The Impossible Dream
My impossible dream is for everyone to be sustainable by choice, not by guilt tripping people into thinking that it's the best thing to do, so they do it for five minutes and then stop, but by educating them on the facts and allowing them to reconfigure their lifestyle to be more responsible socially and environmentally.
Debut collection designed and constructed by Isabelle Saxton from June 2019 to June 2020, as seen in Vogue, WWD, Sustainable Fashion Week US, and more.
Photography by, and art direction co-developed with, Melissa Nyquist to emphasise the polarity between the natural and synthetic world.
The mash-up aesthetic comes from finding workwear in a scrap store and noticing the irony of them being the most attention-grabbing things on the street, yet when a passerby sees construction workers, they look the other way, paying them no attention. This same irony is happening with sustainability.
I used deliberately provocative language to elicit an emotional response from the viewer, to stimulate action, and to convey the urgency of the fight for the welfare of the planet.
Designer's Note, March 2022.
The world of sustainability is a field that welcomes new members, constant learning, and innovation. As a sustainability master's degree student, I have discovered the unsustainability of some materials that I used to believe were completely sustainable: second-hand synthetics and sheep's wool. The former cannot be recycled easily, and the latter can emit vast quantities of methane. (I sourced wool from an organic farm, which is better than a conventional farm, but a regenerative farm would be nature's best choice for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.)
The nuances in the field of sustainability are what captivate and inspire me to problem-solve. I hope that my learning experience can make the world of sustainability seem more accessible and inspire you to begin or continue your sustainability journey.
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