From Fast Fashion to Sustainable, One-of-a-Kind Creations
by Cristina Deptula
Sarah Chatham, founder of clothing label Modern Romance, is inspired by 19th-century romantic sensibilities, especially in literature.
I think romanticism is exciting because it was the first time in history that people really started to speak on the emotions that make up the human experience and the sheer beauty of nature. The art is inspiring to me because the works were made with the heart in mind, as opposed to the more logical realist works of the enlightenment era. I think that the things that you can’t explain in life through logic are often the most powerful and moving.
Chatham grew up in the 1990’s, and her older brother was a Goth who listened to The Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, and other similar bands. This aesthetic, which she believes also harks back to the Romantic age, left an impression on her.
As with the romantic era, there’s an air of melancholy in my work which makes it a little on the darker side. I tend to use a lot of florals contrasted with more masculine styles like camouflage and stark plaids. To me this represents struggle along with love. Life is full of beauty and ugliness and ordinariness all at the same time.
This is part of her commitment to ecological sustainability, a crucial part of her company’s mission. Lessening the need for factories and mass production through reusing and repurposing clothes and fabric at a manufacturing and a consumer level can make a large difference.
It’s very important in my opinion to be mindful of the clothing choices we make. We live in a time where many natural resources are almost completely destroyed by industry produced pollution. We absolutely can at least help this by resisting fashion and things that drive mass factory productions that are extremely wasteful. Buying one used item of clothing instead of new reduces six pounds of co2 emissions, the equivalent of taking 500,000 cars off the road for a year.
Read more at https://issuu.com/rareluxuryliving/docs/raremagazinesustainablepages/178
