The Next Green Talents 2019: Meet the avant-garde in the use of sustainable materials and procedures

 

YOOX x Vogue Italia present The Next Green Talents – a project to raise awareness around sustainable fashion.

During Milan Fashion Week, Vogue Italia and YOOX presented THE NEXT GREEN TALENTS, the second edition of the talent showcase dedicated to sustainability. The project is part of an initiative created by Franca Sozzani and Federico Marchetti in 2011 to support emerging talents.

THE NEXT GREEN TALENTS aims to raise awareness around sustainable fashion by promoting a responsible approach towards fashion production and fashion consumption.

“Emerging talents are exceptional for more than their creativity and courage, they represent both the spirit of our time and the questions that will define our tomorrow. Today, the necessity to provide customers with innovative, sustainable consumption models is one of the most significant challenges that we face as a society. The seven talents that we selected this year with Sara Sozzani Maino and the Vogue Italia team put sustainability at the heart of their creativity, continuing our years of dedication to promoting a greener industry, long before “green” was in fashion,” said Federico Marchetti, Chairman and CEO of YOOX NET-A-PORTER GROUP.

To Upcycle is to create something new and of quality by reusing and transforming something that already exists – the challenge set forth by Vogue Italia and YOOX for the second edition of THE NEXT GREEN TALENTS.

The seven fashion brands have each created a unique garment with a handmade touch, thus giving new life to unused jacket, shirt, trouser and sweater prototypes from YOOX’s private label, 8 by YOOX. During the opening cocktail on February 20 and in the following days, the brands also presented their Fall/Winter 2019-20 collections to the international guests.

A selection of the collections will be available on YOOXYGEN in more than a hundred countries starting from September 2019, confirming the e-platform’s support for international fashion talents.

The seven brands selected this year by Vogue Talents come from all over the world, an aspect which has distinguished THE NEXT TALENTS since their launch: Bethany Williams (UK), Cora Bellotto (Italy) and Renata Buzzo (Brazil) with their eponymous brands; Elliot Atkinson, Suzanne Elvi, Veronika Kant, William Lundgren of Bite Studios (UK); Ksenia and Anton Schnaider of Ksenia Schnaider (Ukraine); Gabriela Luna and Corina del Pinal of Luna Del Pinal (Guatemala); and Mozhdeh
Matin of Mozh Mozh (Peru).

Well before the theme of inclusiveness, diversity and respect for the environment became fashionable, the Vogue Talents team sifted the world to select and present an authentically plural, open representation of contemporary creativity. This is also demonstrated by the group of brands selected this year, which represent the avant-garde in the use of sustainable materials and procedures, as also demonstrated by their Upcycling projects,” said Emanuele Farneti, Editor in Chief of Vogue Italia.

“In these 10 years, Vogue Talents has always been at the forefront in supporting talent. Now we must commit ourselves to educating the talents of the future to follow a more sustainable path. The seven brands selected this year represent the infinite ways of producing with an eye on sustainability, the environment, and ethics,” said Sara Sozzani Maino, Head of Vogue Talents.

With sustainability as the focus of this event, the halls of Palazzo Morando on Via Sant’Andrea 6 were enlivened with a video installation, featuring seven clips that offer a glimpse into the minds and emotions of the designers, who have put sustainability at the core of their creations.

Vogue Talents continues to choose the path of ethical and environmental sustainability by using the mannequins from the Bonaveri Tribe line to enhance the creations of the seven designers on show. The mannequins are made of B Plast, a bio polymer derived from sugar cane and painted with B Paint, a 100% vegetable-based paint.