It’s been a good week for the relationship between fashion and the environment. First, John Galliano announced he will no longer use fur in his collections for Maison Margiela and now, Sophie Hulme has revealed a new project that specifically addresses waste in the business.
Called ‘The Project’, Hulme’s new venture focuses on the importance of responsible design — in particular, pre-consumer waste for its first collection. The designer looked to her archive of leftover leathers from previous collections to create an entirely new collection of eight pieces. According to Vogue UK, handling leather in this way significantly reduces the energy used versus when working with raw materials.
Speaking to the site, Hulme explained, “Our whole design ethos is built on longevity, crafting pieces for life, rather than for a season, but we wanted to work out how we could push this philosophy further as a brand. We called it ‘The Project’ to give this sense that it is ongoing, that it can evolve, a way for us to teach ourselves.”
As for why she focused on pre-consumer waste to begin, she explained, “Pre-consumer waste felt like a good place to start for us, as we archive our leathers each season, so we have this bank of amazing dormant pieces, all in our palette, to work with… There’s something really nice about working within the parameters of our archive. A design limitation forces you to think in a very creative way. It’s been a great learning curve.”
See some of the pieces below…
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This isn’t the brand’s first foray into sustainability — it switched in 2016 to using only vegetable tanned leather to craft the brand’s fash pack-favourite pieces.
The first edition of The Project collection is available to purchase online at Sophiehulme.com.
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