As the fashion world changes with seasonless collections, major designers skipping the big fashion weeks and Men’s Fashion Week appearing to be getting overtaken by Pitti Uomo this month, we must not forget the stand out designers that have shown at London Fashion Week earlier this month. And one of my favourite collections was certainly the Spring Summer collection by British Designer Bethany Williams.
For those who may not be familiar with the designer, she is a British Designer who is really shaping the new sustainable fashion world. She believes that social and environmental issues go hand in hand and through exploring the connection between these issues we may find innovative design solutions to sustainability. It is such a refreshing view, and it is fantastic that she has the platform at London Fashion Week to promote this.
The collection is about taking book waste and turning it into fashion. The textured grid-style design looked just like the pages of a book in many of the pieces and I love the creativity of her pieces. Even the tongue in cheek ‘library service’ on one pair of overalls is just brilliant!
Every one of their garments is 100% sustainable and made in the UK, even down to the buttons which are handcrafted in the Lake District from their collaborators planting trees. It is quite a feat to be 100% sustainable, and so many other designers should take note, that you can be both fashionable and sustainable. They believe fashions’ reflection upon the world can create positive change, and be sharing their designs hopefully word of her work can spread a little further.
In this collection, the knitwear has been created in collaboration with Wool and Gang’s Heal the Wool yarn (which comes from 100% recycled Peruvian wool fibre and 30% of the yarn price is donated to Friends of the Earth) and taking recycled wool from Kent for the hand embroidery. All the sampling is hand knitted by Bethany’s mother on the Isle of Man where she grew up. Raw materials are sourced from Chris Carney Collections, a recycling and sorting facility where it goes on to be washed, unravelled before the hand knitting process. Other denim elements within the collection are sourced alongside this and unpicked before being reconstituted and hand printed into new garments.
One of the reasons why her “No Address Needed to Join” collection stood out to me is that she worked in collaboration with The Quaker Mobile Library and British publishing house Hachette UK. This season celebrates waste materials from the publishing industry and the innovative Mobile Library Charity. Simply hands down amazing.
You can see more of Bethany’s designs on her website, and of course on Facebook and Instagram! What do you think of the collection?
All images kindly provided for use.
