I have always been an environmentalist and with three children, I am naturally concerned about their future. Relating to fashion, I think it really started in 1990 when I commissioned some research on the impact of the clothing and textiles business on the environment. I was horrified at what I found. The first issue was that there are 10 thousand deaths every year due to conventional cotton agriculture, mostly from pesticide poisoning. It was a real shock, because we designers thought we weren’t doing any actual damage using natural crops when actually we were having this colossal impact. I did a talk in New York telling people involved in the clothing industry about this. I think that was the start of the whole organic cotton trend. It took many directions including the whole eco-look, which became ugly and unaffordable. People don’t like clothes that look like charity. Read more
