fashion is one of the most destructive industries on our planet.” That this can be acknowledged so readily is due to the fact that the speaker is Amy Powney, a key espouser of sustainable clothing. She was the daughter of environmental activists and in her own right has made central to her outlook such matters as green issues, carbon emissions, animal welfare, safety measures in factories, underpaid workers and child labour. Fashion Reimagined is her story.
Powney and her business partner Chloe Marks, both of them adept speakers as this film reveals, have become central in successfully advocating the importance of clothes made from sustainable fibres and insisting that cotton should be used in the form of natural fibres and not synthetic ones. Their label is Mother of Pearl founded in 2002 by Maia Norman but now run by them. It emulates the approach earlier adopted by Katharine Hamnett (who is also seen in this documentary) and also taken up by People Tree. Powney, much seen here, also provides voice-over comments and early on refers to her upbringing and to the influence on her of Naomi Klein’s book No Logo which, published in 1999, questioned the economic practices and damaging effects of corporatism.
We do glimpse Powney’s husband Nick Prendiville but this is largely the story of her career. The film starts in April 2017 with the British Fashion Council awards at London’s Café Royal and then follows through to describe in detail the elaborate endeavours to create a sustainable line, ‘No Frills’, in time to launch it in that same venue in September 2018. The problems involved in doing that are illustrated in two ways. On the one hand, Becky Hutner’s film is dedicated to explaining the various ways in which the fashion world, largely intent since 1980 on encouraging people to buy more and to wear what they buy for a shorter time, is so damaging to the environment. Statistics are quoted here alongside explanations of the supply chains involved (we learn, for example, that standard procedure to procure cotton for a shirt is likely to entail eight distinct steps involving six participating countries). The other aim is to show how difficult Powney and Marks found it to set up a shorter chain which would meet their requirements in eliminating all the factors that were abhorrent to them. Just how problematic it was is confirmed by the fact that their endeavours involved the need to travel to Austria, Uruguay, Peru, Turkey and France. It does, however, mean that the film has an interesting variety of locations!
Given its insights into environmental issues in this context, Fashion Reimagined is a documentary which could be found deeply meaningful even to viewers not especially interested in fashion for its own sake. Hutner has done a good job with it even if a running time of 100 minutes seems rather overlong. This reservation is all the stronger because so much of the film is bound up with the need to be ready for the launch date that one fully expects that that event will round it off. Instead it moves on from September 2018 to cover additional bits and pieces in 2019 and 2020 and this rather shapeless final section feels somewhat drawn out. Nevertheless, this is a worthwhile film and, while it could be seen as a plug for Mother of Pearl, its environmental concerns give it value well beyond that.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Amy Powney, Chloe Marks, Pedro Otegui, Katharine Hamnett, Nick Prendiville, Sara Ferres, Carlos Chadicov, Hernan Leyua, Andrés Chaves, Uraz Batur, Martina Santner.
Dir Becky Hutner, Pro Becky Hunter, Lindsay Lowe and Andrea van Beuren, Ph Daniel Götz, Ed Sam Rogers and Becky Hutner, Music Phil France.
Duck Productions/Cedar Creek Productions/Sustainable Films/BFI/Met Film Production-Met Film Distribution.
100 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 3 March 2023. Cert. 12A.
