At This Year’s Oscars Ceremony, Study the Shoes

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Time for the biggest showbiz event of the year. While many will watch the 96th Academy Awards to see whether wins best picture or ’s Lily Gladstone becomes the first Native American to win best actress in the history of the Oscars, others will tune in just to admire, and judge, the red-carpet looks.

I’ll be among the fashionistas. This is the second year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has given attendees a guide to dressing sustainably, and I’m keen to see who opts for a more eco-friendly look — and how the advice has been interpreted by A-listers.  

The guide, compiled by Samata Pattinson, chief executive officer of cultural-sustainability organization Black Pearl, includes tips such as “go vintage” and “choose sustainable textiles and finishing touches.” It’s voluntary, but marks another step on the decade-long path towards bringing eco-friendly outfits into the mainstream at high-profile, glamorous events, hopefully stimulating conversations about everything from upcycling to innovative materials.

Starting with campaigns such as the Green Carpet Challenge, which saw Livia Firth, founder of fashion consultancy Eco-Age, step out at the Golden Globes in an upcycled vintage wedding dress alongside then-husband Colin Firth in 2010, awards season has become a place for celebrities and designers to flex their sustainability credentials.

“The red carpet is powerful because people are being asked what they’re wearing,” Pattinson told me. She also recently published a 141-page sustainable-style guide for us mere mortals. Such moments are fleeting – and, it has to be said, the effort is somewhat tokenistic – but they‘ve been credited with adding glamor to a category that could once have been summed up with the word “hemp.” For those who doubt the power of a red carpet outfit, remember that Jennifer Lopez’s Versace gown at the 2000 Grammy Awards led to the birth of Google Images.

Red-carpet fashion doesn’t end up in landfill — items will be preserved in archives or returned to the design house to be lent out again. The main impacts on the environment at fashion’s high-end come from supply chains. Recent years have seen stars donning archival looks, gowns made of  so-called deadstock fabric (the leftovers of the fashion industry) or even pieces made from recycled plastic. But there’s something missing from the conversation: Gowns and suits grab the headlines, but accessories and shoes are just as important to the sustainability story.

Kering SA, the fashion conglomerate encompassing brands including Gucci, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, publishes a laudable amount of public data on its environmental impact, which it measures and converts to a monetary value. By business unit, shoes and leather goods cost the planet more than couture. 

That’s due to the greenhouse-gas emissions and land use stemming from animal farming for leather, as well as the mining and processing of metal. It’s likely to be the case across luxury brands because leather is ubiquitous in accessories and footwear, and hard to replace.

At the moment, the main alternatives for everyone from shoemaker Dr Martens Plc, which has had a vegan range alongside its core leather offerings since 2011, to Stella McCartney, who has never used animal leather in her designs, are plastics. A plethora of plant-based leathers exist — you can pick from cacti, pineapples, mushrooms, mangoes and more — but they make up a tiny fraction of the market, even at the high end.  Some, such as Piñatex — the pineapple leather — are still comprised of about 20% plastic. Aside from alternative materials, the most sustainable accessories for an environmentally conscious Hollywood star would be pre-owned shoes and handbags.

It’d be easy to dismiss what happens on the red carpet as inconsequential to the fashion industry’s green evolution. Watching the rise of hyper-fast, disposal fashion currently being flown around the world by the likes of Shein Group Ltd. and Temu, owned by PDD Holdings Inc., it’s tempting to agree.

But since Emma Watson wore a Calvin Klein outfit made of recycled plastic bottles to the Met Gala in 2016, the use of recycled synthetics in textiles has exploded. That means we’ll probably see sustainably-made heels at the Oscars before we see them on the mass market. So when we see celebrities posing in their green looks on Sunday, I hope they haven’t neglected to pick matching shoes.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lara Williams is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change.

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