LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 02: Victoria Beckham attends the British Vogue and Tiffany & Co. Fashion and Film Party at Annabel’s on February 2, 2020 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)
This week, a special package from Justin Bieber arrived on Victoria Beckham’s doorstep. Inside, was a pair of lilac clogs from the recent collaboration between Drew House (Bieber’s fashion brand) and Crocs. “Will I be wearing lilac Crocs?” the fashion designer asked her 28.9 million followers while unveiling the gift. 57 percent said no. Beckham agreed: “Well that was close! I think I’d rather die, but thank you anyway, Justin Bieber.”
While we’re on the side of the 43 percent of people who said yes, we can’t say we’re surprised by Beckham’s harsh response. In 2008, she famously told GMTV that she “can’t concentrate in flats,” and avoids the gym because she can’t bear to wear sneakers. (When she threw the first pitch at a Dodgers game in 2007, her sneakers had a wedge heel.) While the designer has since embraced flats, judging by this response, she’s not changing her mind about rubber clogs anytime soon. That’s too bad.
While Posh, like Naomi Campbell, may not be a fan of Crocs, high fashion has welcomed the shoes with open arms in recent years. In 2017, the brand teamed up with Christopher Kane, who sent his iteration of the controversial style down the runway at the brand’s spring runway show. Spring ‘18 saw additional Croc appearances, with pairs showing up again at Christopher Kane and then at Balenciaga. More recently, Questlove arrived at the 2021 Oscars wearing a pair of gold Crocs, which he paired with a navy blue suit, making a case for wearing the style on the red carpet.
If you ask us, Beckham should try them on before she judges Bieber’s preferred choice of footwear. They might not be the most attractive shoes by conventional standards, but, as anyone who has managed to get a pair from the brand’s sold-out collaborations with House of Drew and Bad Bunny would tell her, they are the ultimate comfort shoe.
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On Wednesday, President Joe Biden made his first address to a joint session of Congress, starting with, “Madame Vice President and Madame Speaker.” There to witness the historic event was Dr. Jill Biden, who of course, dressed for the occasion in a custom-made, floral dress by New York designer Gabriela Hearst. According to the brand, the navy dress featured embroidered flowers from every U.S. state and territory.
Following the session, which was held on the eve of President Biden’s 100th day in office, Hearst posted photos of Dr. Biden on her Instagram. In the caption, she explained that the dress was originally a sample, used to perfect the fit of the one Dr. Biden wore on the evening of Inauguration Day. (For the actual Inauguration ceremony, she wore a blue, Swarovski crystal-covered dress and coat by Markarian.) Rather than allow the darker version of the dress to go to waste, the First Lady requested to salvage it for another occasion. “Double repurposed,” wrote Hearst. “New is not always better.”
Her white Inauguration night dress featured a silk-organza neck and sleeves that were similarly covered in embroidered flowers from every U.S. state and territory. At the time, the designer posted on Instagram, explaining the meaning behind the floral arrangement: “The message of Unity is the main inspiration for the creation of the ensemble.” Inside her coat, a quote from Benjamin Franklin was stitched by hand that read: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also wore memorable looks. For the occasion, Vice President Harris wore a Prabal Gurung suit in a petal pink color, with an ivory-colored silk camisole underneath. Opting for her signature look, she wore a pearl necklace with the ensemble — this time selecting a collar-like style made of yellow gold. Speaker Pelosi followed Biden’s lead, wearing a floral blue blazer with a matching face mask and trousers.
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Maybe you’ve been plotting your spring style debut since deep winter. Or maybe, like us, you’ve been waiting for a sartorial lightning bolt to strike before building out your SS21 aesthetic.
For those still seeking inspiration, H&M‘s latest launch provides a welcome jolt with its minimalist mood and sustainable construction, which, together, make it all too easy to imagine swaggering about in eggshell-colored co-ords. And with fabrics like organic linen, recycled cotton, and Agraloop™ BioFibre™, an innovative new material derived from agricultural waste, we’ll be walking even taller in our roomy ecru separates. (FYI, 65% of the materials the brand uses in its clothing are now organic, recycled, or made from other sustainably sourced materials.)
Ahead, see our top picks from the ultra-crisp collection, now available online and in stores.
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Imagine that at the beginning of every week, you have a new wardrobe of clothes custom-made for what you’re doing and where you’re going, fit you perfectly, and match your tastes, too. No — you’re not a celebrity. You’re just in possession of a 3D printer, a not-so-distant reality that experts say has the potential to transform the entire fashion industry to not only be more nimble, personalized, and adaptive — but more sustainable, too.
The idea is simple: Using a lump of raw materials, you print out your new looks on-demand. When you’re sick of them, you melt them down to create a new batch of clothes. This futuristic process helps you stay fresh, style-wise, and also keeps waste to a minimum. As NYC’s Fashion Institute of Technology Muhammed Shahadat sees it, 3D presents an innovative solution to fashion’s overproduction problem.
