How and how not to bring climate activism into fashion week

In this era of ecological concern, Christian Dior’s show at Paris Fashion Week aimed to bring nature back to the fore. “When I see flowers and gardens now, I don’t see just joy, or the beauty of nature. I see all the concerns about our future, and the need to take action,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s creative director, of her motivations: “I was asking myself, how can we celebrate nature in a meaningful way?” Despite these intentions, the end result is… uncomfortable, let’s say.

Models with hair styled in a presumed tribute to Greta Thunberg strut in a pop-up forest, flaunting four-digit florals under the gaze of intercontinental attendees. The irony is overwhelming. This is an event designed to sell high fashion to the world’s elite, necessitating long-haul travel from its participators and profoundly influencing fast-fashion. It is planet-wrecking consumerism at its most flamboyant, itself costumed in a distracting tulle. To describe it as “an ode to the plant world” borders on mockery.

It is planet-wrecking consumerism at its most flamboyant

The show takes pride in the 162 trees that make up the set. Temporarily in grow-bags, they will be gifted to various sustainability projects across Paris. This, of course, is commendable. But when confronted with fashion week’s huge carbon footprint, what with designers, models, photographers, journalists all flocking into France by air, planting a few trees seems negligible. The Dior show therefore comes across as artificial and insincere. It could easily be misinterpreted as another ill-judged attempt to benefit from current political trends in pursuit of relevance. 

You can’t use something complicit in a problem to address the problem. This achieves nothing but hypocrisy, alerting the firefighter while fanning the flames. And, there is the unfortunate concurrence of Paris fashion week and Oxfam’s second-hand September campaign, placing the two in a jarring juxtaposition: indulgence by the elite, versus restraint of the everyman. 

It is not enough to simply pay homage to nature with floral prints and a woody backdrop

Really though, the Dior show was nothing more than a misjudgment. Even if the execution appears feeble in the context of the industry, the right intentions were there—it is fashion’s broader issue with sustainability that problematises Chiuri’s attempted tribute to nature. What the event reiterates is the revolution that still needs to occur in the fashion industry, for it to reconcile with the planet.

In expressing concern for nature, Stella McCartney took a different approach. Her line featured recycled fabrics and plastics while maintaining the grandeur you would expect from high fashion. This demonstrates a commitment to ecological preservation which betrays Chiuri’s appreciation of nature as superficial. It is not enough to simply pay homage to nature with floral prints and a woody backdrop — the industry must follow McCartney’s lead and rethink its habits in a way that treats nature not as design inspiration or a handy political stratagem, but for what it is: the fragile foundation of our existence.