Kourtney Kardashian is trying on sustainable fashion. Many designers are ahead of the trend

The assembly of September fashion weeks, from New York to Paris, has ended and now it's officially wardrobe season. 

Eyes and cameras were on the models, celebs and influencers who strutted the runways while wearing fashion’s latest, but minds were also on the industry's sustainability models as climate change becomes more prevalent.

In Paris, Balmain teamed up with Evian and created high fashion from recycled plastic water bottles; Stella McCartney showcased an 87% sustainable line, telling The Associated Press it was her "most sustainable" collection yet. 

"I hope nothing was sacrificed; you shouldn’t see any of the sustainability — it should still look luxurious,” she said.

Many high fashion brands are in a full sprint to make changes to their environmental footprint but for fast fashion, the journey is more of a tip toe. 

Early in the month, fast fashion retailer Boohoo embarked on its sustainability efforts by recruiting celebrity help from Kourtney Kardashian. 

The eldest Kardashian sister faced swift backlash after announcing the new venture ahead of its Sept. 13 New York Fashion Week launch. The Poosh founder addressed the criticism, releasing a statement about the changes she hopes to make as Boohoo's newly minted sustainability ambassador. 

"I invite any experts who have ideas, suggestions … to reach out," Kardashian wrote on Instagram Tuesday. "I want to help and from my experience so far working with the team I work with at Boohoo, they do too."

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While the eldest Kardashian sister is making an all-call to help Boohoo follow through on their promise for sustainability, many brands and designers (both established and up-and-coming) are taking action. 

"When you are looking broadly at how you can become more sustainable …  you just have to make one choice at a time," sustainable fashion brand Able's CEO Barrett Ward says. "You can't try to pretend that you are doing everything in the world." 

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Kate Spade makes ‘90s ‘heirloom’ relevant, environmentally-friendly

Industry pressure to create innovative fashion collections every season can be counter-productive toward the goal of limiting waste. Fashion houses including Fendi and Kate Spade are reintroducing old handbag collections and making them new again. 

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Kate Spade's New York Fashion Week presentation on Sept. 9 included a re-release of Kate Spade’s 1993 Sam bag, one of the first handbags the label released, an ode to its 30th anniversary.

With the '90s being on trend, the old-but-new again bag is given further 2022 relevance with sustainable upgrades. 

"There's (a) 100% recycled polyester shell, including the lining," Kate Spade's senior vice president and head of design for leather goods and accessories Jennifer Lyu says. She adds that the material changes Kate Spade has made will "encourage all sizes of companies to participate in this great effort."

"The fact that such a big company is doing this is important because we're all fighting the supplier to be more innovative," Lyu says. 

Tom Mora, senior vice president and head of design for Kate Spade's ready-to-wear and lifestyle categories, says the sustainability of Kate Spade bags also lives in the longevity of the design — perhaps the Sam bag in the bottom of your closet can be on trend again.  

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"People talk about how they've had Kate Spade bags for 20 years (or) 30 years," Mora says. "Some people actually give them to their daughters when they're old enough and that's a beautiful story because it becomes like an heirloom."

Rising handbag label Vavvoune takes second-gen luxury approach

While legacy handbag labels are resurfacing their earlier designs for sustainability, budding brands are finding a way to create a "new tier of luxury" by using high fashion's leftovers.

Valerie Blaise's Vavvoune creates handbags and leather goods from the deadstock pieces luxury brands use in their creations. Blaise says she got the idea when she was handcrafting her bags as early as 2015 with expensive leather bought in New York and noticed how much waste was leftover.

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"Since I am a small designer and I don't need to buy like super large quantities of leathers, it (made) sense for me to reuse these deadstock leathers and recycle them back into my design," Blaise says of the materials that have gone unused after manufacturing a product. 

The leather Blaise sources come from leftover Italian leathers that are used by luxury brands including Gucci and Jil Sander. Her second-generation luxury bags were on display at the Black in Fashion Council’s showroom during New York Fashion Week, introducing "a new tier of luxury."

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In the world of trending toward sustainability, "vegan leather" is sometimes tossed around as an alternative to leather, but Blaise asserts that "leather is sustainable." 

"It's a byproduct of the meat industry. And if we choose not to wear leather, guess what? There's going to be tons of tons of skins left over," she says. "Even if we stopped eating meat here in the U.S., how about the rest of the world?" 

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Blaise notes that some vegan leathers are made from plants but adds that it "frustrates" her that some are also made from plastic.

When it comes to fashion's march toward sustainability Blaise says the industry needs to be more "thoughtful" and "innovative."

"The only way to really be sustainable is for everybody to walk around naked, which is not gonna happen," she says. "I also think the consumer is responsible, too." 

For Able, sustainability is about fair wages

High-end brands often claim sustainable products need higher price tags. Leaders behind Nashville-based brand Able say there's some truth to this, but a brand's practices should be closely examined, especially on the supply-chain end. 

On average, garment workers make 45% less than a livable wage, according to a 2022 study from WageIndicator Foundation, a labor transparency organization. Fashion Revolution, a global initiative to correct fashion's sustainability, ranked fast-fashion retailer Fashion Nova and luxury fashion labels Tom Ford and Max Mara as low scorers in its 2022 report when it came to disclosing their human rights and environmental operations policies. 

Able offers obvious sustainable options with its clothing and handbag repair programs and a size-swap collection. But the brand also emphasizes the importance of paying clothing makers a livable wage for sustainability and the "slow fashion movement."

Ward says fairly paying workers often drives the price of clothing up, but Able's Jen Milam warns buyers of some high-end luxury brands' high prices without workers seeing much of the money flow.  

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"It's worth questioning" and asking "thoughtful questions," says Milam, vice president of marketing and sales for the brand. "How are the people in (the) supply chain affected by my purchase?"

'Project Runway' alum's sustainable fashion is DIY

Wanting to make your wardrobe more sustainable, doesn't always require paying premium, especially for designers like Gunnar Deatherage, who creates garments from thrift store finds. 

One of Deatherage's designs, a runway-ready gown made out of bed sheets he thrifted, was on display during New York Fashion Week for YouTube's upcycling event. 

The "Project Runway" (Season 10 and Allstars Season 4) alum credits his passion for DIY clothing to having creative grandparents and "a very humble upbringing" and encourages others to try luxury looks at home by offering his design patterns on the subscription membership platform Patreon. 

"I think financially a lot of people are on the struggling end of things more than they have been in the past," Deatherage says.

He notes that as luxury labels including Schiaparelli and Mugler become highly coveted closet items, people are getting hungry for finding cost-effective and environmentally friendly dupes. 

"(If) I can buy something at a thrift store and flip it into something that other people will be excited about and proud to wear. I think there's a lot of power in that," he says. 

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