'Plastic is not cool' – is fashion finally cleaning up its act?

Recycled ... (from left) M&S mac; Stella McCartney/Adidas Parley Ultra Boost X trainers; shirt from H&M 

In April, at a Net-a-Porter event where the online retailer’s trends for this autumn were presented, one of the most popular accessories was not a leather handbag by Gucci or a leopard-print, high-vamp shoe, but the black Net-a-Porter.com-branded “keep” cups that the coffee was served in. At least one fashion editor was witnessed shouldering her way over to the bar muttering: “I just need one of those cups!”

Fashion fans are followers and consumers. If something’s in, hip, hot or cool they will want it and they will buy it. And if it’s not, they won’t. So when Lucy Yeomans, editor-in-chief of Net-a-Porter’s glossy publication, Porter magazine, says – as she did over the phone this week – “Plastic is not cool” then plastic should be afraid. Very afraid.

In the lead up to World Oceans Day on Friday, Yeomans will be at the United Nations in New York with Parley for the Ocean, an organisation tackling the global plastic crisis, to discuss how plastic pollution is destroying the environment. The current issue of Porter is dedicated to this cause (while still also dedicated to selling luxury fashion and accessories), done in collaboration with Parley, and guest-edited by its ambassador, the model Anja Rubik.

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