“Throw-away culture is deeply rooted in the fashion industry. If a new spring collection comes out, then what happens to the old collection?” said Shahadat. One printer, according to Shahadat, can be the single source of all our shopping and recycling. “The normal fashion industry doesn’t do that.”
On top of reducing material waste, 3D printing can drastically decrease the number of animals killed for materials like leather. (Shahadat cites that 59 million animals were slaughtered in 2018 in the U.S. alone according to the food and agricultural department of the U.N.) According to the FIT professor, it can also alleviate the textile industry’s harmful impact on local farmland and wildlife and the people in the surrounding community. Then there’s the vast amount of water it can preserve: According to WorldBank, “[it takes] 3,781 liters of water to make a pair of jeans, from the production of the cotton to the delivery of the final product to the store.”
The benefits are clear. But, how do we switch to a 3D-printed fashion society?
We’re not quite there yet. Today, 3D printers are available for at-home hobbyists, but cost thousands of dollars and require advanced computer know-how. Not to mention, they use plastic to print which can be extremely harmful, particularly to sea life and ocean environments.
But the technology is advancing at a rapid pace, which encourages experts who believe that there’s immense potential for 3D printing that doesn’t exist for traditional manufacturing. Central to the optimism is the idea that, unlike cutting and sewing, 3D printing doesn’t generate waste. Using filaments — melted material ranging from plastic to recycled wood — to slowly build a product from nothing to something, 3D printing could one day utilize recycled materials that you theoretically shred and melt at home (imagine a compost bin but for your closet instead of your garden).
“It would be nice to think we could hit a few buttons and produce mass amounts of clothing for the world, especially for those in need. To set up a pop-up maker factory or run a 3D fabric printer out of a truck using recycled filaments to make clothes would be no different than the idea of printing homes on Mars using locally sourced sand,” Shahadat said, explaining how, in an ideal universe, material sourcing would be abundant and immediate. “However, to reach a mass scale, 3D printers need to become a fixture in people’s homes.” When that time comes, instead of buying clothes from stores, we may be downloading digital files from retailers’ apps to then print out garments at home.
If 3D printers one day become democratized, as ink and paper printers did in the early 2000s, then sustainable clothing will become the norm. Arming consumers with the potential to close the loop themselves is powerful; what used to be summer shorts one day can transform into fall pants the next, all with flawless customization. Key to this is accessibility, and experts say this transformation must begin at the household level.
One of the more encouraging aspects of 3D’s potential to influence the widespread implementation of sustainability within fashion is that its most attractive qualities, to many consumers, have nothing to do with sustainability at all. “How many times have you been to the mall and those Jordans or H&M dresses are sold out in your size?” said Shahadat, pointing out that 3D printing has the potential to render exclusivity a moot point. “The issues consumers face when shopping in a store often lead to them settling for something they didn’t want. [With 3D printing,] that would no longer be a problem.”
Instead of buying clothes from stores, we may be downloading digital files from retailers’ apps to then print out garments at home.
The need is there, as is the vision. When will the technology come? Shahadat said that when 3D printed clothes first hit fashion runways in the 2010s, the materials were nylon-based and, thus, weak. In some cases, clothes would break if a model even sat down. Today, formulas have already improved to be more durable and comfortable, too.
One brand well on its way is Spain-based ZER Collection that makes 3D-printed pullovers, casual bottoms, and formal dresses. Minimal and crisp, it’s spec-ops-gone-chic. What started as a university dissertation project for Núria Costa and Ane Castro has now morphed into an award-winning, new-age grassroots fashion house.
“I believe every designer at some point in their careers asks themselves what they want to contribute to society. We were not sure if the fashion world was for us,” said Costa and Castro in an email to Refinery29. “We needed something else, something different, and that pushed us towards this path instead of the more traditional one.”
Since launching, the brand has won the Global Change Award by the H&M Foundation and were finalists in Who’s on Next by Vogue Spain. Now, they’re breaking into commercial streetwear, a line they’re calling ZER Era.
“The project is aimed at tackling one of the biggest environmental issues in the fashion industry: the unnecessary production of tons and tons of textiles,” said Castro and Costa. “Using new manufacturing methods, we avoid the loss of resources that are being wasted away in the current industry.” One of these methods makes it possible for ZER shoppers to send in old pieces for ZER to melt into filaments in order to produce new designs. Additionally, Costa and Castro said they use almost exclusively biodegradable components.
“At first we believed that this was a pipe dream, but [after] speaking with different providers, we slowly started believing that something could be done,” the founders said. “That is the same thing that will happen with the 3D printers. It is a technique being introduced in different areas, and getting very competitive projects. It is time that fashion has a place, too.”
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