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Ronald van der Kemp has his camera switched off for our interview over Zoom. In place of his face is his name, emblazoned across the top half of my screen, which is rather apt. Because right now his name deserves to command our full attention.

The Dutch designer is the man behind RVDK, the world’s first sustainable couture label, through which he is fighting the good fight for change in an industry in desperate need of it, a fight for which new recruits are badly needed.

It’s widely known that the fashion industry is one of the largest polluters of our planet, second only to the oil industry. At the root of it is over consumption — we’re buying things that we simply have no need for, and we’re buying them because they are being made.

It is reported that this year, fossil fuel energy will facilitate another 120 billion new garments and 20 billion new pairs of shoes entering the already swelled global marketplace. At the same time, a report by Bloomberg estimates that the United States alone discards up to 11.3 million tons of textile waste each year, which boils down to a figure of some 2,150 items of clothing each second. It’s an eye-popping statistic, yet many other rich nations aren’t far behind.

This is why sustainability in fashion needs to be so much more than a trend.

“You see some brands do things like a small sustainable capsule and blow it up into something big, or stage a show that is carbon neutral. What does that mean, you plant some trees? The problem is with the amount of clothes being produced,” laments Ronald.

“It’s not that I think we shouldn’t buy clothes, on the contrary. I talk about responsible hedonism. People want to look good, feel good, and have fun. Me too. But let’s do it in a way that makes sense in this world.”

What makes sense to Ronald is a return to a time when a woman would gradually build up the perfect wardrobe, carefully selecting pieces and designers that helped accentuate their personal style. A time when “luxury fashion was still a deeply intimate affair.”

How far removed are we from that time? “In terms of fast fashion, there are people who will buy things just for a moment, something that they will wear that evening and very easily throw away the next day, because some of those clothes are so cheap. But what I find really weird is that I now see the same thing happening at the luxury level.

“I’ve always worked in luxury fashion and right now I see that the demand for newness is so strong. You used to find that women who bought couture were real collectors, they understood what they were buying. But now the audience is a little more nouveau riche, and I think some of them just buy items because of the label.”

Born in Wijchen, Netherlands, in 1964, Ronald spent twenty five years working for luxury brands including Bill Blass and Celine, where Michael Kors was creative director. He’s always loved fashion, but came to question how the system operates.

“Because new collections come around so quicky, you need to be very structured, following the same formula every season to the point that I felt it became a case of simply filling in the blanks each time. There was no time to develop an idea or to be creative, which is not how I like to work. Then I began to wonder where all these clothes go if they’re not sold, and started to hear stories about clothes being burnt. I thought, what’s going on here? This is not the world I want to live in; this is not what I want to contribute to.”

The defining moment that would determine what Ronald did next came during a trip to New York, to where he was sent to check out what competitive brands were selling in their stores. “The last store I entered sold vintage couture. It made me realise that these are the pieces that matter, not the hundreds I saw in the stores throughout that day. It’s not that those other clothes weren’t perfectly made, but there was something missing. I felt that the couture pieces had a soul. The fabrics were beautiful, you could see the little imperfections because they were made by hand, and you were aware of the time spent making them. Those clothes really spoke to me. And I decided then that these were the clothes I wanted to make.”

As a member of The Fédération de la Haute Couture, RVDK shows during Paris Couture Week, staged in January and July. Ronald must make a minimum of twenty five pieces per show, and tasks himself with ensuring that each is made only from high-end unused and leftover materials. “They come from everywhere — from flea markets and offcuts to prints that were made in really small quantities for couture brands in the 70s. Also, a lot of the big labels buy so much fabric and use only a small percentage of it. Before they used to discard the rest, but now they see there is a market for it and look to sell it.

“At the beginning it was difficult for me to find materials, but not now. There are so many leftovers in this world.

“The fact that we work with all these materials that are sometimes in very small quantities, enough to maybe make only one dress, makes it exclusive. We work in this very unique way, so someone can end up with a piece that no one else in the world has. It’s pure exclusivity.”

RDVK was launched in 2014, a time when the idea of sustainable clothing was far from glamorous, and even further from the world of haute couture.

“When we started out there wasn’t anyone doing it like us, because when you saw sustainable clothes at that time they really looked sustainable,” remembers Ronald. “They just didn’t look very attractive. I’m a real fashion person, I love it, and I grew up with a love for the old couturiers like Yves Saint Laurent. That is my culture, my language, so even though my clothes are sustainable I just want people to consider them as clothes first and foremost. It’s just nice that they have the extra layer of our story behind them.

