London Fashion Week is arguably one of the busiest times for fashion boutiques in the United Kingdom’s fashion mecca. But designer Anya Hindmarch has decided to make a bold statement on plastic pollution by closing all of her London fashion shops for three days and fill them up with more than 90,000 plastic bottles.
The move has drawn much-needed attention to the world’s plastic problem while launching Hindmarch’s latest handbag which has been fashioned from recycled plastic.
Following on from Hindmarch’s successful ‘I’m not a Plastic Bag’ collaboration in 2007, Anya Hindmarch has produced ‘I am a Plastic Bag’ – a bag made from an innovative fabric which is created from recycled plastic bottles and coated with recycled plastic windshields.
“Since our 2007 I’m NOT a Plastic Bag project, I have not been able to get these words out of my head,” says Hindmarch.
“The problem of single-use plastic and landfill is far from over, however the mission has shifted from simply being about the ‘awareness’ of using less plastic, to be more about the ‘circularity’ of the use of materials in the supply chain,” says the designer.
“That is why I have spent the last 2 years developing I AM A Plastic Bag.”
The project took two years of research and testing to bring the I am a Plastic Bag collection to life. As well as using recycled plastic bottles as the primary material in the bags, Hindmarch has collaborated with EcoAct – a global climate change consultancy – to measure the emissions associated with the I Am A Plastic Bag collection and to make the project carbon-neutral.
To mark the pre-launch of Anya Hindmarch’s I am a Plastic Bag, a limited number of bags are available on Net-A-Porter now to coincide with London Fashion Week.
At the same time, instead of doing an event, Anya Hindmarch closed all London stores for three days and filled them with used plastic bottles to make a statement about the amount of plastic that is thrown away. It took over 90,000 used plastic bottles to fill the stores, which have been collected by the Anya Hindmarch team from their local communities.
The complete I am a Plastic Bag collection will launch in four colours in mid-April in London boutiques and online at Matches Fashion. Exclusive colours will then be rolled out globally including at David Jones in Australia.
