Fashion Reimagined (12A)
Directed by Becky Hutner 

“Fashion is one of the most destructive industries on our planet,” asserts British fashion designer Amy Powney whose journey to create a sustainable collection is captured in this eye-opening debut documentary by Becky Hutner. 

The statistics are truly disturbing. Over 100 billion items of clothing are made a year and three out of five end up in landfill within one year of purchase. It is claimed that fashion is the fourth largest contributor to climate change in Europe and the third largest consumer of water. 

Powney is an outsider, who lived off the grid in rural Lancashire as a child with her activist parents, and she is trying to make a difference in an industry which was startled by the success of her No Frills collection which turned Mother of Pearl into one of the first sustainable luxury brands.

Hutner’s fascinating film pulls back the curtain on how our clothes are made, the environmental impact of that process and the effect on people and on animals. It follows the trailblazing Powney, the creative director of Mother of Pearl, on her three-year quest to launch No Frills as a line that is sustainable from field to finished garment. It is made possible with the help of the £100,000 prize money she wins scooping the coveted Vogue Designer Fashion Fund award in 2017. 

Since she cannot source the merino wool she needs in Britain, Powney heads with her colleague Chloe Marks from London to South America, meeting the sheep, the cotton pickers and the spinners, and ensuring they are all sustainable.

Powney breaks down the complex supply chain needed to make a garment which travels to at least five countries before reaching the customer because no one place can achieve the whole production. 

Clearly, money talks. Most of us cannot afford luxury brand clothes, but hopefully the high street will follow suit, as it were.  If nothing else Hutner’s thought-provoking documentary could make people rethink their views on clothes, buy more thoughtfully and buy less.

Out in cinemas today