“Sometimes I feel like a little dog up against dinosaurs,” he says, when comparing the size and resources of RVDK to the conglomerate-backed heavyweight labels. “But we still have a voice and I think the people in the know really respect what we do. They see the things that have changed in the industry, partly because of what we do. For example, the word ‘upcycling’ didn’t exist before we started this whole thing and now it’s a very common practice, particularly among the younger generation. We’ve always shown that sustainability can be glamorous and sexy, and I think people understand that we’ve helped change the perception of it. For that, we do get a lot of respect. But, of course we cannot compete with the fashion conglomerates. We have less than 1% of the budget for a show compared to a brand like Valentino, but we still manage to do something interesting. Working with the restrictions we have is what inspires me most.”

Ronald talks passionately of how the industry needs to find new ways of doing things, including how it showcases collections. “A lot of fashion shows aren’t even about the clothes, they’re more about who’s sat on the front row or who’s walking the runway. It’s all about the context, and if that’s the case, then maybe show clothes that you have already shown but in a new, creative way [RVDK has previously done so]. Just think of something else other than making new clothes all the time. We need to reinvent the system, but the trouble is there’s so much money involved.”

During the height of the pandemic in 2020, when all other couture houses wondered what they should do next, RVDK dressed 29 models in couture dresses, each wearing a couture mask that matched their dress [the masks were later auctioned by Christie’s]. The models were confined to their own rooms at Hotel Europe in Amsterdam, where they took to the open windows to wave white flags. The statement was: “If you can surrender to covid, you can surrender to sustainability.”

It garnered global attention, including an article in the Wall Street Journal , and sparked talk inside and outside the industry of the need for change. We’re still waiting for it.

“During the pandemic, I heard the same story over and over again from brands — we’re going to do only two collections a year, or we see the problem now and we’re going to change things,” recalls Ronald. “But once the pandemic ended the whole thing went back to how it was before. They missed the boat. In fact, it’s now worse than it was before, so this is really disappointing to me.

“I think there are efforts, but the problem is growth. If a brand keeps growing it keeps producing more clothes. All the big fashion groups should take responsibility, especially with the huge profits that they make, and support brands like ours, but obviously they don’t because if they link themselves to a brand like ours then they’re admitting that the things they do are wrong. The whole system needs to change.”

LVMH did of course buy Stella McCartney, a label that prides itself on its commitment to sustainable practice, and McCartney has spoken of being an agent for change within the industry.

Can Ronald see RVDK going the same way? “That would be very difficult. We really want to stay true to what we stand for, and if we wanted to scale it up it would be very difficult. If you want big money then you shouldn’t be doing what we are doing. I’m doing it with a purpose. I see myself more as a man who wants to change the world.”

A more level playing field for RVDK is celebrity dressing. “The first person that we dressed was Kate Moss. It’s not something you make money from, but when people wear our clothes they become ambassadors for a good cause, the message gets out there.” Michelle

Obama and Sheikha Moza bint Nasser have also worn RVDK. “When Gigi Hadid wears something, or Kendall Jenner, and young girls see it’s our clothes, then they learn our story. For me, that’s the most important thing.”

Given the prices of its couture pieces, young girls are not RVDK’s target audience, but Ronald hopes that they’re inspired by the idea of ‘wardrobe building’.

“If you know who you are, what you stand for, and if you have a certain personality, you should collect clothes around that personality. You don’t buy things that you’re going to throw away, you start to care for and build a relationship with your clothes. At our shows we always like to have very different personalities, not one type of person, because everyone has their own look, their own personality, and I feel this is very important. If you have a wardrobe that’s reflective of you, you know you’re always going to look good.”

Has the RVDK client changed since the label’s launch? “I think our customers are now aware, or they at least talk about it [sustainability]. Whether they actually do what they say is another thing. But the awareness is definite. Now we also have customers who don’t really know exactly what we do, they just like the clothes, and that’s fine. They’re still ambassadors for our story without knowing it.”

With emerging design talent now more eco-conscious than their predecessors, what advice would Ronald offer someone keen to follow in his footsteps? “I don’t think you should follow in anyone’s footsteps,” he says bluntly. “It’s important that you follow your own path. I always try to motivate people to think like this, because once you fall into the trap, or get swallowed up by one of the big fashion groups, you’ll be forced to work their way. Don’t follow the system; try to find your own way. I feel that’s the only way for the fashion world to change.”

