Stepping out for a Dune photocall as part of the London Film Festival, actor Timothée Chalamet wore a custom sustainable Stella McCartney suit covered in mushrooms.
Just weeks after Stella McCartney’s Paris Fashion Week runway show where she debuted not only mushroom-inspired prints but also a limited-edition Frayme bag made from mushroom leather, Timothée Chalamet donned a custom seersucker McCartney suit covered in blue mushroom to the Dune event at the London Film Festival.
In an Instagram post, McCartney said the printed suit was made from “zero-deforestation viscose.”
Chalamet is a frequent canvas for McCartney; he stunned in a pink McCartney suit at the Venice Film Festival earlier this year. Last year, he wore a recycled cashmere McCartney sweater that read “SOS,” with an embroidered earth replacing the “O.” Last year, he wore McCartney high-tops and a backpack while traveling to St. Tropez.
The 25-year-old was named the most influential man in fashion in 2019 by Lyst for his unabashed approach to style, most often with a sustainable twist.
Zero-deforestation viscose
According to the Stella McCartney website, viscose, also known as rayon, starts its life as a tree. “Every year, 150 million trees are cut down to create fabric. Some come from sustainably managed forests, like those Stella McCartney uses, though a significant amount of the global viscose supply still originates from ancient and endangered forests. This is unacceptable,” the website reads.
“The deforestation and forest degradation of Mother Earth continues at an alarming rate; 13 million hectares of forest are chopped down annually and this accounts for 12 to 20% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.”
McCartney says that since 2017, the label has only used viscose from sustainably managed and certified forests in Sweden, “ensuring that zero-deforestation occurs and no ancient or endangered forests are destroyed.” It says its primary viscose supply chain is “entirely traceable, transparent, and European.”
In 2017, the label conducted a lifecycle assessment on several materials, including viscose, which helped guide its responsible viscose supply chain and was made available to the industry at large in order to help foster more sustainable fashion design.
The McCartney label currently uses sustainable viscose in about 16 percent of the label’s fabrics including its knitwear, some leather alternatives, and in its woven fabrics as well as eveningwear.
The label says it’s also working on the “next generation” of sustainable and recycled cellulose fibers. “Instead of coming from trees, they are being made from materials such as used cotton garments and agricultural residues (what is left over after crops have been harvested),” the website reads.
McCartney has also become a vocal proponent of forest conservation.
The label has been supporting the NGO Canopy since 2014; it works to protect ancient and endangered forests. In 2019, it launched the #ThereSheGrows campaign, which raises awareness about the plight of the Leuser Forest in Sumatra, Indonesia. “This is the last place on Earth where elephants, tigers, orangutans, and rhinos live side by side,” according to McCartney, and deforestation brings the forest closer to collapse every day.
“We must protect our forests; – they provide us with clean water and air, give us food, medicine, resources like timber and are a habitat for the majority of the world’s birds and animals. This is why we are committed to sourcing our viscose exclusively from protected places.”
McCartney’s mushrooms
McCartney debuted her mushroom SS/22 collection at Paris Fashion Week earlier this month. She’s using mushrooms literally in the new vegan leather bag, and symbolically to show what’s possible.
“It’s been such a period of transition, and I wanted to project what the future could be like for the house of Stella: a lightness of touch, a slightly more tender approach, still mixing these sporty pieces and the masculine,” said McCartney.
She debuted materials made from mushroom leather earlier this year, in trousers and a bustier made from the Mylo mushroom leather and worn by Paris Jackson.
While the label is only able to produce a small number of the vegan leather mushroom bags to start, McCartney says it’s a notable start. “[I]t’s not killing any animals; it’s not cutting down any trees. It’s the future of fashion if you can get it right, and I think we can,” she explained. “It’s the beginning of something new.”
