Environmental Destruction as Vivienne's Enemy

Last year, when I had dinner with her second son, Joseph Corré (my former flatmate in London), he spoke at length about his interest in environmental issues. This made the seemingly unlikely connection between Vivienne and environmentalism easily understandable.

Joseph's father, Malcolm McLaren (though this father and son are famously estranged), once said that fashion requires an enemy to thrive. It seems Vivienne and her circle (including her younger husband, Andreas) have found that enemy in environmental destruction. Still, I hope Vivienne's ethical stance will bring back some of her former bite.

“She is a hard working visionary”

During a lecture at St. Martin's, Malcolm recounted how he and Vivienne stormed the Paris collections with their "hobo fashion." As mentioned, he believed fashion needed an enemy, and at that time, their adversary was the media and the fashion establishment. Malcolm, who thought he'd flipped off the journalists with his show, was stunned the following week when the French "Vogue" cover featured their very own hobo collection.

A student asked, "So, what do you think of Margiela's anti-fashion stance?"
Smoking a Gitane in the non-smoking classroom, Malcolm replied, "He doesn't understand what he's doing."

"And Kawakubo?"
"She is a hard working visionary," Malcolm said.

It's an amusing exchange, but am I the only one who feels Malcolm has become trapped in a philosophical labyrinth, unable to create anything new?

Caught in a fashion double bind, he was reportedly exploring the possibility of producing a film related to Led Zeppelin at the time, but it never materialized. It's fun to imagine what it might have been like, though.

Perhaps he lacked the wisdom to gracefully navigate between opposing concepts like anti-fashion and fashion. The same could be said for the relationship between the environment and fashion.

Our Agile Stance and Wisdom

The cotton used in botanika's products is 100% organic, yet surprisingly, we use chemical dyes. This is because natural dyes often require mordants with high metal content. Unlike azo dyes, the reactive dyes we use have no adverse effects on human health or the environment. By employing these methods, we can achieve menswear-like colors such as gray, creating a wardrobe that isn't solely defined by a gentle, organic aesthetic.

This is one example of our agile stance and wisdom.

If a simplistic notion that chemical dyes are inherently harmful becomes widespread, we risk creating a world of only undyed fabrics due to eco-extremism. While I am vegetarian, I don't believe everyone should be, nor could the planet sustain it.

This might seem like a leap, but apparently, excessive use of bidets can lead to illness by washing away beneficial bacteria.

Masanobu Fukuoka's seed balls, developed through his natural farming method, are designed to sow a multitude of seeds simultaneously. This is because a diverse range of seeds leads to a stronger forest.

While I wish for the eradication of environmental destruction, I believe the homogenization of values leads to the extinction of culture.
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