Is he hopeful that change will come? “Very hopeful, because we’ve already shown that change is possible by propelling the idea of upcycling into the industry. I always try to stay positive because there’s no point in only talking about everything that’s wrong, you also have to show what can be done about it, and come up with new ideas. That’s what we’re trying to do each and every day.”

How the opening of the first Upcycling Couture Salon in Paris not only gives new life to barely worn clothes but to the people who repurpose them

The sight of supermodels Naomi Campbell, Shalom Harlow and Irina Shayk shimmying down the catwalk with the head (teeth and all) of an actual ‘big cat’ protruding from their chests — albeit lion and tiger heads fashioned by Schiaparelli from foam and silk faux fur — naturally hogged the headlines during January’s Haute Couture Week in Paris. But it was a much smaller event held later that same week that will hopefully make a more lasting impression on the fashion industry.

The event was scheduled to announce the opening of the first Upcycling Couture Salon, a made-to-order atelier that gives couture clients the opportunity to breathe new life into clothing they have always loved and preserved but no longer wear.

“Someone may wear an haute couture dress only one or two times, after which they’re stuck for an idea of what they can do with it,” says Philippe Guilet, President and Artistic Director of Renaissance, a Paris-based, not-forprofit organisation founded in 2018. “Now they can bring that dress to us and we will deconstruct it, working with them to create a new outfit. We don’t want to follow or set trends. We’re just interested in making clothes that can be worn on a daily basis.”

In addition, Guilet believes such a process will help couture clients answer uncomfortable questions about waste and value, particularly those posed by their own children, a generation that’s overtly aware of the damage caused by the fashion industry as a whole, which discards a reported 92 million tonnes of textiles each year.

The opening of the Upcycling Couture Salon is another important step for Renaissance, whose work is now recognised by the Fédération de la Haute Couture.

Since 2018, it has upcycled luxury garments handed over by both individuals and fashion houses, making use of clothes that would otherwise end up in landfill. Notable examples include the deconstruction of a Sonia Rykiel dress and pair of Yohji Yamamoto cargo pants, subsequently transformed into a contemporary outfit worn by Ashley Park in the second season of Emily in Paris . And a 15-piece collection for Alaïa, made from their stock of unsold garments.

“There is a long road that must be travelled, but the journey is in progress,” says Guilet of fashion’s pathway to meaningful sustainable practice. “We meet with fashion houses on a regular basis, to look at how we can utilise their unsold stock, and have previously produced a sold-out capsule collection in this way. We can be a solution within the industry.”

Guilet’s own pathway to his current position at Renaissance weaves its way through fashion royalty, working as an assistant to Karl Lagerfeld and for Thierry Mugler, Perry Ellis, Donna Karen, and Jean Paul Gautier, where he was research director.

But the story of Renaissance also includes a key chapter on Romania, to where Guilet headed at the turn of the last decade to work as artistic director for the French Embassy.

“In Romania I did what I really like to do — discover talent.”

He discovered it in abundance, most notably in the country’s northern region of Bistrita Nasaud, where centuries-old Romanian handicraft is still practiced, the ornate embroidery skills of its female artisans passed down through generations. To this day, the tools they utilise date to the 16th century, including bone needles, used to embroider sheepskin.

“Romania is often derided, but actually this country is quite the opposite of what people might think,” Guilet, who spent many years in the country, said at the time. To broadcast these ancestral talents to a wider audience, Guilet launched a cultural project called 100%.RO, which birthed a clothing line, Prejudice, to which fifty local artisans contributed. “Philippe has come from afar and appreciated the value of our skills. It is extraordinary that he has showcased our work,” said Virginia Linul, one of the artisans involved. “Nobody has done this for us before,” she told Reuters.

Guilet then returned home to France with a choice: whether to enter another fashion house and continue his impressive career alongside another stellar name, or, in his own words, “to help people.”

Spurred by an article in Le Monde that was critical of the excesses of couture — unfairly, thought Guilet, when there are bigger issues in the industy — Guilet decided to indulge his twin passions for couture and people.

The aim of Renaissance is actually twofold: to upcycle luxury readyto-wear and haute couture clothing and to reintegrate unemployed people into the workforce.

