Vivienne Westwood links with Canopy to raise awareness on Earth Day

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Apr 23, 2020

Designer brand Vivienne Westwood has released a video featuring spoken word artist Kai Isaiah Jamal to celebrate a new partnership with Canopy, a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting forests, species and the climate.

Announced on Earth Day, the partnership aims to draw attention to the direct link between the clothes we wear and the destruction of the world’s ancient and endangered forests.

The video was created by artist Aidan Zamiri and features a poem, dystopian collages and a moody soundscape. Logging and pulping trees to make viscose are juxtaposed with the dream of a world that values forests too much to tear them down, capturing a need to preserve forests globally.

“We are long-time campaigners about the impacts of climate change and use our voice to mobilise people around its effects on them and the planet. Fashion has a disproportionate impact on the environment and to remedy that we have for some time been changing the way we make clothes to reflect the need for the industry to change the way it operates,” said Christopher DiPietro, global brand director at Vivienne Westwood.

In addition to the video, the luxury brand has made a series of sustainability commitments, such as ensuring that it stops all sourcing of fabrics made of dissolving pulp from ancient and endangered forests areas by 2021.

It will also aim to stop sourcing from companies that are logging forests illegally, from tree plantations established after 1994 through the conversion or simplification of natural forests; or from areas being logged in contravention of indigenous peoples’ rights.

“Climate disruption, loss of species and the pandemic are global crises that all illustrate how consequential our every action is. Vivienne and her team know that brilliance coupled with imagination and pragmatic action will transform how our economy interacts with vital ecosystems. Jamal’s poem and video provide us with the dream of a future we all want to be part of,” commented Nicole Rycroft, Canopy founder and executive director.

According to the organisation, trees from ancient and endangered forests are increasingly being used in the manufacture of dissolving pulp to produce fabrics such as rayon/viscose, modal and lyocell.

Canopy is working with several fashion companies to raise awareness of this issue, including Levi Strauss & Co, Marks & Spencer, Eileen Fisher, Stella McCartney and H&M.