Just as he did in Romania, Guilet has found an outlet for the expression of talents that would otherwise fly under the radar.

Convinced that the suburbs of Paris held untapped potential, Renaissance partnered with organisations like Cercle la Ressourcerie, who specialise in social integration. It helps people who, for whatever reason — no formal qualifications, have suffered an accident, are new to France, or had to care for their children – are unable to access the traditional job market.

Over a 12-month period, these men and women, drawn from diverse backgrounds and myriad countries — Afghanistan to Brazil — are taught haute couture know-how and its time-honoured methods, leading to the presentation of a collection at a final fashion show.

The money Renaissance receives — a mixture of donations and government support — is reinvested in equipment for the workshop. “I see Renaissance as a little house of couture,” enthuses Guilet.

By helping people learn or develop their skills, Guilet also thinks a larger, thriving Renaissance can help the fashion industry tackle another problem it is facing — a shortage of skilled people. “Within the workshops of fashion houses there is a crisis, as they can’t find people with the knowhow do to what is required.”

Guilet tells me of one particular Renaissance graduate who was subsequently taken on by Saint Laurent. “Wonderful news,” he says, his face alight with the joy of a proud father.

“I’m a very optimistic person, and I want Renaissance to grow and grow, so that we can do something good for the planet and for the people who work here.”

Rewarding such optimism is a necessity.

Ever since launching her eponymous label in the early 1990s, Stella McCartney has been a pioneer of alternative materials and ecofriendly practices. It’s serious business

WORDS: LISA ARMSTRONG

For Sir Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday last year, daughter Stella bought him a sophisticated form of DIY prezzie — a set of her organic, vegan skincare range. As if we hadn’t guessed, Sir Paul can be tricky to buy for. “He positively mourned the passing of my first skincare line,” she declared.

That first foray into beauty was 16 years ago and the landscape has changed dramatically since — an evolution for which Stella is entitled to take some credit. The first designer to bring an organic, animal-friendly line of beauty products to market, she had to fight. “No one really knew where to place it,” she says. It sat in wholefood stores — not very glossy — and proved difficult to scale up and export. But if it was short-lived, its legacy is that paraben-free, sulphatefree, vegan and non-toxic skincare is now commonplace. So much so, I wonder whether she’s concerned the market’s already saturated.

“Yeah, there’s a lot out there,” she agrees, sinking gracefully into the low-slung, 1970s, dusky pink Mario Bellini sofa (whom she collaborated with for a sutainable furniture line) on the first floor of her Bond Street store.

There’s nothing that Stella loves more than a project, especially if it involves a house and a garden. “I’ve never bought a house that wasn’t falling apart,” she told American Vogue back in 2010, when they featured her remote Georgian pile in 277 acres of Worcestershire that had been reduced to a series of grungy bedsits when she and her now-husband Alasdhair Willis bought it in 2003. But back to beauty. “To get what I want currently — pure, organic, effective — I have to shop across ranges. Whereas my line is so simple. Just three products”. A cleanser, a serum and a moisturiser, all in refillable packaging. There’s no eye cream because she doesn’t bother with it and the serum does it all really, she says. McCartney doesn’t always use sun cream either.

“The problem is so much of it is terrible for the planet. So then I think, OK, just stay out of the sun. But then it’s like, the sun feels so good, so maybe just for a couple of minutes, just for the Vitamin D. I’ll probably end up a very gnarly 80-year-old. Ideally though, I’d rather not be gnarly”.

That surprises me because I thought she’d say she’d like to end up like US writer Joan Didion. At 51, McCartney still retains that effortless cool, slightly boho-but-tailored style that she helped make synonymous with London in the 1990s, but which in part came from her American mother. Then again, she always looked more groomed than the average London girl. When we meet she’s in denim, a blazer and strappy sandals, her distinct russet mane as vivid as ever. There’s no nail varnish, artful make-up — more than she normally wears, she says, because she’s being photographed. Although she has an identifiable style, it’s never been fixed. Her collections often do a volte face — sporty utility one season, romantic the next. “My problem is I love everything — minimalism, monochrome, colour, glitter...”

Growing up, artifice was on the back burner. The McCartneys split their time between the Sussex farmhouse and Kintyre in Scotland. In 1969, a Life magazine cover (now framed in one of Stella’s loos) fan-fared the case of 'The Missing Beatle', having tracked Paul and Linda down on their remote Scottish farmstead. “I think my childhood in Scotland was where I felt cleanest,” Stella says now. “It was so… natural. We were always naked. My parents didn’t even wear deodorant and yet they never smelled.” A rare aberration in this clean-living paradigm was the foaming Clarins Cleanser that Linda gave her daughter when she was about 13. “It was everything I now know is bad about skincare… but it was the 1980s”. And it set her on a quest for skincare. She might be laid-back, but she diligently tends her skin. Failing to appreciate, as kids do, her mother’s low maintenance approach to beauty, teenage Stella begged Linda to wear make-up. “In fact I did her make up for her. She was into it, but it wasn’t an obvious presence. There’s a McCartney rose. We’d grow loads of them and my mum would have it made into essential oils. There were a lot of essential oils.

“I’d also nag her to wear all the fabulous clothes she wore on tour, and her jewellery. She had such beautiful jewellery, but she never really wore it. And now — look at me.” She thrusts out her arms to display... nothing, apart from a tiny gold evil eye bracelet.

“I found it on the floor of my dad’s house, so if you visited him there and you’re missing an evil eye, I’ve got it.”

Her parents inspired everything she does, but now she also leans into her children, aged 11 to 17, listening to their concerns about the planet and looking for solutions. “Everything I’ve done — kids’ wear, vegan shoes, mushroom leather bags, organic, certified fabrics — has been because I couldn’t find it in quite the way I wanted it. There’s no other line of beauty that’s as clean and luxurious, with all the active ingredients, as this one.”

Nor, she could add, with the distribution. Because this time round, she has the backing of LVMH, the luxury behemoth that also owns Celine, Dior, Fendi. Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Loro Piana, Celine… and Sephora, the global chain of beauty stores.

Selling a minority stake, in 2020, to LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group, was a surprise move. Seventeen months earlier, she’d bought back 50 per cent of her company from the Kering Group, France’s other, slightly smaller luxury behemoth (Balenciaga, Gucci, McQueen…), amid speculation that she’d become frustrated. Like every fashion brand, the pandemic was tough for her business, but even before that, revenue for the year ending in 2019 was around £32 million ($38 million), making her a relative minnow. Small brands don’t always get the attention they need to grow in a conglomerate.

“I loved working with Francois-Henri,” (Pinault, Kering’s chairman and CEO) she says. “But I started to think about all the designers who’d lost their names [after business relationships had turned toxic with business partners] like Jil Sander, and I thought, I’m in a uniquely privileged position of being able to buy back my label, so I should”.

At LVMH she’s not only plugged into the world’s most powerful luxury stable, but has been hired as sustainability advisor to its president, Bernard Arnault. When she was asked, at the time, whether her appointment was a shiny piece of greenwashing, she responded bouncily: “I hope I can be an agent for change from within, like my mother was.” That meant a huge amount of extra credibility for her. “This business is absolutely not some dilettante joke,” she says of her company, becoming so emotional at one point, I think she might cry. “It means so much to me.”

She talks about privilege a lot. Being one of Paul McCartney’s children has probably added an extra layer of well-intended complexity to being the offspring of someone famous. Paul and Linda went to enormous lengths to lead a normal life. Yet they weren’t. There was the time, back in the 1980s, when Michael Jackson came for dinner at their farmhouse in East Sussex. Of course she couldn’t tell anyone about it at her normal state school the next day. That duality’s always been there. She’s very mate-y with everyone, but her actual friends are Kate Moss, Liv Tyler and Tom Ford, and that can lead people to assume she’s faking the charm with everyday folks.

You probably can’t win when you’re a McCartney and, given what happens to many famous parent’s progeny, Paul and Linda did just fine with theirs. Mary, 53, their eldest, is a successful photographer (and sometime cookery writer, like her mother). James, 45, is a musician. Linda’s daughter with Joseph Melville See, Heather, 60, whom Paul later adopted, is a potter.

Stella, meanwhile, is an undeniably successful, ground-breaking designer, whose husband is also a designer (he was creative director at Hunter for a decade) — also good-looking, also successful.

The couple married on the Isle of Bute in 2003. Madonna and Pierce Brosnan were in attendance. Tom Ford gave them an avenue of trees for their Worcestershire retreat as a wedding present. They’ve since planted a million trees on that estate. “I was riding my horse there the other morning and living my best life and thinking, all that matters is that I get to do all the things I wish my mum had.”